Part 2: Preserving the Mexican Identity Through Prehispanic Cuisine

Adriana Legaspi is dedicating her life to the preservation of Mexican culture and identity by promoting the importance of traditional ingredients and dishes.  She runs the Gastrotour of Malinalco which offers participants hands-on cooking classes and tours of the market in Malinalco to buy organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

What follows is the second part of our interview with Adriana Legaspi.

How have processed foods affected the average diet in Mexico?

Unfortunately, the diet of the average Mexican has reached an extreme point. In fact, the problem of infantile obesity is particularly egregious; we hold the dubious title of  the highest rates of childhood obesity in the world. Fats in fried food are added to our main carbohydrate, corn. The fats add flavor to tacos, quesadillas, tlacoyos, memelas, sopes, etc. but also tons of calories to the daily diet of thousands of office workers and blue collar workers who eat out everyday.

Despite the provenance of a precolumbian diet where animal fats were practically non-existent, (as were refined sugars other than fructose and honey from bees or ants,) we cannot conceive nowadays of a life without our daily ice cream, candies of all types, sweetened cereals, commercial foods, dairy products laden with salt and other chemicals to preserve them. And the worst of it is the ubiquity of junk food and the deplorable fast-food companies that arrived in Mexico 20 years ago and have made a killing far beyond their wildest expectations. Adding to this situation is the decrease in physical activity of the average Mexican, whether it be the rural person who has come to the city or the office worker, neither of whom has the opportunity to walk or exercise.

Traditional food, on the other hand, has ritual meaning and a built-in societal code of reciprocity such as communal cooking on saints' days or for weddings. Today, all of that has been lost. Mole, for example, is eaten not just for festive occasions, but rather anytime and everywhere. In the past, food like this, as well as all manner of desserts, was reserved for important events.

During colonization, the local tradition of corn gave birth to dishes like the guajolota, which is nothing more than a gastronomic aberration. It is a corn tamal inserted into a wheat bread roll, accompanied by corn porridge.  Millions of Mexicans eat guajolota for breakfast.

The precolumbian diet was healthier than today's and the public health problem we're facing is undeniable. Schools and universities are doing their part to control the availability of junk food but the all-powerful interests of transnational corporations are difficult to reign in. Mexico is the number one per capita consumer of soft drinks in the world, over and above the consumption of the United States, despite our genetic propensity for diabetes. Health care and the cost of treating chronic disease arising from this lifestyle and diet will bankrupt us if something radical is not done soon.

If you could have an impact in what people eat in Mexico today, what would it be?

Simply that people should reconsider the native crops and integrate them into their diets in the manner of the native pre-colombian peoples: a preponderance of vegetables or food derived from vegetables, greatly reduced in protein derived from animals, the use of steam, oven, and comal as cooking strategies to eliminate fats and sugars.

What region of Mexico appeals to you most as a chef/cook and scholar?

In the mesoamerican way of thinking, life was one unit integrated with the sky, the underworld, life among the living and among the dead, nature, the seasons, the earth, biology, and our spiritual life. When you know this, you also know that all wealth and interest varies according to where you are.

To go to Oaxaca or Michoacan where the local ethnic groups are so present and their cuisine is so varied and colorful is an indispensable condition for anyone who, like myself, is devoted to this subject. But it's no less important to visit what was once known as Árido América (the desert states of the northern part of the country) where the pitahaya cactus blooms in flaming colors only after a rain, and in the same state of Hidalgo, in the Valle del Mezquital, seat of the Otomí tribe, you will find a magnificent variety of local resources related to the maguey, to insects, small animals, and cactus flowers.

Regarding the more personal, I cannot help but mention Malinalco, where I direct the prehispanic gastrotour and where I teach about this topic. Malinalco is a privileged area, a point of transition of two climates, one being

subtropical and the other  being high montain terrain. It is a microclimate in and of itself, where almost every native crop can grow, such that its market is a reflection of this in the precolombian manner: zapotes, mameys, calabaza flowers, chayotes, papaya, pineapples, nances, capulines, tejocotes, guava, quelites, wild mushrooms, cacahuacintle corn, cactus dressed for cooking, zompantle flowers, and so many more things that amaze the eyes. Those who participate in the tours tend to focus on photographing the markets more than anything else.

Here is where I hope to spend the rest of my days (although never in retirement) but, rather, having left the city, waiting for you to come and visit me so that we can walk its cobblestone streets, visiting its market and cooking a precolombian meal.



*Photos courtesy of Adriana Legaspi.

Planting Seeds and Promise

April memories of Laredo are of citrus trees, the creamy colored azahar (orange blossom) opening to the sun with the promise of glossy ripening oranges in the fall.  How fickle I was back then when I took for granted the proliferation of orange, grapefruit, tangerine and lime trees our father planted around the house. Is it any wonder that today I am so partial to food with a hint of orange or lime zest?  How could I have known then that I would spend the next 35 years in a place where these trees do not thrive?  This has not, however, stopped me from trying to grow them in pots in my sun room.

Three years ago, I was in San Miguel de Allende at the home of a friend, eating oranges and limes from her trees. I stashed some of the seeds in my jacket, intending to dispose of them only to find them in my pocket months later after I'd returned home. On a whim, I planted them.  And low and behold, three years later, I have a tree two-feet high growing safely in a pot indoors. It's still a mystery as to whether it will bear oranges or limes.

