Inside Ancient Kitchens: New Directions in the Study of Daily Meals and Feasts

6: Maya Palace Kitchens: Suprahousehold Food Preparation at the Late and Terminal Classic Site of Xunantunich, Belize

133 Maya Palace Kitchens Suprahousehold Food Preparation at the Late and Terminal Classic Site of Xunantunich, Belize lisa J. lecount Before the development of haute cuisine in eighteenth-century Italy, courtly food in the noble houses of Europe conformed more to a tradition of extravagant displays than to innovative preparations associated with later cookery (Mennell 1996: 68). Early banquets featured copious amounts of roasted meat and wheat bread, the raw ingredients of which came from local estates. First and foremost, the scale of noble banquets exemplified the power of the king and the splendor of courtly life. Although not trendsetters, cooks prepared both public and private feasts and catered to their patrons’ private whims. Much the same can be said of Classic period feasting among the Maya. Although the ancient Maya elites may have consumed greater amounts of meat, maize, and ka’kaw (cacao) (Chase and Chase 2001: 129; Gerry 1993; Pohl 1990: 167), there is little evidence that what they ate and how they prepared their food differed qualitatively from those of commoners (LeCount 2001). What differentiated Maya elites from commoners revolved more around their ability to sponsor large feasts, their roles in civic feasting events, and the manner in which they consumed their feasts (LeCount 2001). The focus of this discussion therefore revolves not around feasts per se but around what happened behind the scenes leading up to 6 134 lisa J. lecount Classic period Maya palace feasts. How did Maya royal and noble houses organize food preparation? Where were the kitchens, and how were they staffed? At Xunantunich, I suggest that a set of low ancillary structures adjacent to the ruler’s compound was a palace kitchen and the people who worked there were attached food specialists who prepared and served food for the ruling family and special events. The ancillary structures are physically connected to the southeast corner of the ruler’s compound, and stairs led directly into it. Given the close proximity of the service area to the ruler’s compound, I entertain the possibility that kitchen help was closely related to the ruling family. If so, not only was their work area physically attached to the ruler’s compound, but they were socially attached to the ruling house as well. There is some precedent for viewing palace kitchens as specialized work areas and cooks as attached specialists in the Maya Lowlands. Takeshi Inomata’s (2001) research on elite specialization illustrates how some kind of crafting was a common activity among Classic period Maya nobles, including courtiers, at the site of Aguateca, Guatemala. Although their output was never great, elite artists produced high-value items in noble residences located in close proximity to the Palace Group (Inomata 2001: figure 2). He also makes the case that crafting was a spiritual endeavor in which artisans transformed raw resources into animated objects—ritual paraphernalia and costume elements—through their connections with supernatural powers and knowledge. Special skills, knowledge, and supernatural connections helped legitimize noble status in Maya society. Like crafting, cooking is a transformational process that involves acquired skills, special tools, and in certain cases, supernatural intervention. For this reason, I address the organization of elite food preparation in the same way archaeologists examine other forms of specialization. Utilizing concepts developed for the study of craft specialization (Costin 1991), I employ the parameters of context, concentration, scale, and intensity to understand how food preparation and serving for Maya rulers differed from practices in noble and commoner households. Although heuristic, Cathy Costin’s model undertheorizes the social relations of production, especially those associated with corporate or ritual production. Like other forms of crafting, elite food preparation may not fit comfortably within current evolutionary models of specialization . Nonetheless, by applying this model I systematically examine how food preparation is similar to craft production and the ways in which cooking as a quintessential domestic activity differ from other forms of specialization. In this way, we can begin to address some of the assumptions behind models of specialization. 135 Maya Palace Kitchens Classic Maya Palaces, Kitchens, and Specialists The Classic period Maya royal court was a group of people who lived and worked in a large palace, a palatial set of buildings organized as an enclosed compound, or, more expansively, an agglutinated acropolis (Inomata and Houston 2001).1 Maya courts not only functioned as houses of royal lineages but performed essential administrative, judiciary, ceremonial, and diplomatic functions as well...