REFLEXIONES

PREHISPANIC AGRICULTURE AND FOODS

10 August, 2010

FOR MANY CENTURIES, IN THE MAYA AREA, local farmers have used irrigation canals and ground water recollection systems for cultivation. Their effectiveness and continuity depend on the farmers’ understanding the technology involved; the continuing need of such systems for villagers’ survival and the farmers’ ability to operate and maintain the system by themselves.

These projects could be sustained using locally available resources, a concept frequently heard in relation to modern development projects.

The Prehispanic civil engineering works deserve recognition not only for their historical value, but also for what they can contribute to improve modern engineering: specifically, their emphasis on long-term planning; efficient use of local resources; the philosophy of living in harmony with the nature; the willingness to learn from the errors and; the true sustainability of the projects.

The materials and the techniques used by the Prehispanic people are still in use today in some ways in Mexico. We are fortunate to see that Prehispanic techniques, such as the chinampas of central Mexico and the chultunes use this age-old wisdom today. These are not used to build modern constructions but the houses and cenotes in Yucatan are still in use.

Mexicans understand that their use of resources, mainly in agriculture and in nutrition provide a cultural context that still prevails in Mexico 40 centuries later.

The Mexica - called Aztecs in Western historiography - were an indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico, known today as the rulers of the Aztec empire. The Mexica were a Nahua people who founded two key city-states, Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, on raised islets in Lake Texcoco around AD 1200. After the rise of the Tenochca Mexica they came to dominate Tlatelolco, the other Mexica city-state. The Mexicas, coming south from the deserts of New Mexico occupied sites, in the 14th century, in the valley of Mexico -an area rich in lakes, whose produce (fowl of many kinds, fish, frogs, water insects, algae) they adopted with enthusiasm.

The chronicle of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who accompanied Cortés, and the illustrated work of Father Bernardino de Sahagún, written in the 1530s, are full of fascinating detail for food historians.

Fruits and Vegetables

Mexica farmers inherited knowledge of plants that had developed over thousands of years. Many more varieties of plants were originally domesticated in the Americas than in the Old World, and many of the immensely varied foods and dishes in modern Mexican cuisine today originated a long time before the Spanish arrived.

THE MEXICAS’ BASIC DIET TENDED TOWARDS VEGETABLES and fruits, supplemented by game animals, fish, wild turkeys and other birds, and various kinds of insects.

Sahagún tells us Mexicas feasted on white tortillas, grains of corn, turkey eggs, turkeys, and all kinds of fruit. He gives a list of 25 fruits, including four varieties of sweet potato, sweet manioc, avocados, and cacti. He said that the Spaniards flinched from chocolate at first, but when the Mexicas set the example they drank and found it good.

Mexica diet featured a diversity of chiles, with a wide range of flavors and hotness. Chiles are important sources of vitamins A and C, and also serve as condiments and stimulants. Among the more well-known spices were Chenopodium or epazote, coriander and sage.

Squashes and calabashes (used as containers) were a third important crop.

Squash seeds were eaten in several forms. The Mexicas raised several varieties of onions, as well as xictomatl or red tomatoes, and tomatl green tomatillos. Avocados were also common

Sweet potatoes or camohtli, were grown as an important root crop.

The jicama was eaten raw, steamed or stewed with other ingredients in a variety of dishes

Peanuts and popcorn were other significant elements in the diet.

The Mexicas chewed gum (chicle), bitumen, and other natural gums to clean their teeth.

Many fruits were cultivated, including mamey, white and black zapotes, cherimoyas, guavas, and custard apples. Other important vegetable crops were, the pitaya cactus, and the maguey agave, whose fermented juice provided pulque, and whose baked leaves became a candy-like sweet, still sold in markets in Mexico and eaten by children and adults.

CORN WAS THE STAPLE FOOD OF THE MEXICAS and the focus of a large part of their religion. The food value of corn was greatly enhanced by the process called nixtamalization: mixing the corn kernels with lime and water. Corn is a remarkable plant whose domestication made possible the evolution of Mesoamerican civilizations. It exists in many different varieties, adapted to specific local conditions of soil and climate, and it can grow nearly everywhere in Mesoamerica except for the cold high mountains. Corn was eaten in a variety of forms. Most common was the tortilla, cooked on a comal, a clay griddle. Tortillas could be eaten fresh or they could be stored for later use, including meals eaten away from home by farmers, merchants, soldiers, or other travelers. Also popular were tamales, a more ancient, steamed food. Other forms in which the Mexicas ate corn were atole, a thin gruel of fine corn flour in water flavored with chilies or fruits; pozole, a soup or stew containing large corn kernels (hominy); and elote or corn on the cob.

BEANS WERE SECOND ONLY TO CORN IN THE MEXICA DIET. Like tortillas, they were served at every meal. Beans and chia were important enough to figure as items of tribute paid to the Mexica state, as were huatli (amaranth) and squash seeds. The seeds of domesticated chia and amaranth plants, a very high protein grain, were ground in the same manner as corn and eaten in several ways. The Mexicas shaped huatli dough into small figures of the gods and ate them on ritual occasions. Amaranth leaves were also eaten as greens, and chia seeds were pressed to extract oil

The culinary sophistication of the Mexicas is apparent from the extraordinarily long list of spices and flavorings which they would use with chocolate. The Ancient Mexicas used many substances to flavor their chocolate drink. Drinking chocolate without adding flavorings, spices and other additions was almost unheard of. One of the most popular additions was powdered chile. Vanilla, extracted from the pods of a species of orchid, was among the most esteemed flavorings. Chocolate was prepared by grinding roasted cacao beans, sometimes with parched corn added as filler, and them mixing the powder with vanilla orchid pods or sweetened with honey. Like tea and coffee, this beverage is rich in caffeine. Flowers were popular flavorings. Chocolate was generally consumed cool, not hot like we Americans do today.

