jats:titleAbstract</jats:title> jats:pAll of the articles in this special issue show the necessity of having to combine different kinds of sources—texts with images, images with objects, and objects with absences—to build an integrated history of the material worlds of food in the early modern period. They also reflect newer approaches to materiality which are sensitive to the relationship between matter and the senses and consider the haptic, visual, olfactory, and even aural aspects of cooking and eating alongside taste. In turn, the tastes of collectors and the fragility and absence of source material also need to be taken into consideration in order to write a meaningful cultural and social history of food. Despite the ephemeral nature of eating and cooking, this special issue shows that the sources studied by historians of material culture of the early modern period are remarkably rich, and their analysis fruitful.</jats:p>