The Latin American Studies Book Series
John E. Staller Editor
Andean
Foodways
Pre-Columbian, Colonial, and
Contemporary Food and Culture
The Latin American Studies Book Series
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Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil
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Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina
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John E. Staller
Editor
Andean Foodways
Pre-Columbian, Colonial, and Contemporary
Food and Culture
123
Editor
John E. Staller
Botanical Research Institute of Texas
Fort Worth, TX, USA
ISSN 2366-3421 ISSN 2366-343X (electronic)
The Latin American Studies Book Series
ISBN 978-3-030-51628-4 ISBN 978-3-030-51629-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51629-1
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Contents
1 Andean Foodways: Interdisciplinary Approa ches
to Pre-Columbian, Colonial, and Contemporary Food
and Culture
.......................................... 1
John E. Staller
Part I Pre-Columbian Foods and Cultures: Andean Culinary
and Ritual Practices
2 Grilling Clams and Roasting Tubers: Andean Maritime
Foodways in the Second Millennium B.C.
.................... 23
Gabriel Prieto
3 Camelids as Food and Wealth: Emerging Political and Moral
Economies of the Recuay Culture
.......................... 61
George Lau
4 Feast, Food, and Drink on a Paracas Platform, Chincha Valley,
Southern Coastal Peru
.................................. 89
Henry Tantaleán and Alexis Rodríguez
5 Cuisine and Social Differentiation in Late Pre-hispa nic
Cajamarca Highlands of Northern Peru
..................... 109
Jason L. Toohey
6 Ancient Paria, Bolivia: Macrobotanical Remains Recovered
from an Administrative Site on the Royal Inca Highway
........ 137
Renée M. Bonzani
7 Identication of Chicha de Maiz in the Pre-Columbian Andes
Through Starch Analysis: New Experimental Evidence
......... 187
Crystal A. Dozier and Justin Jennings
v
8 Sustainable Resources in Pre-hispa nic Coastal Ecuador:
Their Associated Iconography and Symbolism
................ 205
César Iván Veintimilla-Bustamante and Mariella García-Caputi
9 The Achumera: Gender, Status, and the San Pedro Cactus
in Moche Cera mic Motifs and Iconography
.................. 237
Sarahh Scher
10 The Symbolic Value of Food in Moche Iconography
........... 257
Margaret A. Jackson
Part II Andean Foodways, Indigenous Customs,
and Transformations among Colonial
and Contemporary Andean Cultures
11 Maize in Andean Food and Culture: Interdisciplinary
Approaches
........................................... 283
John E. Staller
12 Imperial Appetites and Altered States: The Spanish
Transformation of the Inca Heartland
...................... 311
R. Alan Covey
13 Fermented Intoxicants and Other Beverages Among Hispanic
and Indigenous Cultures in the Audiencia De Quito,
and Their Roles in Rituals and Rites
....................... 337
Juan Martínez Borrero
14 Introduced Fruit Species as Food Heritage in the Quebrada de
Humahuaca, Jujuy Province, Argentina
..................... 361
D. Alejandra Lambaré, Nilda D. Vignale, and María Lelia Pochettino
15 Commercializing the Lost Crop of the Inca: Quinoa
and the Politics of Agrobiodiversity in Traditional Crop
Commercialization
..................................... 383
Emma McDonell
16 Pachamanca-A Celebration of Food and the Earth
............. 407
Matthew P. Sayre and Silvana A. Rosenfeld
17 Ethnicity and Ritual in the Atacam e ños Andes: Water,
Mountains, and Irrigation Channels in Socaire
(Atacama, Chile)
....................................... 423
América Valenzuela and Ricardo Moyan o
vi Contents
Chapter 1
Andean Foodways: Interdisciplinary
Approaches to Pre-Columbian, Colonial,
and Contemporary Food and Culture
John E. Staller
Abstract Pre-Columbian Andean cultures have generally been characterized as
having strong cultural and religious ties to their surrounding landscape and the natural
world. Plants and animals associated with this sacred landscape have had, and in some
societies continue to have, a particular cultural and religious meaning. Food crops
and cultigens that sustained life and their associated preparation were often seen as
a sacred act, with strong cultural associations to ethnic identity. Other plants have
had direct associations to ritual and religious practices and were seen as sacred,
reaffirming the diversity and complexity of Andean foodways and local cuisines.
Anthropologists and archaeologists have documented the symbolic complexity of
the natural world and the social importance of feasting, rituals and rites in contem-
porary and historical societies. Cultural perceptions and beliefs regarding the natural
world and their associated plants and cuisines were subsequently modified to varying
degrees by the Spanish conquest and introduction of foreign plants and animals.
Contributions in this volume explore the art history and history to examine the roles
of food through particular interdisciplinary lenses. Research from diverse regions
of the cordillera further emphasize the diversity of Andean cultures. Contributions
explore and analyze these topics in the context of historic and contemporary Andean
culture, with examples of how domesticates, cuisines, their preparations, and basic
ingredients continue to influence present day foodways and regional tastes.
Introduction
Contributions to this volume provide evidence of the diversity and variability of
Andean food and culture and how traditional foodways were transformed by the
Spanish conquest and introduction of native food crops and domesticated biota.
The volume is primarily organized chronologically. Part I Pre-Columbian Food and
Cultures: Andean Culinary and Ritual Practices consists of archaeological research
J. E. Staller (
B
)
Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Fort Worth, USA
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
J. E. Staller (ed.), Andean Foodways, The Latin American Studies Book Series,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51629-1_1
1
2 J. E. Staller
and studies of changing patterns of consumption during pre-Columbian times in
different regions of the coast and highlands. Several chapters also incorporate inter-
disciplinary evidence in order to support their interpretations. In Part II, Andean
Foodways, Indigenous Customs, and Transformations among Colonial and Contem-
porary Andean Cultures contributors explore the changes and transformations which
occurred after the Spanish conquest with the introduction of Eurasian domesti-
cated food crops and animals. Several contributions in this part of the volume use
ethnographic evidence from contemporary indigenous Andean cultures to document
their assertions with regard to preparations of drink and traditional cuisines in the
highlands.
