Laura Prosperi is a food historian currently working as a lecturer at the University of Adelaide, within the Graduate Program of Food Studies. She was a CHE Associate Investigator in 2014 with a project exploring the role of food imaginary in great geographical enterprises (15-18th centuries). Born and educated in Italy, she has explored a wide-range of historical contexts privileging the food perspective. In 2006 Laura gained her PhD at the European University Institute of Florence and she also has worked as a researcher in a range of other international environments such as the French École d’Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales of Paris and the Institut für Europäische Geschicthte in Germany. Before arriving at Adelaide, Laura taught Food History at the Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences of Milan and has collaborated with other leading Italian universities such as Venice and Padua.
Over the last fifteen years Laura has conducted research by focusing the evolution of Western food culture and has written more than fifty pieces concerning the history of food. Her first book, Honey in the Middle Ages, published by the Academy of Georgofili of Florence, received national awards, whilst her latest work, Born under a Cabbage: Keys of Food Culture in Ancien Régime France (16th-17th centuries), is forthcoming from the publisher Franco Angeli.
In the past she has extensively studied and published on honey in medieval Europe and dietetic knowledge in early modern France. Currently her main research interests are food loss in late medieval Italy, common food expectations in early modern geographical explorations and the role of criminal organizations in the Italian food supply chain in 19th and 20th centuries.
Contact
laura.prosperi@adelaide.edu.au
Research
Seeking Food Paradises. The Role of Hunger in Great Geographical Enterprises (Europe, 12th-16th centuries)