Author's note: This post was partially updated 12/20/17.
Figuring out what the ancient Maya ate is till an ongoing process. Currently, it is understood that the Maya obtained food from both animal sources as well as plant sources (some of which it is thought were developed during the Archaic Period). Also understood is that different regions that the Maya civilization lived in had different resources generally available, which affected the everyday diet of the local communities.
Produce
Examples of the produce that the ancient Maya grew and then ate include -- but is not limited to -- cacao fruit (Theobroma cacao,) sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas,) chilies (Capsicum annuum,) corn or maize (Zea mays,) squash (Cucurbita pepo,) guava (Psidium guajava,) manioc (Manihot esculenta,) sapodilla fruit, chaya (Jatropha aconitifolia,) manioc/cassava (Manihot esculenta) the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris,) avocado (Persea americana,) and vanilla (Vanilla planifolia.)
Processing Produce
The ancient Maya processed their corn by boiling it with snail shells or with white lime. The process, known today as nixtamalization, made the corn's niacin available. Kinds of foods made with corn include tamales, corn beer, atole (a breakfast drink, according to bishop Landa) and the ancient Maya style of tortillas (thicker than the Aztec version) -- to which chili peppers, honey, achiote or squash seeds that had been toasted and ground were added.
Tamales were a often eaten lunch item. They could be filled with meat fillings, iguana eggs, flowers (for example, squash flowers), green vegetables and toasted squash seeds. Wrapped in leaves, they were cooked various ways such as under coals, steamed inside a certain kind of jar. Where it was used, the Maya would use a comal to cook tamales.
And how did people drink their atole? Those who are understood to have been commoners put honey, chili peppers, squash seed powder or herbs in their atole. On the other end of the spectrum, people understood to have been elites would mix the fermented, roasted and ground up seeds of the cacao tree into their atole.
Meat
Examples of animals that the ancient Maya hunted that you may of heard of included manatees (where there were communities on the coast,) iguanas, foxes, rabbits, white-tailed deer, possums, anteaters, and fish. Some animals that you may not of heard of included brocket deer, agoutis, coatis, kinkajous, tapirs, pacas, and peccaries.
But they might not have just hunted some of these animals. The ancient Maya may have kept some of them, such as peccaries and ocellated turkeys.
The ancient Maya also had several domesticated species. One of these was the turkey. The other was a certain kind of dog.
Processing Meat
Grilling -- via skewering the meat and putting it on a wood frame over a fire -- was common for dog meat, deer meat, bird meat and peccary meat, and may have been common for iguana and turtle meat. Roasting food in a pit like the Hawaiians was also common: the meat was placed in a fire pit in the ground on top of hot stones, and the pit was covered. This process was common for festivals.
Though grilling was common, the most often used method to cook both fish and bird meat was to boil it. It is possible that boiled fish and poultry were used in stews - like tamales, a common lunch food.
Consideration: Dietary Theories
In terms of reconstructing which foods were most important, one interpretation was that corn was the most important to the ancient Maya. According to The Ancient Maya: New Perspectives corn may not have been as important as has been thought.
There is also the theory that corn, squash, and beans (the "three sisters" in certain North American cultures) as well as chilies were commonly eaten in both the highlands and lowlands of the ancient Maya world, with tropical fruit like the cacao tree's fruit were more common in the Yucatán Peninsula and in the Petén region.
As to how common meat was, that depended on the person's rank in society. Meat was not as common for people understood to be commoners to eat. Festivals were the time during which they would be more likely to eat it.
