On Food and Cooking

them with tracts of land, which they then
cleared of forest and reclaimed from swamps,
bringing systematic, organized agriculture to
sparsely settled regions, and the grape to
northern France and Germany. Wine was
required for the sacrament of Communion,
and it and beer were made for daily
consumption, to serve guests, and to sell. It
was in the Middle Ages that the wines of
Burgundy became famous.
From the late Middle Ages on, France
slowly became the preeminent source of wine
in Europe. By the 1600s the wines of France,
and especially Bordeaux, which had the
advantage being a port, were important
exports to England and Holland. Meanwhile
Italy fell behind, a victim of political and
economic circumstance. Until the middle of
the 19th century it was not a nation but a
collection of city-states, each with protective
tariffs and little of the international trade that
brought competition and improvement to the