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Foodways and Resilience under Apocalyptic Conditions

Shanti Morell-Hart Redefining sustenance, among other creative solu- tions, can help to amplify available resources, mate- Shanti Morell-Hart is with the Department of rially and conceptually. Such moments of negotiation Anthropology, College of William and Mary, are sometimes the difference between life and death. Williamsburg, VA When crisis strikes, food and water are resupply priorities. Whether caused by the slow accrual of minor transformations or the rapid strike of wide- Abstract spread disaster, the devastating implications of population-wide starvation are apocalyptic in their Food is an active component of social and political impact. Such impacts are visible archaeologically process in times of daily plenty and in times of extreme through various methods and are interpretable scarcity. Routinized modes of foodways are hard to dislodge, through analogy. For comparative purposes, analo- even when resources and broad lifeways are violently dis- gous situations can be drawn from studies of post- rupted. Ethnographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological apocalyptic landscapes in modern and historic eras. examples attest to the improvisational ability of individuals When resources and lifeways are violently disrupted, and communities when faced with food shortage. Using routinized modes of foodways may be hard to dis- illustrations from around the world, I explore how lodge, even in the face of starvation. However, eth- approaches to linguistic practice contribute to discussions of nographic, ethnohistoric, and archaeological examples starvation management. I posit that cultural redefinitions of also attest to the resilience of individuals and com- food and foodways help to negotiate extreme circumstances munities when faced with extreme food shortage. and may extend even into postcrisis periods. [foodways, We see sketches of such accommodations even in famine, practice, resilience, apocalyptic] times of plenty. With increases in the diversity and mobility of food ingredients and practices, the past 60 Opportunistic and desperate people, hapless indi- years alone have witnessed dramatic shifts: from viduals shorn of values, parsimonious copers, aspics and “scientific”/“modern” foodways, to an intelligent organisms gamely struggling for sur- explosion of “exotic”/“ethnic” foodways, to the more vival: these are the images of famine’s victims. recent manifestation of local/“organic”/“traditional” [Dirks 1980:31] foodways. Dietary fads have battled various iterations of “home cooking” and “comfort” foods, as both Food and water, the most basic of necessities for physical and mental well-being are defined and rede- human survival, are the first to be secured and the last fined through sustenance. Such shifts in practice are to be relinquished. Both are also active components of similar to the way that various neologisms, accents, social and political process whether in times of daily and manners of speaking gain and lose prominence plenty or in times of extreme scarcity. Although food and intelligibility. Even without the specter of nutri- underwrites our basic notions of what it means to tional shortage, foodways are highly mutable. They survive, it is also regularly incorporated into ritual can also be persistently and disastrously static. practice, whether as material offering or meaning- Using illustrations from around the world, I laden symbol. In order to satisfy fundamental human explore how notions of materiality and approaches to needs, food must be uncontaminated, nutritious, and linguistic practice can contribute to discussions of sufficient. However, these conditions are qualified and starvation management. I posit that cultural redefini- even modified during the course of actual cultural tions of food and foodways help to negotiate extreme practice in every aspect from procurement to disposal. circumstances and may extend even into postcrisis

Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment Vol. 34, Issue 2 pp. 161–171, ISSN 2153-9553, eISSN 2153-9561. © 2012 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.2153-9561.2012.01075.x periods. By following such trajectories, we can possible, those who stay behind sometimes fare better hypothesize alternate pathways to those envisioned than those who leave, as in the case of Russian by Jared Diamond in his book Collapse (2006). peasants in 1921 (Asquith 1943:20). Toward the end of this first “alarm” stage, an Famine Research in Modern, Historic, and increase in hostility begins to emerge as resources Biological Narratives become more scant. In general, Dirks asserts that people affected by hunger are more irritable and Starvation, when experienced by a community or a atomistic. In Ireland, with the onset of the Great society, becomes famine. Bennett (1976:322) character- Hunger, “organized antigovernment activity surfaced izes famine as “so extreme and protracted as to result within two months, and crowds gathered to receive in widespread and persisting hunger, notable emacia- relief became threatening when supplies proved inad- tion . . . and a considerable elevation of community equate” (Woodham-Smith 1962:69, in Dirks 1980). death rate.” Dirks (1980) categorizes famine as both Some scholars have even gone so far as to correlate biological and social