Synopsis: As explained by Elizabeth Engelhardt, foodways is a term for thinking about food in a holistic perspective that considers not foodstuffs, but the social, cultural, and economic context in which our food is produced and consumed. Foodways encompass not only what we eat, but how we prepare it, who produced it, who taught us to produce it, with whom we eat it and with whom we do not eat it.(Edge et al.) In this unit I will connect student’s prior knowledge of foods using nixtamalized corn (hominy grits and Mexican style totopos, or tortilla chips) with Mexican and Central American traditions such as tamales. Students will also learn about the cultural continuity in indigenous communities in the processing and consumption of corn between Mexico and the United States. Students will learn about the commonalities and differences between Mexican and Salvadoran tamales and related foods such as Navajo tamales and Cherokee bean bread. Students will learn how the European appropriation of maize corn divorced from its traditional processing (soaking in an alkali solution) led to widespread disease, disability and death in the American South in the first part of the twentieth century.