“Warner powerfully demonstrates the role of food in shaping and defining social identity as it pertains to African American life in the racialized United States. His careful analysis of archaeological materials supplemented with other sources such as quilts and blues lyrics—sources seldom used in historical archaeology—is instructive and inspiring.”—Charles E. Orser Jr., author ofThe Archaeology of Race and Racialization in Historic America
“Warner’s wide-ranging study significantly expands our understanding of African American foodways, highlighting the ways people used their everyday decisions about food to help counter forces of racism and economic oppression.”—David B. Landon, University of Massachusetts Boston
In Eating in the Side Room, Mark Warner uses the archaeological data of food remains recovered from excavations in Annapolis, Maryland, and the Chesapeake as a point of departure to examine how material culture shaped African American identity in one of the country’s oldest cities.
Warner skillfully demonstrates how African Americans employed food as a tool for expressing and defending their cultural heritage while living in a society that attempted to ignore and marginalize them. The “side rooms” where the families ate their meals not only satisfied their hunger but also their need to belong. As a result, Warner claims, the independence that African Americans practiced during this time helped prepare their children and grandchildren to overcome greater challenges of white oppression.
