ABSTRACT
At the very core of our understanding of self – and others – are the food and drink that constitute not only who we are as living beings, but our relations with the living plants, animals, waters, soils, peoples, culinary customs, heritage, and deities. Because of this intimate relationality between people and their food, such consumables provide flashpoints for the tensions, understandings, and experiences of Others, those who do not share in these foodways, culinary traditions, and places. This chapter examines two signature foods, an earthy honey-based alcoholic drink (balche’) and umami-flavored snail stews and soups (jute or tutu’) in highlighting the making of two regional identities in the Pre-Columbian past, one centered in Northern Yucatán in the Late Postclassic period and the other on the Eastern Maya Lowlands during the Preclassic and Classic periods. These relational identity formations are contrasted with foods and culinary techniques that cross-cut ethnicities, polities, and regions in the forging of “international” relations and layered, knotted histories of cultural engagements. These latter foods include a foaming and viscous beer-like drink of fermented maguey sap (pulque), corn tortillas hot off the griddle (comal), and refreshing and bitter cacao beverages.
