Buenos días, todos!
What a whirlwind week this has been! We continued our cuisine and culture class
with Dr. Cynthia Bellevieu this week and have barely paused for breath. On Monday we went back to La Villada (the
lovely retreat center outside the city where we spent our orientation back in
Janurary). Julieta Robert, the owner and matriarch, was kind enough to let
us have free reign in her kitchen in preparation for the cooking class we would
take with her the next day. We all went to the market and then in teams
prepared caldo de verduras (vegetable
soup), salsas de aguacate, pasilla y
miltomate (three salsas: guacamole, pasilla chile, and tomatillo), tlayudas con frijoles colados y quesillo (tlayudas
with refried beans and quesillo cheese), and platános asados (grilled plantains with crema and cinnamon). It was
a delicious meal that introduced us Doña Julieta’s kitchen and expertise (she,
along with Cynthia, supervised).
On Tuesday we returned to La Villada, laden with an
incredible array of ingredients. Mole estofado, this rich
mole, made with almonds, sesame seeds, fried bread, herbs, asiento (lard), raisins, olives, and tomatoes, required three hours
of work and a trip to the public molino (mill)
to grind everything together. Served
with chicken soup and rice, it proved well worth the effort! You can find the
recipes http://oaxacanrecipeswithlove.weebly.com/. We also helped prepare lechecilla (a creamy vanilla pudding),
and horchata (an oat- and milk-based
drink with melon) to finish off the already decadent meal.
Wednesday began bright and early; at 7:45 we headed back to
Teotitlán del Valle to cook with the women of Vida Nueva (the cooperative where
they make the beautiful woven rugs). We
were divided into teams and then paired with a woman to accompany her to the
market to do the day’s shopping. Nina
and I accompanied Patrona L. to the market, where we heard our first Zapotec
words and experienced the traditional greeting of the community. Whenever Patrona encountered a friend or
acquaintance, she touched both of her hands to one of theirs. It was like a handshake without the shaking
part. We went to Patrona’s house after
the market to prepare pozole con pollo. You can find the recipe http://oaxacanrecipeswithlove.weebly.com/!
She and her husband, Juan, were lovely, offering us hot chocolate, bread,
tortillas, salsa, and fruit when we arrived.
At 2pm all the teams assembled at Vida Nueva to showcase the food they
had prepared. Ensalada de lechuga (salad), taquitos
de quesillo y papas (taquitos with cheese and potatoes), two kinds of
salsa, jugo de tamarindo (tamarind
juice), and a mango pudding rounded out the meal. Requiring a wheelbarrow to move, the Food
Systems students returned home to digest.
Thursday we visited CEDICAM, an organization located in
Nochixtlán that promotes sustainable food production and environmental
conservation in the region. They work
primarily with campesino farmers who
cultivate milpas, or the traditional
plantings of corn, beans, and squash. Thursday
marked their annual festival celebrating the milpa. It began with
speeches on improving farming practices, food security, and community
development and concluded with a gastronomic exhibition (with free food!) and a
small farmers’ market. This feria del
milpa is something unique to Mexico. While we have extension agents and
farmer conferences in fancy LEED certified buildings with catered food, this was more a celebration of success,
sharing of ideas from farmer to farmer, and especially seeds and food. Everyone
group or organization who came to the festival brought with them a cuisine of
their pueblo and seeds to share.
Friday morning marked the end of journeys through the
cuisine of Oaxaca and the beginning of our study into the production side of
things with Vern Grubinger’s class on tropical farming and gardening. We spent
the morning wrapping up our key experiences and writing reflections on our
experiences with Oaxacan cuisine. After heading home to eat comida for the
first time all week, we headed to the Central de Abastos market, the largest of
Oaxacan markets (also the less tourist friendly).
Abastos is where everyone gets their products to sell in the
smaller markets, with produce coming from all over Mexico and even some apples
from Washington. We spilt into groups to investigate food sourcing for
vegetables, fruits, and meats. Its difficult to explain the experience in
words, but you could pretty much buy anything you could ever imagine in this
market from lumber to live chickens to plastic to electrical parts. Any if you
walk by a stand where you see something you like, you better buy it because you
will never be able to find the same stand again.
The next morning the food systems group as well as the
global health group took off for Juchitan, a city in the Istmo (the thinnest
landmass of Mexico between oceans). We left the city around 9 am and stopped at
a farm along the way to learn about their onion production. As soon as we got
out of the van, we all knew it was going to be a long weekend. We were merely
half way to Juchitan and the humidity and heat had already doubled. This is when
the sweat started pouring and didn’t stop. After eating some lunch on the road
we continued to Juchitan to arrive just in time for a meeting with Radio
Totopo, a community radio collective working to defend the land, sea, and water
of the indigenous populations that depend on these resources. One of the major
projects they are dealing with is the installation of wind turbines by
international energy companies all throughout their traditional farm land.
While the group supported renewable energy, the manner in which the land was
taken/rented was not something they agreed with. Additionally, the energy was
not being used for the benefit of the community as the companies had originally
told them.
The next morning we all woke up around 5:30 to go to the
famous fish market. Juchitan, being in the Istmo, is the commercial center of
southern Mexico where the land meets both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The
fish market was small but diverse with everything from octopus to turtle eggs
(yes they are technically prohibited), and fish as big as my arms.
After the
fish market we headed out to the fields to get a sense for everything the
people from Radio Totopo were telling us. The wind turbines were everywhere for
as far as the eye could see, and the electrical humming dominated the eardrum.
We would be standing in a field learning about the traditional milpa watching
oxen plow fields with wind generators forming the horizon.
After an extremely hot morning in the fields we returned to
our air-conditioned hotel rooms to relax and stay out of the heat. We all
meandered through the central city market for lunch and later some of the group
headed to a swimming hole to cool off.
Next week, you will hear about the end our trip in Juchitan
and the remainder of our studies around tropical farming and gardening.
Adios for now!
Julianna and Nina
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