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Digest: A Journal of Foodways & Culture 7:2 (2019-2020): 169-170 © American Folklore Society 2021 

Review of: 

Baking, Bourbon, and Black Drink: Foodways Archaeology in 
The American Southeast 

 
 
Reviewed by: Kathleen Fleming  

Baking, Bourbon, and Black Drink: Foodways Archaeology in the American Southeast, 
edited by Tanya M. Peres and Aaron Deter-Wolf, is a well-organized volume that takes 
the reader on a historical journey through the foodways of the southeastern United 
States. Over the nine chapters, the contributors examine different aspects of past 
foodways, such as the ways that people gathered, prepared, and consumed their food. 
The book also offers insights into how foodways were used to mark political and social 
status, as well as the issues surrounding food security. Overall, the book’s content 
demonstrates the importance of understanding the past of a culture in order to offer 
insights into its present. 
 
While the archeological focus may be unfamiliar to many folklorists, two chapters in 
particular may be useful. The first is “Archaeology of the Whiskey Foodway in 
Kentucky,” by Nicolas Laracuente. As the chapter title suggests, Laracuente explores 
how people prepared whiskey, but does so in a way that is easy to understand for non-
archaeologists. For example, Laracuente discusses how the rise of industrial whiskey 
distilleries affected creating the drink at home. Particularly intriguing for folklorists, 
Laracuente includes some of the legends that surround the industry, such as how the 
drink “blind tigers” got its name, or how the Jameson distillery was created. The 
inclusion of these legends shows the important role that stories play in understanding 
local foodways. 
 
Another chapter that may prove interesting for folklorists is “Detangling Histories of 
Hominy: A Historical Anthropological Approach,” by Rachel Briggs. Briggs shows how 
food relates to many areas of daily life. She also ably demonstrates how the history and 
beliefs of a group of people will affect their willingness and ability to adopt new foods 
and ways of cooking into their foodways, and how food can be used as a way of 
examining relationships between people. For example, Briggs notes that during an 
outbreak of pellagra during the twentieth century, primarily Euro-American males were 
affected. However, of the few cases reported in African Americans, the majority were 
women. When protein was scarce, African American women did without due to the 
common folk belief that men needed more protein than women. Briggs’ findings 
highlight how different social and ethnic groups prepare and consume the same staple 
food in different ways. Gender and ethnicity played a significant role in how these 
different groups prepared and consumed food. This chapter underscores the importance 
of exploring foodways adaptations which can provide insight into the ways that diets 
have changed over time as well as how gender and ethnicity shape values, traditions, 
and food practices. 
 
Other chapters in the collection are informative but may prove less accessible for those 
without some familiarity with archeological inquiry. For example, in the first chapter of 



170  Fleming, Review, Baking, Bourbon, Black Drink, Digest: A Journal of Foodways & Culture 7:2 (2019-2020) 

this collection, “Social Substance: Integrating Analyses of Ceramic, Plant, and Animal 
Remains from Feltus,” Megan C. Kassabaum explores evidence for feasting ceremonies 
from the Feltus site in Mississippi, coming to the conclusion that this site was indeed an 
important gathering spot during the Woodland period. Kassabaum’s findings 
demonstrate that understanding how space was used in the past can provide insight into 
how its importance changed over time. Similarly, the chapters “Splitting the Bones: 
Marrow Extraction and Mississippian Period Foodways,” by Tanya M. Peres, “Turkey 
Foodways: The Intersection of Cultural, Social, and Economic Practices in the 
Mississippian Period Southeast,” by Tanya M. Peres and Kelly Ledford, and “The 
Prehistory and History of Black Drink” by Thomas Emerson, offer insights into the 
archaeology of Mississippi foodways. 

 
In the remaining chapters, Digest readers may find useful insights into how the 
foodways of the American southeast have evolved over time. In “Prehistoric Foodways 
from the Dust Cave Site,” Stephen Carmody, Kandace Hollenback, and Elic Weitzel 
show that during the Pleistocene period in Dust Cave, Alabama, the diet shifted from an 
animal-based diet to a more plant-based one in order to adapt to changes that were 
brought on by climate change. In “Cooking Connects Them: Earth Ovens as Prehistoric 
Places during the Woodland Period,” Lauren Walls and Scott Keith review how earth 
ovens were used during the Woodland period in Tennessee and Georgia, and argue that 
examining the use or abandonment of these ovens over the centuries can offer insight 
into the social structures of the people at the time. These findings add to the strength of 
the collection as a whole because they demonstrate how foodways in the American 
southeast have evolved over time. Finally, Neil Wallis and Thomas Pluckhahn focus on 
the remains of ceramic vessels from the Middle to Late Woodland period in Florida and 
South Georgia in their chapter “Culinary and Social Requirements of Middle and Late 
Woodland Swift Creek Pottery.” Overall, these chapters show that, while staple foods 
may stay the same, the way they are prepared will continue to evolve over time. 
 
Taken altogether, the chapters underscore the fact that studying how foodways have 
evolved in the past may offer some indication of how they will change in the future. For 
folklorists with an interest in archeology and historical foodways, this well-written and 
well-organized volume may prove useful. 


