A Comparison of Macrobotanical Remains from Monticello’s First Kitchen and a late 18th- Century Quarter Site

Peggy Humes; Crystal L. Ptacek

A Comparison of Macrobotanical Remains from Monticello’s First Kitchen and a late 18th- Century Quarter Site

Author(s): Peggy Humes; Crystal L. Ptacek

Year: 2020

Summary

This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The process of cooking creates more than a meal: cooking provides a glimpse into how the resource availability of wild and domesticated plants played a prominent role in peoples’ diets, medicinal regimes, and their choice of fuels. This paper will compare the preliminary results collected from macrobotanical remains from Thomas Jefferson’s first kitchen at Monticello with a contemporary quarter site at the same plantation. Both spaces were in use during the last quarter of the 18th century. These sites are spaces in which enslaved cooks prepared fine cuisine on stew stoves and one pot meals in cast iron pots. Through the comparison of macrobotanical data recovered from flotation samples, this paper discusses differences and similarities in the activities performed in these food preparation areas and the variety of plants used in enslaved and free spaces.

Cite this Record

A Comparison of Macrobotanical Remains from Monticello’s First Kitchen and a late 18th- Century Quarter Site. Peggy Humes, Crystal L. Ptacek. 2020 ( tDAR id: 457136)