Were I still living in Laredo this April, I would not be craving Sopa de Lima, the recipe I am posting here. The weather there this time of year is too warm. Besides, I was not familiar with it as a child. I learned to eat this soup in the Yucatan when I traveled there as an adult. But here in Maryland, as in other northerly places, it is still chilly and a warm soup is welcoming, especially one with the fresh taste of lime.

I would have loved this soup as a child.  But I worry about children today. I'm always amazed when a child prefers a meal out of a jar over a good, warm, healthy meal.  As a teacher at a school for boys, I see this everyday.  A steaming platter of herbed roasted chicken on a bed of rice is brought to our table. And, yes, Dios mío! One or two boys at the table will turn it away, preferring instead to nibble away at peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or processed meats and cheeses.

We are grappling with a tremendous childhood obesity problem in this country for which there are many contributing factors.  I, for one, do everything I can to encourage my students to reject a diet of packaged, processed foods and jumbo-sized, sugary drinks. And while it may fall on deaf ears at the lunchroom table, I reserve hope that they will eventually develop a distaste for junk food.  It's up to us to teach our children well, as the song goes.

What strategies do you use to encourage your children to eat homemade soups or more fruits and vegetables?

Sopa de Lima

#ratingval# from #reviews# reviews

Print

Recipe Type: Soup

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 30 mins

Cook time: 1 hour

Total time: 1 hour 30 mins

Ingredients

• 1 ½ qts. chicken broth


• 3 chicken breasts without skins


• 3 corn tortillas cut into strips and fried to a golden brown


• 2 bell peppers


• 2 onions


• 5 sprigs cilantro, chopped


• cup (approximately) corn oil for cooking the bell pepper and onion


• 2 or 3 limes (preferably Mexican or Key Limes)


• A slice of Meyer lemon, for garnish (optional)


• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Boil the breasts in the broth until they are completely cooked.


2. Remove them and cut into small, bite-sized pieces.


3. Finely chop the onion and bell pepper and cook in the oil until they are soft.


4. Squeeze the juice of a lime into the soup and drop in the other two limes, sliced thinly. Assemble fried tortilla strips, chicken bits, cilantro, and onion/bell pepper mixture in the plate.


5. Pour the steaming soup over each bowel.


6. Garnish with avocado slices and a slice or lemon or lime.

Notes

This soup has a wonderful zesty punch. To make it more appealing to a child's palate, add small alphabet pasta or their favorite seasonal vegetables, chopped finely and boiled into the soup at the last minute.

Cooking with Chef Gray and St. Albans Boys

Living in the Nation’s Capital has its perks.  Among them, the springtime.   A variegated season whose spectrum of color is highlighted for a few weeks by cherry blossoms that sprout across reaching branches and then blanket entire neighborhoods in cupcake pink as the blossoms flutter to the ground.  There is also the magnificence of the historic monuments scattered around the city.  Especially notable at night is the Washington Monument, a chalky-white obelisk rising to the heavens to pierce a midnight-blue sky.

But, as the seat of American government, Washington can be a formidable place to live and work.  Lobbyists work lengthy hours when Congress is in session and working parents remain “plugged in” while they read nighttime stories to their kids.  During rush hour the collective mood on the Metro can be dour, as worker bees make their way to windowless offices in numerous and vast government buildings.

Yet, lying beneath Washington D.C.’s austerity is a bedrock of magnanimity.  Tireless advocates routinely descend on the various branches of government, steadfast in their quest to effect change for the greater good.  Countless non-profit organizations are headquartered here and serve citizens in need of clothing, shelter, food and much more.  If there are any per capita statistics, I’d like to know, but it seems there is also an abundance of successful entrepreneurs who endeavor to give back to the local community.  Though I suspect few do it quite like Chef Todd and Ellen Kassoff Gray, a dynamic husband and wife team who, among other things, own a sparkly gem of a restaurant called Equinox.

Located just a stone’s throw from the White House, the restaurant caters to a clientele consisting of Washington insiders and K Street lobbyists.  When they are not seating and serving diplomats, the Grays are busy giving back to the community in a myriad of ways. Since they opened Equinox in 1999, the Gray’s have held cooking demonstrations at local schools, teaching young people about where food comes from and instilling in them the notion that we are what we eat.  Chef Gray also collaborates with White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass to broaden the reach of the Chefs to Schools Program, an initiative to partner interested chefs around the country with elementary schools in an effort to combat childhood obesity.  The Grays have adopted D.C.’s Murch Elementary School, for example.

The Gray’s are also known for opening and managing farmers’ markets in Washington, D.C., supporting the humane treatment and slaughter of animals, and serving as volunteers on boards, including the Washington Humane Society and the Northwest Little League.  They do all this while raising their son, running Equinox, and starting up new business ventures (e.g. a catering business and a second restaurant called Watershed that is scheduled to open in April 2011.)

Gilda and I have had the privilege of observing Chef Gray cooking with elementary school children in Equinox’s bustling kitchen.

Recently, he graciously taught the children how to make a Dos Gildas recipe (guacamole and totopos) and also showed them how to grill chicken on the line, side-by-side seasoned chefs during a busy lunch hour.   And while we waited for the students to finish their lesson, Ellen Kassoff Gray (who manages the “front of the house” operations) treated us to a plate of delectable risotto arancini and eggplant frites with a spicy rémoulade.

We then sampled the children’s cooking: grilled chicken served atop mascarpone cheese grits infused with adobo chiles and served with haricot verts.  For dessert, a nibble of vanilla bean brioche bread pudding topped with toffee sauce.

Like I said, there are many benefits to living in Washington, D.C.;  namely, good food and good people.