Calvin’s attitude toward food is equally interesting and quite similar
to Stoicism. The Calvinists favored austerity and a rigorously guilt-
ridden attitude toward pleasures of the fl esh. It is also signifi cant
that while asceticism of the sort practiced by medieval monastics
disappeared in countries that espoused Calvin’s ideas, a new kind
of personal simplicity and basic distrust of elegant food fl ourished
among the populace at large.
Arguably, puritanical thought more than any other factor quelled
the spread of culinary refi nement in Calvinist countries. It has also
been argued that the doctrine of predestination, the idea that only
some people are destined to be saved, goaded people into looking
for signs of their election, which meant material prosperity—
hence, the Protestant work ethic and investing money rather than
squandering it.
Calvinist countries reinstated public fasting as a way to atone for
sins. Despite the return of the fast, the Carnival celebrations that
preceded it were defi nitively banned in the course of the 16th and
17 th centuries. The cycle of feast and fast was defi nitively broken as
ordinary people were expected to maintain simple habits throughout
the year and austere ones on certain occasions.
Beneath these offi cial or “magisterial” reform movements
implemented by temporal rulers, there were also a broad variety of
popular movements, most of whom are called Anabaptists—a term
of abuse meaning “rebaptizer” because they only baptized adults.
It was not until the mid-16th century that the Catholic Church
mounted and concerted their own major reform movement,
primarily through the Council of Trent, which decided that instead
of abandoning the ritual aspects of Christianity, they would
strengthen them.
Among Catholic Reformation thinkers, there is also a new attitude
toward food, one that can be gleaned indirectly through the
writings of Saint Francis of Sales. In his Introduction to a Devout