Sex in a Cup: Chocolate and Gender Through the Ages

Colonial painting by Jean-Étienne Liotard

A comparison of pre-Columbian archaeological evidence from Central America with colonial archaeological and historical evidence in the Americas and in Europe shows that chocolate was increasingly characterized as a woman’s drink, food and flavor. Examples from three kinds of chocolatey evidence (recipes, archaeological material culture and depictions) offer insight into the broader context of labor, gender and social regimes from the late pre-Columbian period to the 18th century, when chocolate moved from being a sporadic curiosity to a daily necessity not just across the Americas, but also across the Atlantic.

Kathryn Sampeck is assistant professor of anthropology at Illinois State College and holds her degrees from Tulane University (PhD) and the University of Chicago. Her areas of specialization include the archaeology and ethnohistory of Mesoamerica and the U.S. Southeast, the Andes, landscape archaeology, colonialism, foodways, political economy, urbanism, money economies and ceramics. She is the principal investigator for the Colonial Cherokee Landscapes Project and has conducted fieldwork in El Salvador, eastern Tennessee, Honduras (Copan), Bolivia, Southern Louisiana, Cantabrian Spain and Kenya. Professor Sampeck has numerous works in the press and in review, is preparing a monograph on "How Chocolate Came to Be," and most recently published "From Ancient Altepetl to Modern Municipio: Surveying as Power in Colonial Guatemala" in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2014).

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Almira Poudrier
School of International Letters and Cultures
apoudrie@asu.edu
http://www.silc.asu.edu
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Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art