References:
Google Books: "Encyclopedia of the Ancient Maya"; Walter R.T. Witschey; 2016
Google Books: "Daily Life in Maya Civilization"; Robert J. Sharer; 2009
Google Books: "Handbook To Life In The Ancient Maya World"; Lynn V. Foster; 2005
Google Books: "The Ancient Maya: New Perspectives"; Heather Irene McKillop; 2004
Google Books: "Animals & Plants of the Ancient Maya: A Guide"; Victoria Schlesinger; 2001
Google Books: "Archaeology of Ancient Mexico and Central America: An Encyclopedia"; Susan Toby Evans, David L. Webster; 2001
The Free Dictionary: Cassava
Showing posts with label cacao. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cacao. Show all posts
Friday, December 21, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Cacao (Chocolate)
Author’s note: A lot of the information on how the Maya viewed and
ate and drank cacao comes from the Classic period. This is because
this period has the most text information from painted texts and
pictures on ceramics, which come from the context of what is
understood to be the elite class. The Maya codices, understood to be
from the Postclassic period, are another source of information on the
Maya view of cacao.
Other than corn, one of the foods most talked about when it comes to Maya cuisine is cacao. It comes from the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), also known as the chocolate tree. The ancient Maya cultivated the cacao tree for its fruit as well as for the fruit's seeds, which are the basic item required to make cacao. The ancient Maya viewed cacao as a precious substance, and used it as food as well as for religious and economic purposes.
The Tree
Found only in wet, tropical lowlands, the cacao is found in Mesoamerica and the Amazon Basin. The tree has leathery and long leaves and a wide trunk. The tree produces pink flowers on its trunk and branches—flowers whose smell repels human noses. After these bloom, the tree produces its edible, red-brown fruit pods with sweet flavored flesh and twenty to fifty seeds.
The ancient Maya, who in the Yucatan Peninsula at least, grew plantations of cacao trees, possessed methods to grow the trees well. They pruned the trees to make them grow more seedpods (this happens with some other plants as well), and they had to keep the trees out of direct sunlight.
History
It is understood that the ancient Maya began using cacao seeds as a food source 2,000 years ago or so. Based on a vessel with a spout that comes from Belize, cacao consumption started somewhere around 600 BC to around 400 BC.
Cacao usage has been found throughout the Classic period in the southern lowlands of the Maya world. But in the northern area of the Maya world, the Yucatan Peninsula, archaeologists have only found cacao consumption as far back as the Late Classic.
The Process
To begin the process of making cacao, the Maya first opened the seedpod and removed the seeds, which were white in color and bitter. Then they fermented the seeds for several days, decreasing the bitterness and bringing out the chocolate flavor. After fermentation, the seeds were roasted and shelled. The ancient Maya then mashed the seeds into a paste and it was this paste that they used for in food.
Four hundred seeds makes a pound of chocolate -- a bag of baking chips is about twelve or fourteen ounces, four to two less ounces than a pound. This means it takes about 10 to 20 pods to make a pound of chocolate.
Cacao Drinks and Foods
The ancient Maya made different kinds of drinks (hot and cold ones) via the medium of cacao. They would flavor their chocolate drinks with such things as chilies and seeds such as annatto. Another ingredient that the ancient Maya would sometimes use is honey.
Of the different kinds, a well-known kind of drink the ancient Maya made included chocolate and corn, and was a frothy/foamy drink that was savory. The foam was considered the best part of this drink.
However, drinks weren’t the only food the ancient Maya used cacao for. They also used cacao in gruels.
Containers
The vessels that the Maya used for the serving of cacao-based drinks come in a range of shapes. The most common kind of vessel the Maya used for chocolate is a basic cup. More rare is the spouted vessel that looks like a teapot.
Significance
In the ancient Maya religion, cacao seeds were a kind of offering to the gods. In the Popol Vuh – a book recording Quiche Maya myths – chocolate was something that came out of the mountain Paxil, when it broke open. Beyond mythological meaning, it is also understood that people drank the foamy chocolate drink during their wedding ceremony.
Other than having a religious significance, cacao also served a function in the ancient Maya economy: cacao seeds were used as a kind of currency.
Consideration
Some of what is known about what the Maya made using chocolate comes from chemical analysis of residues on the bottom of ceramics. Hershey Corporation was the first to discover the chemical signature of chocolate in 1990, using a lidded vessel discovered in Rio Azul.
