Teaching with Taste: Culinary Archaeology and Public Engagement

The archaeology of cuisine explores diet and cooking in the past, and it holds the potential for capturing the imagination (and taste buds) of the public. Dr. Susan Kooiman from SIUE will discuss how the Capturing Campus Cuisine project at Michigan State University demonstrated how examination of 19th-century recipes and dishes can provide local communities tangible means of experiencing the past. Exploration of ancient Indigenous cuisine using burned food residue on ceramic cooking pots gives students and the public the opportunity to gaze even deeper into culinary history.