A sensory perspective in archaeology provides insight into a range of past cultural practices, including foodways. An ongoing examination of the role of maize, a New World domesticate, in the diet of 17th-century New Englanders highlights the importance of a sensory approach to understanding colonial encounters with cultural “Other.” By foregrounding sensory experience to consider the tastes, flavors, and textures of maize dishes, but also the physical labor of growing and preparing maize for consumption, this study demonstrates that maize, though a novel foodstuff, was for many colonists good to grow and eat. For others, this cereal was laborious to produce and, even if sustaining, neither good to eat nor, as Levi-Strauss (1983) said, good to think. By considering the physical and sensorial implications of growing, processing, preparing, and consuming maize, archaeologists may gain insight into a broader transformation in cultural understandings and perceptions about the New World. The incorporation of maize into colonial households suggests that daily encounters with this food were integral to the formation and negotiation of identity in colonial society.
...MoreArticle Karen Bescherer Metheny (2022) Connecting Archaeological Practice with the Senses and Past Bodily Experience: Introduction to “Sensory Engagement in Historical Archaeology”. Historical Archaeology (pp. 172-183).
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