Welcome to part 1 of the third edition of the anthropology Blog Carnival called Four Stone Hearth. Thursday is the annual American celebration of over-eating called Thanksgiving, and it seems like a good time for anthropologists to be musing on food and diet and sundry items. Think of it as a calorie-free feast! On Friday, we'll finish up part 2 of the carnival this week with Neanderthals, which I promise will be just as tasty and fat-free. In Turkey Time: Aspects of a Holiday in a Capitalist State, lexis2praxis on Anthropology.net examines the history and modern farming methods of that abused and caged icon of the Thanksgiving feast, the turkey.
Gizzard Stones and the Thanksgiving Turkey is afarensis' offering today, involving a thought-provoking quiz on the archaeological meaning of gizzard stones.
Salon's columnist Novella Carpenter confesses how she raised, killed, cooked, and ate her own turkey this year, in Diary of a turkey killer.
Will on Nomadic Thoughts uses a range of ideas and cultures to present a discourse on the things that archaeology can teach us about agriculture in Archaeology of Agriculture.
Yann Klimentidis poses some unanswered questions to the archaeological record concerning food and diet, in Food and Anthropology.
In Wired's Table of Malcontents column, John Brownlee ponders the miracles of modern science in Robot Identifies Human Flesh as Bacon, and don't miss the German video of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which of course has only a little to do with food but a laugh is always a good thing to come by these days. Green Tea at Longjing is a musing by Martin Rundqvist on tea and travel in China, in Salto Sobrius.
Kamat of Kamat's Potpourri takes us to a Dahba in northern India in his photo post, Shade and Spicy Food.
Akufu's Culture Shock Part Deux: The Oktoberfest details some of the surprising things a researcher from the Netherlands finds at an Oktober fest held in Hawai'i. Another post on Wired covers breaking news yesterday: scientists at the Institute for Plant Genomics & Biotechnology at Texas A&M have figured out a way to take the toxin out of cottonseed, briefly noted by Kristen Philipkoski in the post called Cottonmouth: A Whole New Meaning.
Mike Steinberger on Slate addresses the perfect Thanksgiving wine in an article on vintner Paul Draper, The Greatest Vintner in America.
In Myths and Uses of Clay, Paul K. Manasala of the Quests of the Dragon and Bird Clan provides us with a literary exploration of clay, cooking pots, and (gulp) geophagy.
And speaking of dragons, Bill Poser in the Language Log wonders why trading standards officials don't complain that there are no dragons in the Welsh version of the classic Chinese dish called dragon sausages, in No dragon in that sausage?
Marc Abrahams of the Annals of Improbable Research has a column in The Guardian this week on The Scholarly Pursuit of Bad Breath, which seems all too fortuitous (if a bit obscure) to not add it to the round up today. Let's not forget the Freegans among us, but be forewarned the Freegan Cooking Show will probably put you off eating all week anyway.
John Hawks, neatly encompassing both parts of the 4SH today, describes subsistence patterns identified at four Neanderthal sites in Germany, in Eemian subsistence patterns.
Too much for one day? Come back on Friday for Four Stone Hearth #3.2: Neanderthals.
Photo credits: Wild turkeys, Rudi Riet; ancient Greek Flying Spaghetti Monsters vase, A Pastafarian; Tea Shop on Rhotang Pass, India, Mahatma4711; and Nine Dragons Wall, Beijing, China, Andreas Gohr.
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