In my first post as an editor for the Recipes Project, I talked to Allen Grieco about his roles as editor of Food & History (published by Brepols) and series editor of a new book series on Food Culture, Food History before 1900  published by Amsterdam University Press. Both publications have recently celebrated some exciting milestones: Alban Gautier and Rachel Rich are the new editors of Food & History and the first book in AUP’s Food Culture, Food History series will be published in February 2022. So, today we revisit this chat with sound advice for publishing recipes-related research. -Sarah Kernan

Welcome to the first Publisher Chat as part of our new series, Around the Table, in which I will occasionally be talking to editors and publishers of journals and book series dealing with topics related to historic recipes. Today I am chatting with Allen Grieco, editor-in-chief of the journal Food & History (published by Brepols) and series editor of a new book series on Food Culture, Food History (13^th to 19^th centuries) published by Amsterdam University Press.

You serve both as editor-in-chief of the journal Food & History and series editor of a new book series on Food Culture, Food History (13^th to 19^th centuries). Could you describe the types of research and writing being published in this journal and series? 

Anybody working in this field knows to what extent the subject matter we deal with needs to be approached in a resolutely interdisciplinary way. While both the journal and the book series have at their core an historian’s approach to the subject, as is highlighted by the presence of the word “history” in both titles, it is readily apparent that the life blood of the discipline in the last three or four decades has seen a high degree of methodologically innovative work. The breakdown of barriers that used to separate disciplinary fields, a process that characterized the development of cultural history in general, has been particularly pronounced in food history. Our field has also witnessed the emergence of a pointed interest in previously neglected sources that have since shown their hidden potential. One of the many examples of this is the “discovery” of cookbooks a type of document that was considered nothing more than a curiosity and has now produced nothing less than a stream of publications. Much the same might be said of the imaginative use iconographic sources are put to by both historians and art historians or, for that matter, the serial use of literary texts used by  historians and literary historians to flesh out the cultural context of food consumption.

Both the book series and the journal publish the work of scholars working in this direction even though we are also open to more traditional approaches such as work exploring the economic history of food, philological work on important texts, etc. The differences, apart from the length of the texts, are that the book series ranges from the thirteenth century to the early nineteenth while the journal has a much larger chronological range from prehistory to the present.

What is your role as journal editor versus series editor?

In many ways they are very similar. As an editor (actually a co-editor in chief along with my colleague Peter Scholliers) working in close collaboration with two first class production editors (Lucinda Byatt and Olivier de Maret) of a journal that has reached sixteen years of age, the task is to ensure the quality of the articles and dossiers but also that what we publish fits the very open editorial line we have followed from the very beginning. Since this is the journal published by the IEHCA (Institut Européen d’Histoire et Culture de l’Alimentation) it needs to reflect the varied membership of this institution both in terms of chronological focus and the fields of research that cohabit under that label. 

The yearly meetings held in Paris bring together the editorial board, composed by a varied, highly international group of specialists, that reflect not only what food history looks like at present but also the range of topics published by the journal. Choosing the members of the board is one of the tasks that Peter Scholliers and I undertake after consultation with the sitting members. 

As a series editor (but that has only just begun) I have more freedom to choose though here too there is a small board that I can turn to both for suggesting interesting manuscripts and for expert opinions. They then go to Amsterdam University Press where, ultimately, the publisher approves the recommendations Erika Gaffney and I have passed on to them.

Could you tell us how to go about getting published in Food & History and Food Culture and Food History? What is the process? Are scholars of all career stages welcomed to try publishing?

For Food & History all you have to do is to send your article to Lucinda Byatt and Olivier de Maret. If you want to propose a more ambitious dossier, usually no less than four articles by different authors with an introduction, then you should send a one page proposal and a table of contents that will be evaluated before we come to some kind of decision. 

As for the book series the procedure is to begin by getting in touch with me and/or with the commissioning editor Erika Gaffney. Send us an informal proposal on the basis of which we will send you a more complete Publication Proposal Form to get the kind of information that is required by AUP to move forward with your project. It is important to say that scholars at all career stages are published and that the only proviso is that it be new, quality work. I should add that publications are exclusively in English and that the series also plans to publish essay collections.  

Do you have any general advice for scholars trying to publish historical research on food topics?

The advice here might sound a little obvious but food history is a relatively new field, you might even say a fashionable one. While that means more opportunities to publish (the amount of publishers who have entered their hat in the arena over the past ten years is quite remarkable) this has also a corollary which is that standards are not always maintained. The journal and the book series I am involved with are both resolutely bent on quality scholarship but that does not mean dry and long winded, quite to the contrary. Good scholarship and a lively approach to a subject are of course possible, even though they come at some cost. While Food & History has more latitude for contributions that are aimed at a very small group of specialists, the book series has to be aimed at a broader readership. So, for example, a book should strive to go beyond our specialized field and speak to historians in general. This is very important since many a main stream historian still thinks that food history has nothing to do with them. Our field needs to break out of what threatens to be a ghetto but to do this I am looking for new ideas and rigorous scholarship communicated in an accessible, lively manner.  

Thanks, Allen, for chatting with me! If you’d like to feature an editor or publisher on the Around the Table Publisher Chat, please email Sarah Kernan.

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