Shapes and flavours

food and ceramic in Portugal (16th to 18th century)

Abstract

Material culture associated to food production and consumption, namely ceramics, represents the highest amount of archaeological finds to be recovered in Portuguese Early Modern contexts. Cooking pots, plates, bowls or sauce dishes, produced in glazed and unglazed pottery are the testimony of the process of food preparation and the ways these were served at the table as well as the technologies of pottery production, forms, decorations and origins, something that archaeology could not give an answer on its own. For the Early Modern age it is fundamental to cross information between archaeological and documental evidence. Cook books, expense records, and letters, among others allow to recognize the uses of the exhumated objects: to what shapes would certain recipes be associated, how were these served and what was the symbolic value of certain objects based on their form, colour or smell attributes that could touch several senses besides taste?