Dr Rachel Rich

Rachel Rich researches the history of food in modern Europe. Her current focus is the history of royal dining in Georgian England. She is the Co-Editor of Food and History, and the Course Director for BA (Hons) History and MA Social History.

Rachel Rich got her BA in history from McGill University in Canada, before moving to the UK where she studied for an MA and PhD at the University of Essex. Rachel taught at the University of Manchester and Aberystwyth University before coming to Leeds Beckett University in 2010. Rachel’s teaching and research interests are in the cultural history of modern Europe, as well as in the history of food and eating habits. She is the co-editor of Food and History (with Alban Gautier, University de Caen) and a member of the scientific council of the IEHCA (European Institute for the History and Culture of Food). Rachel is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and of the Higher Education Academy.

Rachel’s research interests include food and eating, class, and gendered identities. She is interested in national cuisines and identities, and in the role of food in the home and public spaces. She has a particular interest in women’s domestic roles, and in women as cookbook writers and readers. Rachel has published in the history of food and eating, including a Manchester University Press monograph Bourgeois Consumption: Food, Space and Identity in London and Paris, 1850-1914 (2011). She has also published on women’s domestic timekeeping in Journal of Cultural and Social History (2015) and Gender and History (2019), as well as on the history of female cookbook writers in Journal of Victorian Culture (2020). Her current project, funded by the British Academy, is a digital history of the menus of King George III, his family, and his household. She is co-authoring a monograph (with Lisa Smith, Adam Crymble, and Sarah Fox), as well as a downloadable database of the digital resources produced as part of this project.

• Emergence of Modern Europe (L4)
• Applied Humanities: Live Learning Brief (L5)
• Mediating Modernities (L6)
• Field to Fork: Food History in a Global World (MA)