The material traces of foods are a long-standing topic of study in archaeology, with increasing calls for more synthetic and holistic approaches (Christine Hastorf, The Social Archaeology of Food, 2016). As Tanya M. Peres and Aaron Deter-Wolf claim in their introduction to Baking, Bourbon, and Black Drink: Foodways Archaeology in the American Southeast, studies of foodways respond to this need by centering “the larger picture of food and its role in human cultures” (p. 1). The nine chapters of the book embrace this ambitious call and distill decades of archaeological research and diverse approaches into a powerful tour of food history in the US Southeast spanning some 14,000 years. Each chapter engages with several of the overarching themes that loosely organize the volume: feasting, social and political status, food security and persistent places, and food histories.
In the first section on feasting, Megan C. Kassabaum intricately weaves together multiple lines of ceramic, faunal, and botanical data to examine Woodland period feasting by the community associated with the Feltus mound site in Mississippi. The care and attention to detail in this approach provide a solid template for archaeological explorations of social phenomena, particularly those surrounding feasting activities, through the lens of past foodways.
In the second section, the book shifts to address food and social and political status. Peres breaks taphonomic ground for studies of foodways in the Southeast by drawing a range of zooarchaeological measures and analyses together in a thorough examination of white-tailed deer processing and social differentiation at two late Mississippian sites. Kelly L. Ledford and Peres follow with a comprehensive overview of human–turkey relationships in the Mississippian period, using the framework of niche construction theory to place turkey management strategies within a larger agricultural niche across the Southeastern landscape. Thomas E. Emerson provides an important contribution with a rich examination of beverages, specifically the highly caffeinated tea known as Black Drink in the Native American South. This chapter explores the roles of foods in expressing social distinctions, specifically through consumption and ritual vomiting, by drawing together ethnohistoric sources and ceramic and iconographic analyses to discuss recent evidence for Black Drink at Cahokia. Nicolas Laracuente then provides another perspective on beverage foodways, presenting an archaeology of Kentucky whiskey production. Laracuente also provides a short but tantalizing discussion of the potentials of foodway archaeology to reinsert groups left out of popular accounts and histories of whiskey: namely, women and enslaved African Americans.
The third section of the book examines issues of food security and persistent places. Stephen B. Carmody, Kandace D. Hollenbach, and Elic M. Weitzel use studies of botanical remains to examine 7,000 years of foodways through periods of social and environmental change at the Dust Cave site in Alabama. This chapter addresses the earliest point chronologically in the book, examining Late Paleoindian through Middle Archaic period foodways. They apply a diet breadth model to ranked plant foods through time to argue that subsistence practices shifted to focus more intensely on hickory nut products as the cultural and environmental landscape changed in the Middle Archaic. Lauren A. Walls and Scot Keith next give an ethnohistoric and ethnoarchaeological overview of earthen ovens, using several case studies to contextualize ovens as important landscape features within Woodland period foodways across Tennessee and Georgia. This chapter provides a valuable resource for future studies engaging with this understudied aspect of the archaeology of foodways.
The final section of the book on foodways histories provides more intimate discussions of meals and cuisine during the Woodland and Mississippian periods. Neill J. Wallis and Thomas J. Pluckhahn present a regional analysis of Swift Creek pottery, documenting long-term changes in vessel wall thickness and size. They argue that these changes in vessel form represent previously unrecognized shifts in food preparation and cuisine in the context of decreasing intercommunity commensal events. Rachel V. Briggs concludes by championing an historical anthropology approach to foodways archaeology through an examination of the complexity of hominy foodways in the Mississippian Southeast. This chapter provides an important theoretical discussion of foodways archaeology that is broadly relevant, engaging with the metaphorical grounding of food and the complexity of taste in understanding continuity and change in foodways.
Peres and Deter-Wolf are both experienced authors on the topic of foodways, and this book builds on their thought-provoking and innovative approaches through contributions that emphasize the untapped potentials and challenges of the archaeology of US Southeast foodways. It will not only be an important reference for those concerned with foodways and subsistence in the American Southeast but will also be valuable for any archaeologist seeking to engage with the rich relationships between food and social life in the past.