in nature, resulting in physical the degree of political strife with group size and and social consequences. Studies of the biology of average weight loss of the population. Contrary to starvation do not generally coincide with studies of popular belief, however, “the overthrow of govern- social aspects of starvation for various humanitarian ment is more likely to be attempted by mildly affected and ethical reasons. However, in one project at the segments of the population than by those seriously University of Minnesota, Keys et al. (1950) analyzed affected” (Dirks 1980:27). the biological effects of semistarvation. The results of With the advent of the second stage of famine, their work have provided a strong basis for subsequent that of “resistance,” Dirks notes an increased studies, even those more social in nature. economy of activity. People sleep more and conserve Many scholars of modern and historic communi- energy. He finds collapse of divisions in labor and an ties have provided us with expectations about which increased attention to the simple quest for food where effects of famine would be visible archaeologically. In “time related to anything but food-related activities his incredibly comprehensive study, Dirks (1980) soon approaches zero” (Dirks 1980:28). In this stage, looked to understand “social behavior among fam- family and social bonds remain in place, and mutual ished people.” He documented cross-cultural regu- interests persevere—up to a point. Richards noted in larities of behavior during extreme food duress asking 1939 of the Bemba that “[they] were very generous the following: At what point are such famine with food except during the hungry months, when it responses triggered? What is the difference between was hidden from distant and classificatory relatives” an extreme food crisis and chronic undernourish- (1939:202). ment? He follows the three stages of crisis for the During this stage of “resistance” to famine, there individual and society, as defined by Selye (1956). In may be a turn toward alternate foodways, such as this triphasic model, reactions to famine begin with foraging and gleaning, even among urban popula- “alarm,” progress to a stage of “resistance,” and finish tions (Bennett 1976:322). However, the American with the stage of “exhaustion.” Friends Service Committee (1923:20) described forag- In the first stage of crisis, that of “alarm,” Dirks ing in Russia in 1922 as “a desperate business” describes initial social reactions to food-related because it required “greater expenditure of energy for anxiety. He notes that communities have a tendency meager returns.” In some instances, the search for to draw together, with intensified sharing or selling of edibles is restricted largely to the victims’ area of fresh or stored food supplies. In this first phase, ritual residence. Nearly every account of famine contains a practice tends to increase, perhaps as “a sort of anti- description of local “famine foods” utilized (e.g., dote to the increasing divisiveness which grew from McHugh [1956:399–400] for Ireland, 1845–52; Ameri- scarcity” (Laughlin 1978:84–86, in Dirks 1980:28). As can Friends Service Committee [1923:18–19], Asquith supplies run short and famine continues, emigration [1943], and Russian Commission of Near East Relief is common. Emigration, however, can be barred [n.d.:8] for Russia, 1918–22; Corkhill [1949] for Sudan, by military, geography, mobility (i.e., healthy vs. 1939; Laycock [1944:667] for China, 1942–43; Burger impaired), and the spatial extent of disaster condi- et al. [1945:20] for the western Netherlands, 1944–45; tions. Moreover, in situations where emigration is and Bhandari [1974] for Rajasthan). In other cases,

Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 162 Vol. 34, No. 2 December 2012 starving communities may go further afield to a more In the years 1652 and 1653 the plague and famine “distant and protracted wandering,” differentiated had swept away whole counties, that a man from actual emigration by the eventual return home might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a (e.g., Famine Inquiry Commission 1945:68; Stadling living creature. and Reason 1897). Deeper into this second stage of famine, broader In documenting instances of famine from various social structures are transformed. Boundedness of regions and time periods, Dirks points out one key property increases, especially where food is stored, gap in studies of starvation: the temporal limits of prepared, or procured. Gardens and fields may be research. As he notes, “Typically in the field for a year guarded against theft, even with householders “taking or two, ethnographers rarely have opportunity to turns day and night to watch crops” (McCance and witness changes that occur as a population moves Widdowson 1951). Gardens may be equipped with from a condition of plenty to one of want” (1980:22). boundary markers, fences, watchtowers, and watch- Such is the gap where archaeologists can make sig- houses (Firth 1959:72, McHugh 1956:402; Turnbull nificant contributions to studies of postapocalyptic 1972:140). In a historic example from China, even after conditions—through a view of the long durée. severe famine had passed, the watch over crops In terms of physiological aspects, whether or not became permanently institutionalized (Hinton 1966: malnutrition is ultimately the cause of death, famine 38). There