Podcast Summary:

New Books Network: Danielle Alesi, "Eating Animals in the Early Modern Atlantic World: Consuming Empire, 1492-1700"
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Danielle Alesi
Date: January 9, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features a conversation between Dr. Miranda Melcher and historian Dr. Danielle Alesi about her book Eating Animals in the Early Modern Atlantic Consuming Empire, 1492-1700. The book explores how Europeans in the colonial Atlantic world categorized, described, and consumed animals, and how these practices relate to empire, identity, and environmental change. The discussion delves into concepts of animal edibility, colonial identity formation, emotional responses to eating, and the long-term legacy of colonial food systems.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the Project and Author’s Perspective

[02:20–05:19]

• Personal Background:
  Dr. Alesi explains her personal connection to the subject as a lifelong vegetarian, raising questions about animal categorization and edibility from childhood.
• Academic Genesis:
  The inspiration emerged from a classroom discussion of a colonial-era woodcut showing Dutch sailors killing penguins for food, highlighting students' moral discomfort and sparking questions about the cultural construction of edible vs. inedible animals.
• Core Question:
  The project investigates how the early modern colonial period was formative in shaping modern Western categories of edible animals, which, unlike plants, are largely determined by culture rather than toxicity or safety.

"We actually have a very small amount of animals that we consider edible, culturally. And so the book really became about that and how this ... colonial time period was ... the fashioning of a lot of those categories."
—Dr. Danielle Alesi [04:41]

2. Research Questions and Expanding Themes

[05:19–07:01]

• Beyond edibility, Alesi aimed to interrogate how identity (European, American, African, Indigenous) intersected with food choices and practices, reframing colonial eating as core to the construction of cultural and imperial possibilities.

3. European Encounters with New Animals

[07:01–10:29]

• Fascination and Consumption:
  Early European travelers in the Americas were fascinated by new animals and frequently described them, particularly in terms of taste.
• Descriptive Strategies:
  To convey unfamiliar flavors and animals, they often compared them to familiar European foods (“turtles taste like veal; tapirs taste like beef”).
• Cultural Relevance:
  Trying unfamiliar foods was often seen as a gesture of respect to indigenous hosts and was described in terms recognizable to readers back home.

"They have to piece it together...when they describe the animal physically, but they also do that with the taste. How do you explain what something tastes like? Will you use something familiar? It tastes like chicken."
—Dr. Danielle Alesi [09:42]

4. Travel Narratives: Marketing, Authority, and Knowledge

[10:29–14:13]

• Marketing the Colonies:
  These narratives served to “sell” the American colonies—making them appear exciting, yet accessible (“a place where the everyday man can eat”).

• Establishing Authority:
  Firsthand culinary experience was used as evidence of authenticity and authority:

  "Since I have eaten some and therefore seen them both inside and outside, here’s the description. ... The best way to know a thing is to eat it."
  —Dr. Danielle Alesi, quoting Jean de Lery [13:29]

• Food Experience as Validation:
  Alesi draws a vibrant comparison with modern travel Instagram posts—proof of being there comes via first-hand sensory experience.

5. Starvation Narratives and Edibility Hierarchies

[15:35–20:32]

• Structure of Starvation Stories:
  Starvation accounts did not center on the absence of food but on the progression through a hierarchy of animals from most appropriate to least, often ending with “taboo” choices (pets, sometimes even humans).
• Cultural Anxiety:
  These stories provided emotional and moral justifications, processed trauma, and assigned blame.

"What they run out of is food they’re willing to eat, food they are comfortable eating... They have to go down what I call an animal typology, a hierarchy of what they are most to least willing to eat.”
—Dr. Danielle Alesi [16:40]

6. Popular Fascination and Practical Guides

[21:04–24:36]

• Why Were These Accounts Read?
  Narratives were popular both as entertainment (“consuming animals for entertainment”) and as practical handbooks for future colonists.
• Imperial Identity:
  Stories about food and survival not only entertained but contributed to a shared sense of European and imperial identity.