References:
The Free Dictionary: Encyclopedia: Cacao
"Food, Farming and Hunting"; Emory Dean Keoke, Kay Marie Porterfield; 2005
"Chocolate - History, Culture, and Heritage"; Louis E. Grivetti, Howard-Yana Shapiro; 2011
Other than corn, one of the foods most talked about when it comes to Maya cuisine is cacao. It comes from the cacao tree (Theobroma cacao), also known as the chocolate tree. The ancient Maya cultivated the cacao tree for its fruit as well as for the fruit's seeds, which are the basic item required to make cacao. The ancient Maya viewed cacao as a precious substance, and used it as food as well as for religious and economic purposes.
The Tree
Found only in wet, tropical lowlands, the cacao is found in Mesoamerica and the Amazon Basin. The tree has leathery and long leaves and a wide trunk. The tree produces pink flowers on its trunk and branches—flowers whose smell repels human noses. After these bloom, the tree produces its edible, red-brown fruit pods with sweet flavored flesh and twenty to fifty seeds.
The ancient Maya, who in the Yucatan Peninsula at least, grew plantations of cacao trees, possessed methods to grow the trees well. They pruned the trees to make them grow more seedpods (this happens with some other plants as well), and they had to keep the trees out of direct sunlight.
History
It is understood that the ancient Maya began using cacao seeds as a food source 2,000 years ago or so. Based on a vessel with a spout that comes from Belize, cacao consumption started somewhere around 600 BC to around 400 BC.
Cacao usage has been found throughout the Classic period in the southern lowlands of the Maya world. But in the northern area of the Maya world, the Yucatan Peninsula, archaeologists have only found cacao consumption as far back as the Late Classic.
The Process
To begin the process of making cacao, the Maya first opened the seedpod and removed the seeds, which were white in color and bitter. Then they fermented the seeds for several days, decreasing the bitterness and bringing out the chocolate flavor. After fermentation, the seeds were roasted and shelled. The ancient Maya then mashed the seeds into a paste and it was this paste that they used for in food.
Four hundred seeds makes a pound of chocolate -- a bag of baking chips is about twelve or fourteen ounces, four to two less ounces than a pound. This means it takes about 10 to 20 pods to make a pound of chocolate.
Cacao Drinks and Foods
The ancient Maya made different kinds of drinks (hot and cold ones) via the medium of cacao. They would flavor their chocolate drinks with such things as chilies and seeds such as annatto. Another ingredient that the ancient Maya would sometimes use is honey.
Of the different kinds, a well-known kind of drink the ancient Maya made included chocolate and corn, and was a frothy/foamy drink that was savory. The foam was considered the best part of this drink.
However, drinks weren’t the only food the ancient Maya used cacao for. They also used cacao in gruels.
Containers
The vessels that the Maya used for the serving of cacao-based drinks come in a range of shapes. The most common kind of vessel the Maya used for chocolate is a basic cup. More rare is the spouted vessel that looks like a teapot.
Significance
In the ancient Maya religion, cacao seeds were a kind of offering to the gods. In the Popol Vuh – a book recording Quiche Maya myths – chocolate was something that came out of the mountain Paxil, when it broke open. Beyond mythological meaning, it is also understood that people drank the foamy chocolate drink during their wedding ceremony.
Other than having a religious significance, cacao also served a function in the ancient Maya economy: cacao seeds were used as a kind of currency.
Consideration
Some of what is known about what the Maya made using chocolate comes from chemical analysis of residues on the bottom of ceramics. Hershey Corporation was the first to discover the chemical signature of chocolate in 1990, using a lidded vessel discovered in Rio Azul.
References:
The Free Dictionary: Encyclopedia: Cacao
"Food, Farming and Hunting"; Emory Dean Keoke, Kay Marie Porterfield; 2005
"Chocolate - History, Culture, and Heritage"; Louis E. Grivetti, Howard-Yana Shapiro; 2011
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