may also be a transformation in ritual leaves its signature in the body (Larsen 2005). Physi- activity, in some cases through marked decrease and in ological responses to starvation, in terms of metabolic other cases through marked increase. Generally, activity and other factors, are broadly reviewed however, when authority is viewed as impotent, social by Dirks (1980:23) and other scholars (Agarwal et al. capital diminishes and social institutions are under- 2004; Larsen 2005; McHenry 1960). Early dehydration, mined. The powerful may find their gardens “raided hypoglycemia, and ketosis are marked by slower like everyone else’s, and the respectful gifts usually movement, apathy, fatigue, and decreased tolerance for presented to them no longer offered” (Firth 1959:92). exhausting work. Conditions of semistarvation begin Ritual observances may be dropped, abbreviated, post- to significantly affect the human body at about ten poned, or diminished as these typically require contri- percent weight loss. Material traces of these effects are bution of foodstuffs (Firth 1959:84–90; Singh 1975:253). marked by skeletal transformations, including hypo- In the third and final stage, that of “exhaustion,” plasias, stunted growth, and reductions in birth rates. Dirks claims that basic social structures “collapse” Average stature of a population may even decrease due to the amplification of nutritional inequities over time (Stini 1973:1027). Eventually, the body’s (1980:30). Foraging groups may form, independent of defenses are lowered to the point where it becomes family units. Elders may appropriate the rations of difficult to differentiate between starvation and infec- children or abandon dependents as “burdens.” Family tion in determining the ultimate cause of death members may become competitors. (Conversely, dis- (Bennett 1976:324). The general pattern gleaned from plays of altruism toward the weak may also occur but historic narratives is that the poorest of a population or are more rarely documented.) In more advanced community are the first affected, the very young and stages, survivors huddle together, inactive. Without the very old are next affected, and eventually, effects surcease of famine, this inactivity, combined with the are marked population wide (Dirks 1980:25). weakening of biological defenses, leads to death. Broadly, such biological indicators provide a Such tragic scenes were documented by Pendergast snapshot of the physiological response of individual (quoted by O’Brien 1919:108) for the outbreak of bodies to postapocalyptic conditions. However, other famine and plague in 1652: sources help us to identify social responses to famine, including various adjustments and transformations of Ireland . . . now lay void as a wilderness. Five- foodways. Accounts of starving people depict them, sixths of her people had perished. Women and by turns, as animalistic, sociopathic, or altruistic children were found daily perishing in ditches, when faced with “social degeneration.” However, starved. The bodies of many wandering orphans people cope in varying ways under a wide spectrum whose fathers had embarked for Spain and whose of conditions, shifting footing and switching code mothers had died were preyed upon by wolves. in a manner very similar to that documented for

Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 163 Vol. 34, No. 2 December 2012 locutionary practice (Goffman 1981). Such resilience the actual bodily movement of populations. Deceased has archaeological visibility, albeit to varying degrees. individuals, in cases of warfare or famine, were likely never buried, and thus their remains were lost to Food, Fight, and Flight time. In cases where abandonment was extremely rapid, as at Joya de Cerén in the face of a volcanic “Collapse” has emerged as the most popular eruption (Sheets 2002), it may be unclear where they avenue for discourse on postapocalyptic conditions went and how they coped. Evidence of precautionary (e.g., Diamond 2006), with attendant narratives of hoarding and storage (Richards 1932) can also be warfare, flight, and demise of entire populations problematic. Hoarding practices would appear as (compare with McAnany and Yoffee 2009). However, caches of food, in areas bounded, enclosed, and kept as with any apocalyptic-level crisis, individuals, com- out of the public view. However, storage may repre- munities, and societies have a more broad set of sent normal behavior in times of plenty or a short- options when faced with famine. Indeed, coping can term response to various kinds of crises not take many forms (Adolph 2009; Richards 1932:100, necessarily linked to famine. For example, in the case 1939:37) and historical and social contexts condition of Aguateca (Lentz 2001; Terry et al. 2004), evidence of the reactions of a society to extreme stress. Dirks hoarding was linked to warfare and siege. (1980:31) identifies two primary major responses: Moreover, seasonal reduction in physical activity cooperation (distribution of the stressor) and outmi- (Richards 1932) would result in more careful manage- gration. Thomas (1980:38) catalogs a wider set of ment tasks and the energy to complete them, as well responses: cooperation (distribution of the stressor), as a more careful selection and redistribution of outmigration, avoidance (migration), elimination of resources. A more limited range of activities would be the