JCH Vol. 58 No. 2 Art. 4

This article builds on the seminal work of Olive Senior and others in exploring the lives of those who built the Panama Canal during its American phase of construction (1904–1914). However, its focus is different: specifically, the spaces of food consumption created by the American regime and the ideology which underpinned this process. Using contemporary “Panama authors” as its key primary source base, it argues that the ordering of food spaces as a public health measure exposed the racist assumptions framing the endeavour — whether in the public street, the mess house, the commissary, the hotel restaurant, or “in the bush”. It shows how improvements in nutritional science, linking diet and disease, were undermined by the racist ideologies of American administrators. This ensured that local produce was relegated behind “safe” imported frozen American food and that the provision of food in the zone never adapted to meaningfully address adverse determinants by improving the attractiveness and quality of commensality for all.