Reconstituting Cuisine: A Culinary Perspective on Collapse, Conquest, and Resistance from Pre-Columbian Peru.

Cuisine is a powerful reflection of social and cultural identity. This paper reconstructs culinary change and continuity on the pre-Hispanic north coast of Peru as a window into ancient experiences of collapse and conquest. Using archaeological data from three sites in the Jequetepeque Valley between 600-1500 CE, I identify points of change as well as persistent patterns in how rural farmers procured, prepared, and consumed daily meals. By considering the nature and timing of changes, I suggest that daily meals may have been a site of resistance and an expression of local cultural identity in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]