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

Series Editors

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Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil

Jorge Rabassa, Laboratorio de Geomorfolog ía y Cuaternario, CADIC-CONICET,

Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Andrew Sluyter, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

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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 Identiﬁcation of Chicha de Maiz in the Pre-Columbian Andes

Through Starch Analysis: New Experimental Evidence

......... 187

Crystal A. Dozier and Justin Jennings

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 (

)

Botanical Research Institute of Texas, Fort Worth, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

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

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