Foraging, home gardening, and large-scale cultivation yielded products consumed at every level of ancient Maya societies, albeit in varying proportions. For decades, researchers have carefully documented minuscule botanical residues, from chemical signatures to visible seeds. Some plants have proven more detectable—and delectable—than others, and/or of more interest than others. Better-known annual fruit and seed crops were complemented by geophyte crops like manioc and sweet potato, homegarden resources like achiote and nance, and foraged foods like hoja santa and hackberry. Ancient Maya people across the Lowlands used these plants to great culinary effect, and sometimes in artistic representation and sacred ceremony. Gustatory experiences, as suites of culinary qualia, became intelligible through a number of routes. In ancient Maya societies, tastes were manifested in diverse cuisines, mediated by sociohistorical contexts, and iterated in the sacred and the singular as much as the quotidian and the mundane.
