Consumed by Time: Foodways and Cultural Negotiations in 17th-Century Florida, USA

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Tanya Peres, Florida State University
• Thursday 16 October 2025, 16:00-17:30
• McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research Seminar Room.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Akshyeta Suryanarayan.

This talk has been canceled/deleted

Imagine sitting down to a meal in 17th-century North Florida—what would be on the table, and what would it reveal about the people around you? Archaeology enables us to answer these questions, uncovering how past communities fed themselves, adapted to their environment, and expressed identity through food. This talk explores foodways in the Americas, focusing on the 17th century Apalachee and Spanish mission communities of La Florida, in the Tallahassee region of present-day North Florida. During this period (ca. AD 1633 -1704), Indigenous and Spanish communities co-existed, sharing ingredients, techniques, and culinary traditions. The Apalachee adopted imported crops and livestock while maintaining local foods and foodways practices, creating meals that were both innovative and rooted in tradition. The Spaniards’ foodways were dictated by the limitations of the local environment, the failure and success of shipments of goods, and the situado real. These patterns of adaptation and exchange reveal resilience, social connections, and cultural negotiations. By tracing what people ate, how they prepared it, and how meals structured daily life, foodways archaeology provides a vivid window into the past. These discoveries show how nourishment, culture, and community were intimately intertwined, offering a tangible connection to lives “consumed by time.”

Zoom link for talk here:

This talk is part of the Department of Archaeology - Garrod seminar series series.

This talk is included in these lists:

This talk is not included in any other list

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.