condition, buffering in anticipation (food storage), represented archaeologically, although activities distribution (sharing), and conformity (pretending the involving food procurement would actually increase condition does not exist). Given that transformations in frequency under famine conditions. However, in foodways can strongly parallel shifts in linguistic without extremely precise stratigraphic control, exten- practice, to these lists I would append yet another sive spatial sampling, and contextualized algorithms type of response: the very transformation of food for energetic expenditures, such reduction in activity paradigms themselves. would be difficult to gauge as the majority of our Folklore and cautionary tales, as well as formal evidence comes from the detritus of multiple and codes and emergency plans (Dirks 1980:26; Minnis protracted activities. Population-wide fasting, as prac- 1991), may be recoverable as “fossils” that index past ticed by some religious groups (Richards 1932), is food crises. However, in areas where written records similarly problematic. There may be evidence of and oral histories do not exist, material remains are undernourishment, but not necessarily of deliberate the only method by which we may get at foodways. fasting by an individual or community. The material, as both product and producer of social Tracking the redefinitions of foodways, in terms of action, can both represent and implicate responses to paradigmatic substitutions and their material corre- calamity—the nature of the calamity as well as its lates, may prove a complementary and fruitful route impacts and the social responses to them. Taking such for analysis. Similarly to what transformations can an approach to materiality can help to define the be made to intensify agricultural production under discursive relationship between the social and mate- normal conditions (Hartshorn et al. 2006; Kirch 1994), rial aspects of famine. However, it may be challenging there is the possibility for intensification and/or inno- to recover many types of archaeological evidence of vation of foodways under extreme conditions. This can extreme food shortage. entail maximizing foods available or substituting Emigration, as a response to famine, can be dif- certain foods and practices for others. In tracking ficult to index through material correlates. Ancient famine at early stages, we find evidence of transfor- people oftentimes acted with their feet, relocating to mations in practices—extirpations and extinctions live with their kin or trade partners (e.g., Arakawa (Hunt 2007; Steadman 1995). We also find transforma- et al. 2011). In the absence of written records and tions in foods hunted or gathered, and shifts to more skeletal evidence, it is hard to distinguish between the readily available foods (Minnis 1991; Walker and extrasomatic movement of trade goods and ideas, and Erlandson 1986).

Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 164 Vol. 34, No. 2 December 2012 Dirks (1980) finds that the resilience of a particu- between a shift in tastes and a shift in foods available, lar culture will necessarily have to do with many paleoethnobotanical evidence could indicate, for factors, including historical trajectory, broader cultural example, the substitution of root crops for maize as a context, and paradigms of foodways within a particu- staple food, in cases where such dietary cornerstones lar society. I argue, however, that resilience also has to fail in the face of calamities such as blight or insect do with the possible substitutions of foodways scourge. afforded in a broader set of practices and ingredients, “Stretching” of foods, such as adding sawdust to and potential transformations of food paradigms in bread flour, is another means by which cooks have the social lexicon. That is, in earlier stages of famine, coped with food shortage (Jacob 2007). This entails a people will tend toward orthodoxy of food paradigms shift in paradigm, where sawdust becomes “edible,” (e.g., cannibalism as taboo practice). To maintain this and subsequently its substitution for flour becomes orthodoxy, certain foods and practices will be substi- possible. Similarly, the consumption of leather indexes tuted for others, in a way that most closely resembles a shift in paradigm, where it becomes edible as a accustomed foods and practices (e.g., wild tubers substitute for meat (Rosenstein 1973, paraphrased in used in place of cultivated root crops). At latter stages Brun 1980:35). Such consumption of hard-to-digest of famine, however, heterodoxic foodways will materials could be documented in coprolite evidence. emerge, sometimes through radical paradigm shifts There is also a great deal of ethnographic docu- (e.g., insect consumption becomes an accepted prac- mentation relating to “famine foods.” For example, tice). Heterodoxic practices, in these cases, may be the in early 20th-century in Russia, in regions already only recourse for survival, once all possible substitu- devastated by war and famine, there were accounts tions afforded by the paradigm have been exhausted. that noted (Rosenstein 1973, paraphrased in Brun 1980:35): The Persistence of Foodways and the Subversion of Paradigms After using up all their grains and tubers and eating their domestic animals, the peasants ate A linguistic model of substitution would predict dogs, field mice, mice, grass, carrion, harnesses, that