The Andes are geographically and culturally diverse with many environmen-
tally challenging habitats and represent the second highest and the longest moun-
tain range in the world. The Andes extend from Colombia and Venezuela in the
north to Argentina and Tierra del Fuego in the south. Consequently, ecologies are
extremely complex and environmentally distinct and diverse due in large part to the
fact that a major part of the cordillera is near or on the equator. The multiple habitats
and ecological settings, their associated culinary, ritual, and religious traditions are
highly varied through time and space among Andean cultures (Murra 1972; Ugent
and Ochoa 2006; Dillehay and Kaulicke 2011). In the central highlands, food and
cuisines are not only phenomena within culture, but they are also referents through
which many behavioral and performative aspects of culture may be better understood.
Cultural, religious, and culinary traditions in combination with striking geographic
diversity and a complex colonial history make the Central Andes a unique, impor-
tant, and interesting region of the world. This volume on Andean food and culture
presents evidence that analyzes and documents the various ways that both indige-
nous and Spanish colonial cultures past and present incorporated plants, animals,
and natural resources into their lives. Contributors examine topics related to food
from pre-Colombian archaeology and colonial accounts, as well as ethnographic
evidence, and contemporary international economies. These contributions provide
important evidence on how cultural and economic associations were linked to culi-
nary traditions, cultural and ethnic identities, as well as political authority during
pre-Columbian times, as well as after the Spanish conquest in the context of the
Colonial, and contemporary economies. Many of the modern Andean culinary prac-
tices have their origins in the pre-Columbian past, and some of the food practices are
syncretic in that they reflect a combination of ancient Andean food habits with prac-
tices and behaviors which emerged after the Spanish conquest and introduction of
exotic flora and fauna. These contributions document how food practices are directly
tied to Andean social organization, spirituality, and cultural perceptions regarding
what is generally referred to as a sacred landscape.
Indigenous Andes cultures consume and prepare distinct foods, beverages, and
cuisines to a large degree to create their own ethnic identities and foster social
alliances. This has been documented archaeologically, mentions in numerous colo-
nial accounts, and continues among contemporary Andean cultures. Contributions to
this volume on foodways present research which indicate pre-Columbian, Colonial,
and contemporary culinary traditions are the result from the union of a cornucopia of
1 Andean Foodways: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Pre-Columbian 3
native foodstuffs which were subsequently transformed with introduced non-native
plants, animals, and associated foodways (Lau, Toohey, Covey, Martinez, McDonell,
Sayre and Rosenfeld, this volume). Anthropological and historical research on how
the conquest of the New World changed culinary traditions and methods of prepa-
ration among contemporary cultures is also presented that are linked to long-term
themes in anthropological query (e.g., Coe 1994; Schiebinger 2004; Schiebinger
and Swan 2005; Villavicencio 2007; Staller 2010a, b; Earle and Costin 1989; Dietler
and Hayden 2001; J ennings and Bowser 2009). In many cases, the preparation and
ingredients of different cuisines were preserved archaeologically or combined in
interesting and innovative ways with introduced species among contemporary indige-
nous cultures (Staller, Covey, Martinez Borrero, Bonzani, Dozier and Jennings, Sayre
and Rosenfeld, this volume).
Andean Culture and the Natural World
In the Andes, cultural behaviors and associations that accompany the cultivation,
production, and consumption of food are interrelated to religious rituals and prac-
tices commonly related to calculating the annual solar and lunar cycles ((Veintimilla
and Garcia Caputi, Scher, Jackson, this volume). Pre-Columbian Andean religious
ideologies were inherently telluric, that is, naturalistic and spatial, essentially repre-
senting a veneration of the natural world and celestial cycles (Sullivan 1984, 1988;
Sharon 2001; Staller 2006, 2008a, b). Western epistemological distinctions between
the natural world and culture, of humanity as distinct and separate from nature, or
acting in a certain way upon the social and natural environment contrasts with tradi-
tional indigenous Andean concepts, where this dichotomy is essentially reciprocal
rather than oppositional (Sullivan 1988; Sharon 2001; Staller 2008a, b). Anthro-
pologists, archaeologists, and ethnobotanists have in recent decades applied their
knowledge of Andean culture and ritual practices to investigate the significance of
food and cuisines to culture, ethnic identity, political economies, and ancient reli-
gious ideologies (Prieto, Tantaleán and Rodriquez, Bonzani, Staller, Toohey, this
volume). The natural landscape, its cycles and rhythms, continues to be perceived
as interrelated and dynamic expressions of mythology, history, and economics and
intrinsically related to their ethnic identities (Sullivan 1987, 1988; Staller 2008b).
In the Andes, certain plants and food fulfill spiritual needs and have sacred mean-
ings that go beyond purely economic subsistence or requirements for sustenance
(Scher, Jackson, Staller, Lambaré et al., this volume). Cultural, religious, and culi-
nary traditions among Andean cultures reflect the integration of native biota and
introduced maritime resources, domesticated plants, animals, and their associated
cuisines. Foods and beverages among ancient and contemporary Andean cultures
have historically played major roles in defining cultural and ethnic identities to their
surrounding landscapes (Tantaleán and Rodríguez, Toohey, Sayre and Rosenfeld, this
volume). Andean foods and cuisines frequently are referents through which people
conduct many behavioral and performative aspects of their rites and rituals, as well as