7. The Shift: From Curiosity to Cultural Rejection

[25:30–32:28]

• Timeline of Change:
  The import of European livestock began almost immediately with European colonization, but sustainable animal husbandry took about a decade or more.
• Settler Identity:
  The shift from eating local to European animals coincided with colonists seeing themselves as permanent settlers; the policing of Indigenous foodways increased.
• Colonial Critiques:
  European settlers’ criticisms of Indigenous continued consumption of native animals became a more prominent record of shifting norms, often casting Indigenous preferences as resistance to colonial "progress."

"The change in edibility is reflected in the records the strongest where it feels like...resistance to colonialism, specifically indigenous resistance."
—Dr. Danielle Alesi [31:48]

8. Emotional Complexity & Surprises in the Research

[33:42–38:09]

• Emotions and Eating:
  Starvation narratives highlighted the illogical, emotional side of food choices—animals with social bonds (e.g., dogs) were consumed last, regardless of logic or caloric need.
• Unexpected Theme: Revenge Eating:
  Alesi discovered a recurring theme of colonists not only killing but also eating predatory/dangerous animals as acts of dominance and vengeance, sometimes with gendered language to describe the animals.

"I was really surprised by that...generally humans don’t eat predators. That’s not a common thing across cultures. But...if this animal, this predator, hurt the colonists or their family...they also eat the animal to really solidify that domination, that victory.”
—Dr. Danielle Alesi [36:05]

9. Big Takeaways for Listeners and Scholars

[38:26–40:55]

• Cultural Construction:
  Edibility is not inherent but “culturally constructed,” reshaped through history.
• Animal Typologies:
  Societies create hierarchies, not binaries, of edible/inedible animals.
• Entanglement of Food and Animal History:
  Historians should recognize how food and animal history intersect, particularly how animal relationships shape food taboos and ethics.
• Environmental Legacy:
  Today’s global food and environmental crises are rooted in colonial systems developed in this era.

"The food system we’re in is a colonial food system. The environmental destruction of the planet is a colonial situation.”
—Dr. Danielle Alesi [40:16]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “How do you describe an American possum to someone who has never seen one before? ... Has like the tail of a rat, the hands of a monkey, the body of a cat. ... How do you explain what something tastes like? ... It tastes like chicken.”
  —Dr. Danielle Alesi [09:17–09:42]

• “The best way to know a thing is to eat it.”
  —Jean de Léry, quoted by Dr. Alesi [13:29]

• “They have to go down what I call an animal typology, a hierarchy of what they are most to least willing to eat."
  —Dr. Danielle Alesi [16:48]

• “You could eat the cows and the pigs now. And that’s where the criticism comes out…where it feels like it’s resistance to colonialism, specifically indigenous resistance.”
  —Dr. Danielle Alesi [31:48]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:20] Dr. Alesi’s personal and scholarly background
• [07:38] Early European encounters with new animals and their descriptions
• [10:59] Travel narratives as propaganda and assertion of authority
• [15:35] Anatomy of colonial starvation narratives and animal hierarchies
• [21:04] Popularity and consumption of colonial food writings in Europe
• [25:30] Gradual shift from eating local fauna to imported livestock; identity politics
• [33:42] Surprising findings, including the phenomenon of “revenge eating”
• [38:26] Key takeaways on cultural edibility and colonial legacies

Future Research Sneak Peek

[41:07–42:21]

• Dr. Alesi is working on a book on colonial categorization of dangerous animals, focusing on how predators were transformed from monsters to pests to be eradicated. She also plans a monograph on the crocodile, which she sees as embodying every animal category.

“Crocodile keeps coming up ... They’re predator, pest, monster, food, commodity, caricature—every possible category the crocodile is.”
—Dr. Danielle Alesi [41:47]

Conclusion

This episode offers a wide-ranging, engaging discussion of how colonial foodways were about far more than sustenance. They reveal intersections of curiosity, anxiety, cultural adaptation, emotional struggle, authority, and imperial power—legacies that continue to shape modern attitudes toward food, animals, and the environment.