Maritime Foodways at Cửa Lò, Vietnam: Materiality, Coastal Knowledge and Memory from Past to Present

TRẦN Thị Kim Oanh

Maritime foodways provide a productive analytical lens for examining long-term processes of ecological adaptation and the formation of knowledge systems in coastal Southeast Asia. Grounded in a materiality-oriented and interdisciplinary approach that brings archaeology into dialogue with anthropology, this paper examines coastal culinary practices at Cửa Lò, Vietnam, not merely as subsistence strategies but as historically situated systems of material engagement with the sea, embedded within specific environmental and socio-historical structures. Situated along a monsoon-influenced coastline, Cửa Lò serves as a case study to explore how preservation techniques such as salting, fermenting, and drying marine resources emerge from sustained interactions among environment, labour, and technology. Integrating archaeological analyses of coastal subsistence with anthropological observations of contemporary fishing communities, the study considers how these practices crystallise accumulated ecological knowledge while shaping distinctive forms of social organisation. Material infrastructures, including ceramic storage vessels, salt-production methods, shoreline installations, and drying structures, are analysed as mediating frameworks through which ecological constraints are negotiated and collective identities constructed. The study emphasises the continual restructuring of coastal food practices in response to ecological and social change, while recognising their capacity to preserve mnemonic and material anchors within community life. By foregrounding the interplay among materiality, coastal knowledge, and collective memory across the deep history of coastal habitation, this paper contributes to contemporary debates on foodways in Indo-Pacific archaeology and proposes maritime cuisine as a lens for understanding the co-production of ecological knowledge and cultural identity over time.