From remote antiquity to contemporary contexts, food and the ‘stuff’ of food remains central to people’s daily experiences as well as their sense and expression of identity. This volume explores the materiality of foodstuffs past and present, examining humanity’s intriguingly complex relationships with, and experiences of, food. The book also makes a fresh contribution to our understanding of materiality through a novel focus on material culture, analysing objects used to prepare, wrap, serve and consume food and the tactile experiences involved in its production and consumption. Considering a wide range of cultures, spanning from ancient China to modern-day Kenya, this broad collection of interdisciplinary chapters reveal the multiple interplays between foods, bodies, material worlds, rituals and embodied knowledge that emerge from these encounters and which, in turn, shape the material culture of food. Exploring the Materiality of Food 'Stuffs' makes an important contribution to this burgeoning field and will be of interest to archaeologists and anthropologists working in the key area of food research.
Author(s): Louise Steel, Katharina Zinn
Series: Routledge Studies in Archaeology 23
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: xvi+292
Exploring the Materiality of Food ‘Stuffs’: Transformations, symbolic consumption and embodiments
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
1 Introduction: Exploring the materiality of food ‘stuffs’. Transformations, embodiment and ritualized consumption
Introduction
Transformations
Embodied encounters
Symbolic consumption
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
Part I: Transformations
2 From raw resources to food processing: Archaeobotanical and ethnographic insights from New Kingdom Amara West and present-day Ernetta Island in Northern Sudan
Introduction
New Kingdom Nubia and Amara West
Ernetta Island, Nubian agriculture today and comparisons with Amara West
Sources of information on ancient Egyptian plant foods and agriculture
Methods
Archaeobotanical methods
Ethnographic methods
Plant foods at Amara West and perspectives from Ernetta Island: cultivation, crop-processing and food preparation
Summary of plant foods at Amara West
Perspectives from Ernetta Island on crops and wild plant foods found at Amara West
Cultivating Nile Islands: land-use, irrigation and food crop choices
Pre-storage crop processing
Storage
Post-storage crop processing
Cooking and baking
Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
3 The domestication of innovation: Advertising strategies for canned foods in the Netherlands, 1945–85
Introduction and research question
Methodology and sources
(Historical) context
Magazines and advertisements: descriptive statistics
Promoting canned foods before World War II
Domestication strategies in advertisements for canned foods
Pre-war themes in post-war advertisements
Domestication strategies
Comparing frozen foods and canned foods
Conclusion
Notes
References
4 Our ‘daily bread’?: The origins of grinding grains and breadmaking
Introduction
The desirability of cereals
Costs and benefits of cereal preparations
Removing the husk
To grind or not to grind? Cost estimates
Nutritional benefits?
Fuel costs
Taste and lasting power
Glucose highs
Prestige food
The evolution of grinding
Conclusions
References
5 Bodies of water: Exploring water flows in rural Kenya
Introduction
Who is water?
Ethnographic context
Representations of Giriama water
Worldwide waters
Geographical and sociological context regarding water in Kenya
International relationships with water
Giriama authenticity and the materiality of water
Watery bodies: the material realities of water
The socio-economic and cultural consequences of the well
More-than-human, ‘wet’ materiality
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part II: Embodied encounters
6 Embodied spirituality and self-divinization: A re-reading of the Legend of Princess Miaoshan
Introduction
Food and sacrifice as pillars of the political and social order in China
Meat
(Male) Buddhist arguments in favour of vegetarianism in China
Female renunciations of meat/flesh
Conclusions
Notes
References
7 Permaculture: Discovering nature, designing ecologies
Introduction
Theorizing permaculture
Permaculture in the field
Fieldwork
Research
Permaculture practice in Welsh ecovillages
1 Waste: reassessing the properties of materials
2 Working with materials
3 Working with nature
New ways to theorize permaculture
A permaculture and the New Materialisms
B. Permaculture and the questions of morality and labour
Conclusion
Note
References
8 The logistics of bread production in Old Kingdom Egypt: A nutritional perspective
Introduction
Existing studies
A new approach
The logistics of provisioning bread to Heit el-Ghurab
Caloric requirements
Carbohydrate requirements
Quantity of emmer wheat needed to fulfil this requirement
How many loaves of bread needed to be baked?
The bakeries
Grinding the flour
Grain supplies – land requirements
Grain supplies – labour requirements
Storage facilities required
In summary
Development of the project
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
9 ‘Everyday’ foodways and social connections in Pompeian houses
Introduction
Focus on the formal and the festive
Focus on food preparation and diet
Focus on the everyday practices
The Pompeian evidence
Wall recesses
Couch remains
Tables
Seats, chairs and stools
Finewares – terra sigillata
Summary
Concluding remarks
Notes
References
Part III: Symbolic consumption
10 Sumptuous feasting in the ancient Near East: Exploring the materiality of the Royal Tombs of Ur
Introduction
Feasts, social advantage and political power
Evidence for feasting in Mesopotamia
Experiencing the feast
Technologies of enchantment: crafting the feast
Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Notes
References
11 Lacklustre offering plates? Symbolic food consumption, ritual and representations in ancient Egyptian funerary culture
Introduction
CC 308.004 – what are you?
Ancient Egyptian funerary beliefs – the background
Death as a rite of passage
Magic and the funerary sphere
Miniature vessels
Materiality of funerary offerings: real and symbolic
Materials of funerary offerings I: real food
Materials of funerary offerings II: models of food
Materials of funerary offerings III: symbolic consumption after symbolic production
The (preliminary) conclusion: lacklustre, but interesting?
Notes
References
12 The materiality of ecstatic ritual: Altered states of consciousness and ritual in Late Bronze Age Cyprus
Introduction
The Late Cypriot context
Evidence for opium consumption
Contextual analysis
Opium poppy iconography
Interpretation
Opium in tombs
Opium in temples
Conclusion
Notes
References
13 Ritual and daily life in the Chinese Bronze Age: Foodstuffs and bodies in depositional context at Yanshi Shangcheng
Interpretative shifts
Ritual and daily life
Deposition of foodstuffs (and other stuff) at Yanshi
Ambiguity and the excavators’ dilemma
Depositional ditches
Repurposed water well deposits
Depositional pits
Burial of bodies and vessels
Animal and human burial pits
Graves and broken vessels
The unusual case of pit K1
Inseparability of ritual and daily life at Yanshi
Broken vessels
Methodological implications of blended deposits
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
14 The ambiguous (but important) materiality of food
Distinguishing food
Food as an archaeological project
Taste
Elusive materialism
Ending
Notes
References
Index
