Masters of food: climate crisis and optimized exploitation in an Atlantic hinterland before the Revolutions of 1848

In 1818, the manorial lord Ludwig Ellrichshausen used his agricultural estate in Maisenhälden as a laboratory for optimized economic exploitation during a period of extreme climatic crisis. He designed a minimum-feed diet for his workers that was low in protein, devoid of fruits and vegetables, and insufficient in calories to support hard physical labor with the goal of engineering their bare subsistence to maximize outputs. The Speisemeister's or master of food's dietary prescription functioned as a means of social control in this Atlantic Hinterland, constructed to communicate social positioning via the symbolically charged means of food.