Category Archives: Archaeology

Using Cookbooks in Historical Archaeological Research: New Mexico as a Case Study

December 17, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Using cookbooks as a tool in historical archaeological research might sound a tad bit absurd, but by examining certain characteristics of these books, it becomes possible to see dirt-covered artifacts in a slightly different light. As a tribute to my childhood friend, Meli-Duran Kirkpatrick, and at the request of her husband, archaeologist Dr. David Kirkpatrick, I wrote an article DAILY LIFE THROUGH COOKING AND COOKBOOKS: A BRIEF GUIDE TO USING COOKBOOKS AS A TOOL IN HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY about the feasibility […]

Categories: American Cooking, Archaeology, Cookbooks, Cooking, Food writing, Spain, Spanish Cooking • Tags: Archaeology, Cookbooks, Culinary History, New Mexico, Research methodology, Spanish Cooking

The Curse of Corn: Pellagra

July 20, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

To be continued …

Categories: Archaeology, Corn, Southern Food • Tags: American South, Corn, Pellagra, Southern cooking

Prometheus Unbound: New Evidence on Humans’ Early Use of Fire

April 3, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I woke up this morning fully intending to end my two weeks of silence on this blog – due to familial obligations – with a preliminary examination of the role of ducks in French cuisine. But that alluring topic took a sudden backseat when I opened up my local newspaper and read, “Humans May have Used Fire 1 Million Years Ago.” Recent archaeological finds in a South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave place human use of fire at least several hundreds of thousands of […]

Categories: Africa, Archaeology, Cooking, Drawings, France, Paintings • Tags: Africa, Félix Régnault, Grottes de Gargas, Myths, Paleolithic Diet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Richard Wrangham, Wonderwerk Cave

Hunger The-Four-Horsemen-Of-The-Apocalypse

Hunger is the Best Sauce

November 11, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

A hungry people listens not to reason, nor cares for justice, nor is bent by any prayers. [Lat., Nec rationem patitur, nec aequitate mitigatur nec ulla prece flectitur, populus esuriens.] De Brevitate Vitoe (XVIII), Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) Chronic hunger is something that most of us in the United States will never really know.* Yet we, like most humans, fear it. Just as people have feared it for centuries. That fear permeated ancient myths and led to such collective cultural […]

Categories: Africa, Agriculture, Bibliographies, Bread, Cooking, Ethiopia, Europe, Evolution, Italian Cooking, Local foods, Methods, United States • Tags: Africa, Discorso sopra la carestia e fame, Famine, Giovan Battista Segni, Hunger, United States

No Thanks to Marco Polo: An Encyclopedia of Italy’s Pasta Shapes

November 6, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Marco Polo returned to Italy from his Chinese travels in 1296. The myth, legend, what have you, credits him with introducing pasta into Italy’s culinary repertoire. But Marco Polo did NOT bring pasta to Italy. And 73-year-old Italian author Oretta Zanini de Vita wants you to know that, immediately, upfront and center. Zanini de Vita says, Dried pasta, the kind made with durum wheat, is found in Italy from about A.D. 800. It was in fact the Muslim occupiers of […]

Categories: Archaeology, Book Reviews, China, Italian Cooking, Italy, Local foods, Pasta, Reference • Tags: Archaeology, China, Encyclopedia of Pasta, Italian Cooking, Italy, Marco Polo, Oretta Zanini de Vita, Pasta

The Archaeology of the Pomegranate

November 4, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Our sense of the ancientness of the pomegranate comes not just from words, but also from the earth. Words do provide clues to the incredible journey of the pomegranate, such as this little ditty inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphics — said to be translated by Ezra Pound and Noel Stock, from an Italian rendition by Boris de Rachewiltz, based on papyrus and pottery preserved from 1567 – 1085 BC. The Pomegranate speaks: My leaves are like your teeth My fruit like […]

Categories: Agriculture, Archaeology, Art, Methods, Middle East • Tags: Ann Sutter, Archaeology, Cheryl Ward, Pomegranates

Honey, a Taste Sweeter Than Wine

September 28, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

THE BEE. Like trains of cars on tracks of plush I hear the level bee: A jar across the flowers goes, Their velvet masonry Withstands until the sweet assault Their chivalry consumes, While he, victorious, tilts away To vanquish other blooms. His feet are shod with gauze, His helmet is of gold; His breast, a single onyx With chrysoprase, inlaid. His labor is a chant, His idleness a tune; Oh, for a bee’s experience Of clovers and of noon! ~~ […]

Categories: Africa, Archaeology, Art, Spain • Tags: Archaeology, Bees, Bicorp, Emily Dickinson, Honey Bees, Spain, Zimbabwe

Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition

September 19, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition (Medieval History and Archaeology), by C. M. Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson, and Tony Waldron (paperback, 2009) In the unending quest to find models for culinary historiography, here’s another fairly up-to-date addition to the growing list: This book draws on the latest research across different disciplines to present the most up-to-date picture of English diet from the early Saxon period up to c.1540. It draws on a wide range of sources, from the historical records […]

Categories: Agriculture, Archaeology, England, English Cooking, Local foods, Middle Ages • Tags: Archaeology, C. M. Woolgar, Dale Serjeantson, England, English cookery, Food History, Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition, Middle Ages, Tony Waldron

Photo Credit: Hong Shang / Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing

Fish in the Diets of Early Modern Humans in China 40,000 Years Ago — Direct Evidence

July 18, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

According to Science Daily, Freshwater fish are an important part of the diet of many peoples around the world, but it has been unclear when fish became an important part of the year-round diet for early humans. A new study by an international team of researchers, including Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, shows it may have happened in China as far back as 40,000 years ago.

Categories: Archaeology, China, Evolution, Fish • Tags: Archaeology, China, Early Humans, Fish

Bioarchaeology and Paleopathology in Culinary History

July 7, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

(I’m dedicating this post to my mother, Barbara A. Purdy, a great archaeologist, whose passion for “old stuff” rubbed off on me, I guess.) A brief foray into the world of Sicilian mummies proved once more that food writers can learn a lot from silent “interviewees.” The trick lies, of course, in understanding unspoken language and signs. Two interesting resources providing guidelines for this understanding include the following: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Paleopathology, by Arthur C. Aufderheide and Conrado […]

Categories: Archaeology, Mummies • Tags: Archaeology, Human Paleopathology, Mummies, The Archaeology of Disease

The Nose Knows

July 4, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

It’s a long, old story. To be somewhat exact, 54-million years old. To make it short, the nose knows. And the nose led to the brain that could, well, create music and design spaceships to the moon and cook food à la Ferran Adrià i Acosta (molecular gastronomy):** “You can think of it as a cousin of the main line lineage that would have given rise ultimately to us.” ~~~ Jonathan I. Bloch Virtual endocast of Ignacius graybullianus (Paromomyidae, Primates) […]

Categories: Evolution, Spain • Tags: Ferran Adrià i Acosta, Ignacius graybullianus, Jamie Schler, Jonathan Bloch, Life's a Feast, Mary T. Silcox

Reveling in Books: Catching Fire

June 22, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

“If there hadn’t been women we’d still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girl friends. And they tolerated it and let us go ahead and play with our toys.” Orson Welles, actor, director, producer, writer (1915-1985) My big Homo-sapiens brain caught on fire while reading Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (2009), by Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham. The truth is this: Catching Fire is one of the most […]

Categories: Book Reviews, Food Science, Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, Meat • Tags: Anthropology, Catching Fire, Cooking, Cooking hypothesis, Early Man, Homo Erectus, Richard Wrangham

Idylls of Cuisine #16

June 7, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A picture, and nothing else, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Archaeology, Italian Cooking, Italy • Tags: Archaeology, Cooking, Italy, Pompeii

Monastery Kitchens

May 23, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Abbatia quae vocitatur Bellus Locus Monasteries in the Middle Ages tended to follow similar layouts. Beaulieu Abbey, a Cistercian abbey in Hampshire, England, now in ruins, once supported a large number of people. It started out with 120 cows and 20 bulls, all very conducive to cheese-making. Beaulieu Abbey’s floor plan shows a tiny kitchen some distance away from the “frater” or dining area (go HERE to see a large picture):

Categories: Archaeology, English Cooking, Middle Ages • Tags: Beaulieu Abbey, Cooking, Kitchens, Middle Ages, Monasteries, Monks

What Mummies Tell Us about Food

May 1, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

As we all know, or suspect anyway, mummies provide an amazing treasure trove of information about life (and death) in the past. Talk about primary sources, so beloved of historians! As A. A. Gill wrote in an article about the Palermo mummies in the February 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine: An enormous amount can be gleaned from dead bodies about the day-to-day lives of the past-diet, illnesses, and life expectancy. Knowing more about diseases like syphilis, malaria, cholera, and […]

Categories: Archaeology, Italy, Mummies • Tags: Diseases, Italy, Mummies, Palermo, Sicily

Cooking: The Theory, with a Little Help from Chimps

March 3, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are. ~~ Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin ~~ As Alice Arndt said in Culinary Biographies, “The names of the most famous cooks of their day, the most influential writers and thinkers, the most fashionable restaurateurs, often bring blank looks when mentioned today.” Just the other day, Jeanette Ferrary commented on the ASFS listserv that many young food writers today do not know about M. F. K. Fisher . And yet […]

Categories: Africa, French Cooking, Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis • Tags: Anthropology, Cooking, Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis, Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, M. F. K. Fisher, Richard Wrangham

Gherkins & Tomatoes

Meditations and Photographs about Food, Cooking, and Life