Sometime in the spring of 2000, Adel and I were sitting at a beautifully laid table in the professors’ restaurant of the Free University of Brussels. The aim was to smoothly hand over the chairmanship of the International Committee for Research into European Food History (ICREFH). ICREFH’s aim was research into the history of food in Europe from the late 18th century onwards. Adel was chairman from 1995 to 1999; I succeeded him. Organising a biennial colloquium and the related book were the main concern of ICREFH’s president, that much I knew. But I wanted to know more about the practical side (Where does the money come from? Who decides on the central theme? How is the selection of participants done?) and, above all, what about the relationships between renowned researchers like John Burnett, Hans-Jürgen Teuteberg, Derek Oddy, Alexander Fenton, Eszter Kisbàn or Roman Sandgruber, all members of the club’s first hour. On the practical questions, Adel enlightened me quickly and effectively, but my second concern required a bit more time (and emptying the bottle of wine). Indeed, relations among ICREFH seniors were not always smooth, which Adel tactfully explained. That meal taught me a lot not only about organising international colloquia but also about interpersonal relations. And above all, I got to know Adel as a particularly erudite, sensitive and empathetic intellectual with a great talent for languages.
Talking to Adel was always instructive. I remember a conversation during a long bus ride in the Czech Republic (ICREFH colloquium, 2003). Adel and I talked about the place of food history in general history and in food studies, where multidisciplinarity was a central issue. Adel, as a geographer and nutritionist, argued for true interdisciplinarity while I, a social historian, emphasised one’s own discipline, however fertilised with other disciplines. We were both right, we decided.
Münster 1989, London 1991, Wageningen 1993, Vevey 1995, Aberdeen 1997, Tampere 1999, Alden Biesen (Limburg) 2001, Prague 2003, Berlin 2005, Paris 2009, Bologna 2011: ICREFH colloquia where Adel presented papers, chaired sessions, chaired congresses, debated, concluded, conversed and displayed his talent for nuance and humour. The variety of his contributions was immense and illustrated his interdisciplinary approach. He talked about schoolchildren’s meals, the place of dietetics in advertisements, the modern packaging of milk, the importance of vegetables, healthy biscuits, the technology of eating out, the discovery of the vitamin or domestic education. In each case, these were topics that were relatively new, pre-eminently in the Low Countries.
Although the book you hold in your hands was written 10 years ago, it is still relevant today because it offers a synthesis of the history of nutrition in the Netherlands, has a clear and global question (what does a society consider edible?), is the result of years of historical research by an exact scientist, and addresses current themes (eating differently, for example). The book differs from classics on Dutch food history, brought by the likes of Anneke van Otterloo, Jozien Jobse-van Putten, Ineke Strouken, Paul Spapens, and Adel himself (De voeding van Nederland in de twintigste eeuw from 2001), but will undoubtedly soon become as incontournable as the aforementioned classics.
Em. Prof. Peter Scholliers
Brussels, September 2021