Eating in the Side Room
Eating in the Side Room
Food, Archaeology, and African American Identity
An archaeological study of African American foodways in nineteenth-century Annapolis
In Eating in the Side Room, Mark Warner uses the archaeological data of food remains recovered from excavations in Annapolis, Maryland, and the Chesapeake to show how African Americans established identity in the face of pervasive racism and marginalization.
By studying the meat purchasing habits of two African American families—the Maynards and the Burgesses—Warner skillfully demonstrates that while African Americans were actively participating in a growing mass consumer society, their food choices subtly yet unequivocally separated them from white society. The "side rooms" where the two families ate their meals not only satisfied their hunger but also their need to maintain autonomy from an oppressive culture. As a result, Warner claims, the independence that African Americans practiced during this time helped prepare their children and grandchildren to overcome persistent challenges of white oppression.
Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“A timeless publication and significant contribution to the discipline. . . . Students of African America will find Warner’s book an illuminating study, and a strong example to follow.”—Historical Archaeology
“A striking interdisciplinary analysis. . . . Underscores the value of zooarchaeological analysis in informing our understanding of the past, especially of people devalued and muted in our mainstream historical texts.” —American Anthropologist
“Rooted in a meticulous study of the faunal remains excavated at an Annapolis, Maryland, house, Mark S. Warner’s book addresses sweeping questions about race, resistance, and identity.”—Journal of Southern History
“A timely and welcome addition to the literature on African American identity studies and to foodways more generally. . . . Mandatory reading for any courses concerned with the archaeology and anthropology of African Americans.”—Northeast Historical Archaeology
“Demonstrates the influence of mass consumer culture on African-American diets and
the role played by food in establishing African-American identity and resistance to racism and
oppression.” —Civil War Book Review
“Raises critical, important questions concerning African-American food consumption. . . . Eating in the Side Room asks readers to . . . consider the ways African-American families have exhibited agency even when alleviation of inequalities seemed nearly impossible.” —FoodAnthropology
"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 of The Archaeology of Race and Racialization in Historic America"A long-awaited and much-needed contribution to the study of urban African American identity through the zooarchaeological study of an extended African American family household in the Chesapeake. Warner makes a powerful case for the utility of faunal analysis in historical archaeology."—Kenneth G. Kelly, coeditor of French Colonial Archaeology in the Southeast and the Caribbean
"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
Mark S. Warner is professor of anthropology at the University of Idaho. He is coeditor of Using and Curating Archaeological Collections, Historical Archaeology Through a Western Lens, and Annapolis Pasts: Historical Archaeology in Annapolis, Maryland.
