The Food System during the Formative Period in West Mesoamerica1

Abstract

The Food System during the Formative Period in West Mesoamerica. How was the food system structured in West Mesoamerica during the Formative Period (2400 B.C.E.–100 C.E.)? The answer is important to understanding the high cultural development accomplished by the Mesoamerican civilizations throughout the Early Classic Period (100–400 C.E.). In the same native communities of Nahuatl origins for which we previously reconstructed their putative pre–ceramic food system, we investigated the ancient dishes that could have been developed in the Formative Period; we cooked using wild, cultivated, and domesticated native plants; and we employed ceramic technologies from that time. We also recorded the ceramic objects from the Formative Period and Early Classic Period exhibited in local museums that had representations of plants, animals, and foods. We found that the Formative Period food system could have included more than 66 dishes and drinks with 29 cultivated and domesticated native plants. Compared with the putative Archaic Period food system, its nucleus continued to be composed by Zea mays, Phaseolus spp., Cucurbita argyrosperma, Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme, Physalis philadelphica, Capsicum annum, Hyptis suaveolens, and Spondias purpurea. These plants probably had more variants than in the pre–ceramic period, and maize gained greater relevance. The most important innovations were cooking in water and vapor, nixtamalization (soaking and cooking with water that contains lime), and possibly distillation. The elaboration of food using ceramics could have facilitated the transformation of the ingredients, raised their quality and the number of dishes, and introduced new selective pressures on the cultivated plants, all of which probably had an impact on their diversification, domestication and productivity, and on the complexity of the agro–food system.