habits of taste are not a “finished set of rules” but and boiled animal skins. . . . During the winter rather a “repertoire of possibilities” (Stahl 2002:832). cannibalism made its appearance: people dug up Such was demonstrated in wartime Great Britain, the dead to eat them. where culinary “coping” was employed by under- nourished cooks (Adolph 1993:163): However, a different picture of famine is painted in the Sudan-Sahelian zone (Brun and Kovess 1974, Turning Jerusalem artichokes into “fish” with a paraphrased in Brun 1980:35): bit of anchovy paste . . . is the sort of counterfei- ture that stems from a culture that limits the scope When all the livestock had died, they did not eat of cookery while at the same time demanding the cadavers of the animals, nor did they variant excellence from those in the kitchen. consume leather objects or any other objects capable of assuaging hunger. Bitter grain, fibrous In this example, food, under wartime duress, was tubers, and leaves enabled some of them to con- made to be iconically similar to fish, an index of tinue the trek. The weakest died en route [and kitchen craftsmanship, and symbolic of times where were buried]. sumptuous meals were more the order. The flow of food doxa, interrupted by transformations in avail- Archaeologically, we have evidence of cannibal- ability of supplies, led the wartime cook to attempt an ism in various locations. Such data, when combined orthodoxy involving anchovy paste in order to pre- with skeletal evidence, may indicate a link to famine serve the paradigm of fish. The practices may have (McGuire and Van Dyke 2008). However, such been heterodoxic, but the intent was entirely ortho- uncommon substitutions require a shift not just in doxic. Such substitutions indicate a desire to adhere to foodstuffs but in the very definition of “foodstuff.” foodway paradigms even in extreme circumstances. With so many means of coping, through transforma- Although it may be difficult to identify the difference tions of foodways and the use of famine foods, it is

Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 165 Vol. 34, No. 2 December 2012 curious that the popular imagination most readily Relict Foodways and the Persistence turns to cannibalism (e.g., McCarthy 2006), in spite of of Adjustment the fact that the vast majority of individuals and societies facing starvation never pursued this option. Even after food crisis is over, modes of practice Indeed, the most striking examples of human con- may linger. Popular narratives easily yield anecdotes sumption of humans appear to have much more to do of hoarding behaviors demonstrated by refugees and with the symbolic aspects of this practice (e.g., shipwreck survivors. As Minnis (1991:245) puts it, Conklin 2001; Young 1971) than the nutritional. “food preference patterns may actually encapsulate We also have archaeological evidence of the use the history of a changing diet.” The set of relations of various plants as “famine foods.” Minnis (1991) imposed on the food paradigm through the pressures characterizes such foods as being low preference of syntagma in practice, along with contextual factors under normal circumstances due to factors ranging including history, society, ecology, and biology, can from overall palatability to difficulty of acquisition have paradigmatic consequences similar to the and processing. He has documented, through the overlap of fields (see Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992). use of ethnohistoric documents and paleoethnobo- Linguistically, this represents not just the substitution tanical remains, the importance and frequency of of a noun for an adverb or a different sort of noun but various famine foods over time in the American rather an alteration of the available set of terms, Southwest. Of interest is his assertion that societies which may eventually result in the formation of a and communities have the unfortunate opportunity new paradigm. Such reformulations may entail the to “practice” during periods of seasonal hunger, addition (as opposed to an alteration) of an available incorporating various undervalued foods and agri- food category. cultural by-products to cope with scarcity. Such peri- The Gurange of Ethiopia was defined as “always odic adjustments may result in incremental shifts hungry, never greedy” by Kahn (1986). Similarly, the toward the regular incorporation of substitutable Massim, of Papua New Guinea, strived for “full foodstuffs, eventually constituting practical knowl- gardens and small bellies” (Young 1971:146). Among edge leveraged in times of famine. Importantly, the Massim, tactics involved the refusal to admit Minnis notes that the early effects of famine may not hunger, suppression of hunger through magic, and be readily visible in the archaeological record, as the deliberate putting aside of food, even to the point communities may consume stored seed intended for of food spoilage. Whether such practices have purely planting, which would have no significant morpho- symbolic or material roots is unclear, but they may be logical distinctions from seed stored for consumption artifacts of famine times—new paradigms that were (1991). never dislodged postcrisis. In the same way that food Curiously, there are also foods ethnographically orthodoxy is often attempted when lifeways are dis- documented as famine foods that are found to be rupted by