Home>Emelyn Rude
Research Interest(s): Food Systems, Fisheries, Agriculture, United States, Western Europe
Discipline(s): History
Research Group(s): Government. Institutions, Knowledge, Norms
Geographical Area(s): North America, Western Europe
Country(ies): United States of America
Language(s): English
Biography
Sciences Po postdoctoral research programme on the environment - The Bruno Latour Fund
My work sits at the intersection of economic, environmental, and culinary history and is broadly focused on the development of the food system in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I am particularly interested in the history of eating animals and previously studied the factors driving the growth of American chicken consumption and the impact of marine species declines on the production and consumption of food. My current research project aims to understand how species declines and extinctions events changed American eating habits more broadly, with the ultimate goal of retelling the story of the American food system through the lens of this type of environmental degradation. I received my PhD in History from the University of Cambridge in 2022, my MPhil in Economic and Social History from Cambridge in 2018, and my Bachelor's in Social Studies from Harvard University in 2012. My interest in food is not purely academic, however. Prior to going to graduate school I helped run high-end restaurants in New York, worked as a pastry cook and recipe tester, and helped to write and edit various cookbooks. These days I publish an independent magazine focused on food history called EATEN and am also a trained and certified sommelier.
Current Research
The impact of oyster decline on food production in Western Europe, a global history of fish meal, the impact of phylloxera on the wine market in the United Kingdom.
Thesis Supervision
Prof. Paul Warde, University of Cambridge
Thesis topic
Seafood and the American Food System
Teaching
- Meat: a Carnivorous History of the Western Food System;
- An Introduction to the Environmental History of Modernity
AWARDS
Gates Cambridge Scholar (2018-2022)
Editorial Activity
Editor and Publisher of Eaten Magazine
publications
- "How to Change a National Cuisine: Ecology and Consumer Culture in the Twentieth-Century United States" (under review)
- "Cookbooks and Menus as Ecological Sources: An Example of the Eastern Oyster," Environmental History Vol. 30, No. 1 (2025)
- "Fishery Collapse and the American Fertilizer Industry: a Case Study of the Pacific Guano Company," Business History Review, Vol. 98, No. 3 (2024)
- Tastes Like Chicken: a History of America's Favorite Bird (New York: Pegasus Books, 2016)
