Jennifer Carballo
Gen Ed 1178 | Fall 2025 | Course Listing | Canvas Site
Tuesday & Thursday, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM
How have ancient food practices shaped the ways we eat today, and how can lessons from the past help us address challenges facing the future of food?
GenEd 1178 focuses on the archaeology and history of the first 10,000 years of Mexican cuisine as our case study to explore these questions. We will examine Mexico’s diversity of food, drink, and cultures across time and space with evidence from archaeology, anthropology, climatology, botany, genetics, history, and more, to investigate how and why various changes in Mexican cuisine took place. The origins of menu items like tacos, burritos, guacamole, and margaritas reveal critical changes in global foodways—not just in Mexico—that continue to shape our everyday lives and the world as we know it today. You will leave this course with a better understanding of where your own food comes from, and how you have been impacted by changes in food and food culture, both in the distant past and more recently, as well as how some Mexican food practices are influencing models for healthier and more sustainable food systems.
We all need to eat and drink each day to nourish our bodies. Yet how often do you pause to think deeply about why you eat what you eat? Your food habits are likely influenced by family traditions, but also by a range of other factors like income, ethnicity, religion, politics, and the environment, which are facets of our lives deeply rooted in the past. What does the food we eat tell us about ourselves, as individuals, communities, and countries, and has humanity’s relationship with food changed over time? How have ancient food practices shaped the ways we eat today, and how can lessons from the past help us address challenges facing the future of food?