calamity, transformed foodways may con- highly nutritious but never recovered archaeologically tinue as doxa even after a crisis has passed. Such (e.g., the ramón nut of the Maya area [Miksicek et al. situations might be visible through paleoethnobotani- 1981]). In cases where such foods were available but cal evidence of mass food waste combined with not substituted in times of hunger, we can hypoth- skeletal evidence of malnourishment. esize the orthodoxy of foodways prevailed, and In Baja California, some Cochimí peoples substitutions remained more limited by previous employed unique methods to ward off extreme paradigms of “food.” This may be related to what hunger: second harvest and maroma (Aschmann Minnis (1991:246) has documented as a sort of “down- 1986). In the practice of second harvest, undigested grade” of regularly consumed foods to the category of seeds from pitahaya cactus fruits were collected from famine food. In such cases, adoption of new food- nightsoil, cleaned, and roasted for food, effectively stuffs, innovation in processing techniques, or shifts in doubling the volume if not the nutritional value of social contexts may account for transformations in these foods. The practice of maroma entailed tying a foodways during times of plenty. When conditions bit of meat to a piece of string, passing the bit from take a turn for the worse, such foods may be the person to person to swallow, and then immediately first to be consumed if they are still considered extracting the swallowed bit with the string. This “foods” at all. activity would continue until the meat had been

Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 166 Vol. 34, No. 2 December 2012 digested in a distributed way (similar to the coping populated, warfare, societal absorption, and hybridity mechanisms identified by Thomas 1980). As with the have tended to occur. In other cases, mobility may be Gurange and Massim, paradigms of food practice hampered, as borders are enforced and refugee camps among the Cochimí may have changed to accommo- are rampant. Sometimes, in lieu of extensification and date famine conditions, then persisted into historic border friction, there is innovation and intensification, periods. Evidence of maroma-type practices would be reducing both morbidity and mobility alike. difficult to recover, but evidence of second harvest The historic and archaeological examples provided might be indicated by remains of ground cactus seeds in this paper outline past human responses to extreme from implements or coprolites. food shortages. Viewed alongside more contemporary Some agricultural societies may have deliberately examples, we are allowed a glimpse of potential settled in areas with an abundance of wild foods—as worldwide crisis responses. However, what happens is historically documented for the Maler in India— when there are no more reserves, when there is and then maintained these settlement locations to nowhere else to go, and food can no longer be inno- maximize perceived food resources. Vidyarthi (1975: vated or intensified? According to Sorokin’s “Law of 324) noted the opposition of Maler people to resettle- Diversification and Polarization,” disaster brings out ment by the government because “they have seen the the best and worst of people, as an increase in gener- ravages of famine on the plain which they could osity or an increase in self-preservation (Sorokin 1942). escape on the hills owing to the varieties of jungle To mitigate disaster, it is necessary to understand the products.” Archaeological evidence of such practices language of foodways in societies under duress, as might include a transition from a higher to a lower much as it is necessary to attempt to prevent food ratio of cultivated to noncultivated foods and an shortages from occurring at all. It is not simply enough increase in overall taxa diversity. to provide food, where it is not recognized as edible; it In other cases, where famine-food practices do not is not simply enough to list nutritionally viable local persist, knowledge of them may linger through plants, where no one knows how to process them. legend, ritual practice, stories, myths, and anecdotes, Linguistic approaches help us to understand how as noted in Southwestern U.S. examples (following available resources must be made intelligible to exist- Minnis 1991:150). However, should profound cultural ing paradigms of edibility in order to become “food.” disruption occur, as in the case of contact-period Ingredients, processing techniques, context, and encounters, knowledge of these famine foods and meaning are all important in the creation of culturally practices may be completely lost. With foodways, as viable sustenance. Attempts to increase such intelligi- with language and other social dimensions, basic bility have emerged from disparate quarters, includ- components and practices tend to endure if malleable ing cookbooks oriented toward local noncultivated in novel situations (similarly to Firth 1959:105). plants (e.g., Caballero Roque 2010) and survival However, as the subversion of language, authority, manuals containing techniques for testing unknown religious institutions, and social bonds can persist organisms (e.g., Department of the Army 1992). Nar- postfamine (Gangrade and Dhadda 1973:18), so too rative content is also important for resilience in the can permanent losses of cultural knowledge occur. face