To recreate ancient recipes, check out the vestiges of clay pots
Archaeologists find that unglazed ceramic cookware absorbs the chemical residue of present and past meals

Date:
September 11, 2020
Source:
University of California - Berkeley
Summary:
UC Berkeley archaeologists have discovered that unglazed ceramic
cookware can retain the residue of not just the last supper cooked,
but earlier meals as well, opening a window onto gastronomic
practices possibly going back millennia.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
If you happen to dig up an ancient ceramic cooking pot, don't clean
it. Chances are, it contains the culinary secrets of the past.


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A research team led by University of California, Berkeley, archaeologists
has discovered that unglazed ceramic cookware can retain the residue of
not just the last supper cooked, but, potentially, earlier dishes cooked
across a pot's lifetime, opening a window onto the past.

The findings, reported in the journal Scientific Reports, suggest that gastronomic practices going back millennia -- say, to cook Aztec turkey,
hominy pozole or the bean stew likely served at the Last Supper --
can be reconstructed by analyzing the chemical compounds adhering to
and absorbed by the earthenware in which they were prepared.

"Our data can help us better reconstruct the meals and specific
ingredients that people consumed in the past which, in turn, can shed
light on social, political and environmental relationships within ancient communities," said study co-lead author Melanie Miller, a researcher at Berkeley's Archaeological Research Facility and a postdoctoral scholar
at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

In a yearlong cooking experiment led by Miller and Berkeley archaeologist Christine Hastorf, seven chefs each prepared 50 meals made from
combinations of venison, maize (corn) and wheat flour in newly purchased
La Chamba ceramic pots. This robust, burnished black clay cookware dates
back to pre-Columbian South America, and the handcrafted vessels remain
popular for preparing and serving traditional foods today.

The group came up with the idea in Hastorf's Archaeology of Food graduate seminar at Berkeley. By analyzing the chemical residues of the meals
cooked in each pot, the researchers sought to learn whether the deposits
found in ancient cooking vessels would reflect the remains of only the
last dish cooked, or previous meals, as well.



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In addition to receiving donated deer roadkill, they purchased large
quantities of whole grains and a mill, which Hastorf set up in her garage,
to grind them.

The group then developed a repertoire of six recipes using deer meat
and whole and milled grain.

They picked staple ingredients that could be found in many parts of
the world.

For example, two recipes focused on hominy, which is made from soaking
maize in an alkaline solution, while two others used wheat flour.

"We chose the food based on how easy it would be to distinguish the
chemicals in the food from one another and how the pots would react to
the isotopic and chemical values of the food," said Hastorf, a Berkeley professor of anthropology who studies food archaeology, among other
things.

Each of the seven chefs cooked an experimental meal weekly in a La Chamba
pot using the group's designated ingredients. "The mushy meals were bland,
and we didn't eat them," Miller noted.

Every eighth meal was charred to replicate the kinds of carbonized
residues that archaeologists often encounter in ancient pots and to
mimic what would normally happen in a pot's lifetime. Between each
meal, the pots were cleaned with water and a branch from an apple
tree. Surprisingly, none of them broke during the course of the study.



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At Berkeley's Center for Stable Isotope Biogeochemisty, the team
conducted an analysis of the charred remains and the carbonized patinas
that developed on the pots. Stable isotopes are atoms whose composition
does not decay over time, which is useful for archaeological studies. An analysis of the fatty lipids absorbed into the clay cookware was performed
at the University of Bristol in England.

Overall, chemical analyses of the food residues showed that different
meal time scales were represented in different residues. For example,
the charred bits at the bottom of a pot contained evidence of the latest
meal cooked, while the remnants of prior meals could be found in the
patina that built up elsewhere on the pot's interior and in the lipid
residue that was absorbed into the pottery itself.

These results give scientists a new tool to study long-ago diets and
also provide clues to food production, supply and distribution chains
of past eras.

"We've flung open the door for others to take this experiment to the
next level and record even longer timelines in which food residues can
be identified," Miller said.

In addition to Miller and Hastorf, co-authors of the study are Alexandra McCleary and Geoffrey Taylor at UC Berkeley; Helen Whelton, Simon Hammann,
Lucy Cramp and Richard Evershed at the University of Bristol; Jillian
Swift at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Hawai'i; Sophia Maline at
the University of Southern California; Kirsten Vacca at the University
of Hawai'i-West O'ahu and independent scholar Fanya Becks.


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_Berkeley. Original written by Yasmin
Anwar. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Melanie J. Miller, Helen L. Whelton, Jillian A. Swift, Sophia
Maline,
Simon Hammann, Lucy J. E. Cramp, Alexandra McCleary, Geoffrey
Taylor, Kirsten Vacca, Fanya Becks, Richard P. Evershed, Christine
A. Hastorf.

Interpreting ancient food practices: stable isotope and molecular
analyses of visible and absorbed residues from a year-long
cooking experiment. Scientific Reports, 2020; 10 (1) DOI:
10.1038/s41598-020- 70109-8 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200911141651.htm

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