Dr. Sussan Babaie - The ‘riffraff’ in Timurid painting: toward a social history of food service
Channel: Recovering 'Lost Voices'
Date: 2016-03-01

Dr. Sussan Babaie - Andrew W. Mellon Lecturer in the Arts of Iran and Islam, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. 

The ‘riffraff’ in Timurid painting: toward a social history of food service
Abstract: This paper considers the oft-ignored cast of characters in Persian painting, especially of the fifteenth century, whose role it is to populate princely scenes of entertainment. Representations of cooking – rolling the dough into noodles, mixing the contents of the pot, fanning the fire, grilling the bird – and of serving food – carrying dishes or tables laden with dishes and bottles – become increasingly visible in book paintings but are subsumed in discussions of iconographies of kings and heroes. While no real trace of the ‘lowlifes’ in such courtly context seem to have survived, written and pictured evidence of cooking and serving of food yield some preliminary observations on the significant role played by the persons we might now call working ‘in the food service industry’.

Presented at The Subalterns Project, The First Workshop – on the pre-Safavid period, held at the University of Edinburgh, 7-8 November 2015.

For more detailed information about the project & the various workshops, please head to: http://www.shii-news.imes.ed.ac.uk/the-subalterns-project/