Traditional Dishes and Culinary Improvisations: Elite Gastronomy in the Maya Area

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the past few decades, understandings of cuisine in the Maya area have been radically amplified by the use of new techniques. Some methods offer the opportunity to directly connect artifacts and features with actual plant food residues. The ability to recover microscopic residues of food from sediments, artifacts, and human teeth has revealed not only a broad list of ingredients but a wide array of practices and recipes. Here, we draw on our previous paleoethnobotanical research across the Maya Lowlands to develop an understanding of Classic Period cuisines, integrating new evidence from the Southern Lowlands.

We consider the emergence of elite foodways, and how elite gastronomic practices factored into broader political maneuvers and private performances. We also tentatively suggest a taxonomy of local traditions that did not conform to a strict elite "grammar." By addressing commonalities and departures from a core and canonic elite cuisine, we highlight how local elite expressions reified culinary norms but also manifested fluidity and flexibility in culinary practice. Paralleling work with other types of elite assemblages, we illuminate how privileged actors drew on broader cultural logics to make their cuisines intelligible, yet also locally improvised in significant ways.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37467.0