Nopal, the prickly pear or tuna cactus, was cultivated in the Valley of Mexico for its sweet succulent fruit and paddle-shaped leaf, which was a popular vegetable once the spines were removed.

Dogs, turkeys, and the Muscovy duck were the only domesticated animals in ancient Mesoamerica. All were used for food. Together with meat from large animals they made only a minor contribution to the Mexica diet. The Mexicas also fished and hunted wild game, but again these food sources were limited. The Spanish introduced sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and horses. Archaeologists do find the bones of fish, deer, rabbit, iguana, dog, turkey, and other animals in Mexica domestic trash deposits, but rarely in dense concentrations.

EARLY SPANISH OBSERVERS NOTED THE WIDESPREAD use of insects among the Mexicas, including ants, grasshoppers, maguey worms, and jumil bugs. Insects are high in protein, tasty, and could often be harvested in large numbers.

The Mexicas also gathered great amounts of blue-green spirulina algae from the surface of the lakes. This algae, known as tecuitlatl, is extremely high in protein, grows rapidly, and abundantly, and is easy to harvest with fine nets. Spirulina has been considered a Superfood because it contains the most remarkable concentration of nutrients known in any food, plant, grain or herb. It's the highest protein food: over 60% all digestible vegetable protein. It has the highest concentration of beta carotene, vitamin B-12, iron and trace minerals and the rare essential fatty acid GLA. These make spirulina a great whole food alternative to isolated vitamin and minerals.

THIS IS HOW SAHAGÚN DESCRIBED THE MEXICA street markets:

"He sells meat tamales; turkey meat packets; plain tamales; tamales cooked in an earth oven; those cooked in an olla...grains of Corn with chile, tamales with chile...fish tamales, fish with grains of Corn, frog tamales, frog with grains of Corn, axolotl with grains of Corn, axolotl tamales, tamales with grains of Corn, mushrooms with grains of Corn, tuna cactus with grains of Corn, rabbit tamales, rabbit with grains of Corn, pocket gopher tamales: tasty, tasty, very tasty...Where it’s tasty, it has chile, salt, tomatoes, squash seeds: shredded, crumbled, juiced. He sells tamales of Corn softened in wood ashes, the water of tamales, tamales of Corn softened in lime--narrow tamales, fruit tamales, cooked bean tamales,; cooked beans with grains of Corn, cracked beans with grains of Corn; broke, cracked grains of Corn. [He sells] salted wide tamales, tamales bound up on top, [with] grains of Corn thrown in; crumbled, pounded tamales; spotted tamales, pointed tamales, white fruit tamales, red fruit tamales, turkey egg tamales, turkey eggs with grains of Corn; tamales of tender Corn, tamales of green Corn, brick-shaped tamales, braised ones; plain tamales, honey tamales, bee tamales, tamales with grains of Corn, squash tamales, crumbled tamales, Corn flower tamales.

The food seller sells tortillas which [are] thick, thickish, thick overall, extremely thick; he sells thin [ones]--thin tortillas, stretch-out tortillas,; disclike, straight...with shelled beans, cooked shelled beans, uncooked shelled beans; with shelled beans mashed; chile with Corn, tortillas with meat and grains of Corn, folded with chile—chile-wrapped, gathered in the hand; ashen tortillas, washed tortillas. He sells folded tortillas, thick tortillas, coarse tortillas. He sells tortillas with turkey eggs, tortillas made with honey, pressed ones, glove-shaped tortillas, plain tortillas, assorted ones, braised ones, sweet tortillas, amaranth seed tortillas, squash tortillas, green Corn tortillas, brick-shaped tortillas, tuna cactus tortillas; broken, crumbled, old tortillas; cold tortillas, toasted ones, dried tortillas, stinking tortillas.

He sells foods sauces, hot sauces; fried [food], olla-cooked [food], juices, sauces of juices, shredded [food] with chile, with squash seeds, with tomatoes, with smoked chile, with hot chile, with yellow chile, with mild red chile sauce, yellow chile sauce, hot chile sauce, with "bird excrement" sauce, sauce of smoked chile, heated [sauces], bean sauce; [he sells] toasted beans, cooked beans, mushroom sauce, sauce of small squash, sauce of large tomatoes, sauce of ordinary tomatoes, sauce of various kinds of sour herbs, avocado sauce.”

In Yucatan, the Maya stored their crops in above-ground cribs of wood, but also in fine underground places which might well be the chultuns so common in Classic sites.

The larger mammals, such as deer and peccary, were hunted with the bow-and-arrow in drives. Birds like the wild turkey, partridge, wild pigeon, quail, and wild duck were taken with pellets shot from blow guns. A variety of snares and deadfalls are shown in the Madrid Codex, especially a trap for armadillo.

IN YUCATAN, FISHING WAS GENERALLY OF THE offshore kind, by means of sweep and drag nets and hook-and-line, but fish were also shot with bow-and-arrow in lagoons. Inland, especially in the highland streams, stupefying drugs were pounded in the water, and the fish taken by hand once they had floated into artificial dams. Along the coasts the catch was salted and dried or roasted over a fire for use in commerce.

We seldom realize all the foods that had their origin in the Americas and particularly in the region of Mexico. The presence of the Spaniards, their adventurous spirit, their desire to share in their stories of arrival, and the great demand for new foods in Europe, all contributed to a constant flow of new food species form the New World to Europe and its adaptation to the local cuisines of many European countries and, later on, around the world.