Ancient Foods in a Modern World By Andi Sciacca
Imagine a kitchen without knives, a cooler, or a stove. Consider a time and place where the only tools available to you were what you could make with your own hands, fashioned from bits of stone, wood, animal bone, antler, pine pitch, and moss. Envision a day spent gathering seeds and greens, spear throwing for practice and sport, and creating pigments for paintings that depict the story of the hunt. Or, picture yourself scraping honey from the comb, chewing on the soft wax, and joining a group of your friends to share fermented cider while discussing ideas of importance to your community. Now, imagine this happening at the CIA’s Hyde Park campus overlooking the Hudson River, not thousands of years ago, but in 2013! On Saturday, September 21, a group of CIA faculty, students, and staff were treated to a full day of planned activities and tastings focused on ancient food preparation methods. The theme, “Feasting & Foraging: Ancient Methods for Modern Times,” was the culmination of several months of careful planning under the direction of Dr. Maureen Costura, CIA associate professor of liberal arts.
trying out the aTL-atl
student-made primitive tools
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comparing honey from different locales