Abstract book ISBN:
978-80-907270-3-8 (EuropeanAssociation of Archaeologists); 978-84-9168-140-3 (Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, vol. 1); 978-84-9168-143-4 (Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, vol. 2)
Content:
This paper explores how Spanish colonial intrusions into highland Guatemala catalyzed the emergence of a new, locally situated, yet globally expansive foodscape. As colonial populations became embedded in new foodscapes, eating practices were transformed for all, as new ingredients and food preparation techniques were integrated into existing cuisines (out of need, force and/or desire), while the meanings and properties of foods were reconfigured, and the lure of new market opportunities to feed established and emerging tastes for foods old and new were taken advantage of. The dynamics of colonial power were central to transforming the contours of the highland Maya foodscape, including the situated perceptions of it, as labor and tribute demands forced new crops and livestock onto Maya communities, while food shortages, and concerns over the health and vitality of native populations, and the now resident Spanish populations generated colonial prohibitions and guidelines for the types of foods and drinks deemed appropriate for native, colonist and african/african descendent bodies inhabiting the Guatemalan landscape.
Drawing on archaeological and archival evidence from highland and coastal Guatemala, this paper explores some of the myriad processes that recontoured foodscapes such that introduced pork, beef, and chicken became a staple of Maya commerce, tribute and consumption; wheat became laden with racialized class values; cacao and chocolate became an important daily ritual for colonists; wine a vice for natives and a virtue for colonists; sugar cane and its derived products (sugar and alcohol) an important, yet subversive, cash crop for native communities, and maize in tortilla form ubiquitous on the tables of all. These examples provide ample evidence of how colonial foodscapes did not Hispanicize native, or Mayanize Spanish cuisine, but instead reconfigured local and global cuisines relationally, within the overlapping and intersecting social, material and political fields of colonial Guatemala.