Dr. James Fitzsimmons

So we tend to think of like cuisine, like people like being like, oh, like we have, you know, we have like all these variety type things, right?

The concept of a staple crop

And a staple food that people just eat every day is not something that people really identify with.

I think there might be some places in the world where we have this, where it's like, oh, I conceive of rice, and that's my staple food, and I eat that every day.

Or in Mesoamerica, corn, something like that every day.

But in general, even in the places where that exists, you still think of cuisine.

And

While rulers may have had a fairly varied diet, or at least had sort of feasting diets that were somewhat varied, right?

Your average person is, yeah, they're eating some meat.

They might be eating some hunted meat.

And yes, they might have some varieties in terms of vegetables and such.

But really, they're eating a lot of corn.

And to me, that's, and they're eating it in different forms.

But again, if we look at sort of the hieroglyphs, and I'm a hieroglyph specialist, right?

Look at the hieroglyphs.

Most of what they talk about is drinking gruel.

And, and just the idea, you know, like you work on an archeological project and, um, oftentimes one of the first things that people sacrifice is food.

You know, that's like one of the things like to sort of to save money, they sacrifice food.

And so you eat the same thing, you know, over and over and over again.

And I was, I've been on projects, um, including the sort of project in the nineties.