Mesquite Pods to Mezcal

VerÓnica PÉrez RodrÍguez is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Albany, SUNY. Shanti Morell-Hart is an associate professor of anthropology at Brown University. Stacie M. King is a professor of anthropology at Indiana University.

A fascinating insight into the evolution of Oaxacan cuisine since pre-Columbian times...it provides worthwhile sustenance on the way to addressing contemporary challenges such as food security, sovereignty, sustainability, and cultural rights. (Latin American Review of Books) The authors do not simply conduct tangible analyses of bones, ceramics, residences, fields, caves, but they also strive to show how their findings relate to broader patterns of identity, inclusion (or exclusion), movement, and connectivity...[The book] artfully gives the reader a window into centuries of foodways and stuffs in Oaxaca. (H-Environment) Oaxaca’s culinary roots indeed reach deep into the past, as is shown by the essays in this splendid collection...With novel scholarly insights on beloved traditions, this book holds much of interest, not only for archaeologists and food studies scholars, but also for aficionados of Oaxacan cuisine. (ReVista)

• List of Figures List of Tables Foreword. Food and the Sacred (Lila Downs) Acknowledgments Chapter 1. The Making of Oaxacan Foodways (Andrea M. CuÉllar, VerÓnica PÉrez RodrÍguez, Shanti Morell-Hart, and Stacie M. King) Part I. The Roots of Oaxacan Cuisine Chapter 2. Food from the Barranca: A 13,000-Year Perspective from the YuzanÚ Drainage of the Mixteca Alta (Aleksander Borejsza, Arthur Joyce, and Jon C. Lohse) Chapter 3. Archaic-Period MRG-6 and the Deep Culinary Roots of Oaxacan Cuisine (Shanti Morell-Hart and Éloi BÉrubÉ) Chapter 4. The Cooked, the Burned, and the Modified: Early Formative Cuisines and Human-Animal Relations in the Mixteca Alta (VÍctor E. Salazar ChÁvez and Jeffrey P. Blomster) Part II. Oaxaca Foodways in Economic and Spiritual Life Chapter 5. Perspectives on Dietary Variability in the Classic-Period Valley of Oaxaca (Gary M. Feinman and Linda M. Nicholas) Chapter 6. Eating in the City: Investigating the Dietary Impact of Urban Life in Ancient Oaxaca (VerÓnica PÉrez RodrÍguez) Chapter 7. Nourishing the Ancestors among the Zapotecs of the Valley of Oaxaca during the Late Classic and Postclassic Periods (Robert Markens and Cira MartÍnez LÓpez) Chapter 8. Foodways and Diet in the Prehispanic Mixteca Alta: Ceramic and Isotope Analyses of the Tomb 1 Burial in Nduatiucu (San Felipe Ixtapa, Teposcolula) (Jennifer Saumur and AurÉlie Manin) Part III. Disrupted, Innovated, and Resilient Cuisines Chapter 9. Foregrounding Food: Mixtec Cuisine, Identity, and Ritual at Tututepec, Oaxaca (Marc N. Levine and Kathryn Puseman) Chapter 10. Preserving Oaxacan Foodways in the Face of Conquest: A Seed Bank in the Nejapan Sierra Sur (Stacie M. King and Shanti Morell-Hart) Chapter 11. Oaxacan Cuisine at Achiutla during the Early Colonial Period: A Story of Resilience (Éloi BÉrubÉ and Jamie E. Forde) Part IV. Living Culinary Traditions Chapter 12. Itacate para el Camino: Prepared Meals for Prehispanic and Colonial Travelers (Nelly M. Robles GarcÍa) Chapter 13. Isthmus Zapotec Food: Community, Ecology, Markets, Makers (Anya Peterson Royce) Chapter 14. Maize Cuisine on the Move in the Twenty-First Century: Persistence and Migration of Tejate, a Traditional Mesoamerican Maize and Cacao Beverage (Daniela Soleri, MarÍa del Carmen Castillo Cisernos, Flavio AragÓn Cuevas, and David A. Cleveland) Contributors Index