of famine. Following Minnis 1991, folklore, Such situations lead to a lack of ethnohistoric ties to legends, and descriptions of food practices are critical a richer cultural past, as well as a much smaller repositories of vital information, even when periph- repertoire of possibilities for an uncertain future. eral to central themes and even if culturally uncom- fortable or unintelligible in modern times. However, a Current Practice and Future Calamity larger repository needs to be collected and dissemi- nated to expand the array of nutritional possibilities Through reviewing studies of food crises, we gain afforded to us. Moreover, following Vidyarthi some sense of future potential dystopias and the (1975:324), we need to maintain wild plant stands or profound physiological, psychological, and social at least become fluent in the potential uses of invasive effects of famine. Until now, human beings have or newly ubiquitous species to diminish the nutri- never experienced a worldwide food shortage. Wide- tional impact of crop failures. spread, yes, but there has always been somewhere for Food intelligibility is critical, given that rigidity of groups to retreat. When this “somewhere” is already food paradigms can lead to death. As historically

Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment 167 Vol. 34, No. 2 December 2012 documented in Ethiopia (Mason et al. 1974 in Minnis food, how it is eaten, how it is produced, how it is 1991) and Ireland (Woodham-Smith 1962), people in hoarded, and how it is doled out under apocalyptic- times of famine may struggle to incorporate relief level famine conditions. supplies into their diets because the foods are unfa- miliar and heterodoxic to established principles of References Cited subsistence or habits of processing. For such reasons, the use of famine foods during food shortages was Adolph, Andrea government-assisted during World War II when the 2009 Food and Femininity in Twentieth-Century British Dutch government provided descriptions of local Women’s Fiction. Farnham and Burlington: emergency food plants to the populace (Den Hartog Ashgate Publishing Company. 1981 in Minnis 1991). Such strategic reframing of food paradigms has the potential to save lives, where tac- Agarwal, Sabrina C. et al. tical flexibility is circumscribed. 2004 Medieval Trabecular Bone Architecture: The Influ- In everyday practice, word choice and syntax ence of Age, Sex, and Lifestyle. American Journal default to the path most commonly trod. During of Physical Anthropology 124(1):33–44. times of high stress, when social modes are thrown into high relief, we often default to underlying modes American Friends Service Committee of “appropriate” practice modes that are sometimes at 1923 Pen Pictures of Russian Village Life during the odds with our ability to actually subsist (similar to Famine. Philadelphia, PA: American Friends Adolph 2009). By increasing the spectrum of available Service Committee. foods and foodstuffs, practices, and paradigms, we Arakawa, Fumiyasu, Scott G. Ortman, M. Steven Shackley, effectively diversify our food portfolio, making our and Andrew I. Duff survival more likely. Repositories such as the Svalbard 2011 Obsidian Evidence of Interaction and Migration Global Seed Vault and the Millennium Seed Bank from the Mesa Verde Region, Southwest Colorado. Project are critical contributions toward this end but American Antiquity 76(4):774–796. rendered less useful if the millions of carefully archived seeds have no future intelligibility. It comes Aschmann, Harold H. down to a need for storage: not only of supplies and 1986 Learning about Baja California Indians: Sources seeds but also of forms of knowledge and modes of and Problems. Journal of California and Great practice that expand the paradigms of foodways Basin Anthropology 8(2):238–245. available to us. Countless scholars and committees from nongov- Asquith, Michael ernmental organizations to medical associations have 1943 Famine (Quaker Work in Russia 1921–23). London: addressed the serious implications of food shortage in Oxford University Press. the short term. Famine foods and practices are less frequently addressed, especially over the long term. Bennett, John There is strong potential in investigating past apoca- 1976 The Ecological Transition. New York: Pergamon lyptic conditions and potential material correlates of Press. famine using the work of scholars who have carefully Bhandari, M. M. documented the social effects of starvation, both past 1974 Famine Foods in the Rajasthan Desert. Economic and present. Such investigations include work at dif- Botany 28:73–81. ferent temporal and spatial scales and are manifested through the approaches of multiple disciplines. The Bourdieu, Pierre, and Loïc J. D. Wacquant field of archaeology, especially, has a great deal to 1992 An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago, IL: contribute to famine studies in terms of long-term University of Chicago Press. processes and responses. Such contributions comple- ment ethnographic and ethnohistoric studies that give Brun, Thierry a more fine-grained view of extreme famine in the 1980 Social Responses during Severe Food Shortages short durée. In combination, these studies can reveal and Famine: Comment. Current Anthropology transformations or persistence in what is considered 21(1):21–44.

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