UVM Oaxaca 2015: Part 1: Food Systems

Buenas noches friends and family!

The past few weeks, Food Systems students have been traveling through the pueblos of Oaxaca, learning to cook from the pros, and of course, eating a lot (or what we like to call it, "quality control"). After our week of online courses, a UVM Anthropology and Food Systems professor, Dr. Teresa Mares, was able to visit Oaxaca to teach her course during UVM's Spring Break week. This part of the course, titled Migration, Culture, and Cuisine, was focused on the connection between food and culture and how food can be a way to describe certain cultural traditions and social relationships. By "intentionally hanging out" at three different markets in Oaxaca, purchasing ingredients from each, observing social relations at markets, building a glossary of common Oaxacan ingredients, conducting taste tests, and recording our observations, we became more familiar with the social importance of food, cooking, and consumption. Our readings were particularly informative; we learned a bit about the history of Mexican cuisine and how it has come to include an evolving set of ingredients and influences, rather than an unchanging list of common dishes.

Rosie making the foam of Tejate

One of our favorite field trips with Teresa was visiting Huayapam, a small town about 15 minutes outside of the city. There we learned how to make a Oaxacan beverage that dates back to pre-Hispanic times called Tejate. A mixture of roasted cacao, corn dough, and flor de cacao, this unique combination is topped off with a hand-whipped foam that indicates the quality of that batch and the talent of the tejatera. We helped to roast and shell the cacao beans, grind them on a traditional metate, and watch in amazement as Rosie used her hands, cold water, and gravity to create the foam. After, we even got to help make homemade pizza in a wood-fire oven for lunch!

The next week, we transitioned from Teresa's class to Dr. Cynthia Belliveau's. During this part of the course, we are concentrating on actual cooking processes and observing the way that traditional recipes are made. After finishing a final exam for Teresa's class, we had a closing comida at La Olla restaurant in the city and discussed how the different parts of this one course intersect.

Harvesting peas at Capulalpam

Later that week, we practiced our chopping skills with Cynthia and learned how to really cut an onion! It is a much more specific practice than one might think. This past weekend, all of the Food Systems students, plus Cynthia and the Assistant Program Director Claire, traveled up to Capulalpam de Méndez (Pueblo Magico, the entire group visited this pueblo at the end of January) to observe an incredibly talented Oaxacan cook, Doña Tecla. After making a quick snack of memelas, we set out to work on making Mole Verde. The first steps of this process were harvesting and shelling peas from the fields behind the house, then the cooking began! It took the entire afternoon to make this flavorful dish, and it was accompanied with chicken, rice and fresh tortillas. We all enjoyed the fruits of our labor (and Doña Tecla's talent) together in the late afternoon. Later that evening, we took roasted cacao to the local mill and made chocolate! We tried our artistic skills by shaping the still-warm chocolate into all sizes. The next morning, we were able to have one more "lesson" before we headed back to the city. With the leftover mole from the day before, we made empanadas for breakfast with fresh tortillas. We were sad to leave the beautiful, quiet pueblo (and the amazing fresh tortillas), but were happy to be back in the city and are ready to start our week of cooking class with Cynthia!