Europe-Mexico. Discussion w Gene Anderson

In a comment Gene Anderson asked me to expound on my agreements and disagreements with his introduction to the cuisine of the Maya. I am not going to concentrate on the agreements because our area of agreement is enormously large. Let me just talk about half a dozen points where I want to disagree or push Gene further. I’m sure Gene as much as I would love it if other people jumped in to the discussion.

One. Bakeries. Gene states more than once that the Mexican bakery tradition began with French influence in the 19th century. Or perhaps, to correct that, that if there were bakeries before, there was a break in the late 19th century.

I have always been dubious about this widely held belief. So far as I can tell, the major grades of European bread were made in Mexico but very soon after the conquest. At the top end there was white bread in the form of rolls, the precursors  of today’s bolillos. At the bottom end, were semitas made of the leftovers of the better classes of bread. Perhaps breadmaking changed in the late 19th century but if it did, it was to incorporate changes that were occurring all across Europe. The croissant type roles were brought to France at about the same time that they perhaps. In Mexico.

Two. Pork butchery and processing. I need to look at the references that Gene offers for or processing in Chiapas. One of the things that strikes me possibly about Mexican cuisine is how little of the pork processing of Spain  made it to Mexico. Many of the processed pork products, apart from chorizo and longaniza that now exist were brought by Spanish migrants in the late 19 and mid-20th centuries.

Three. Rice and rice pilaff. I agree that rice pilaf was a relatively late late development in the Islamic world. The whole history of rice in Mexico remains  totally obscure.

Number four. Roots. I would love gene to say more about roots in the Maya region. It seems to me that one of the huge divisions in Latin American cuisines is between the root cuisine of the low lands of central and south America and the maize cuisine of mesoAmerica and of its export to the high Andes. The African influence in America foods is much more marked where where roots cuisines were already established.

Number five. I really want to know more from Gene about who exactly were the agents of change in the Mayan region. My suspects would be, as they always are the Jesuits, the nuns particularly in the order of the Clarissas. I believe the Jesuits had plantations in my region. I also think that the Sephardic Jews were involved in the sugar  and chocolate trade. Were their large convents of nuns in the region.

Number six. Tomatoes and Chile sources. Gene  makes much of the fact that that gazapacho was a traditional Iberian dish with Mexican salsa added and that Italian spaghetti sauce was Spanish and thus Mexican tomatoes. Perhaps. I would love to see the evidence that this was what was happening. In general I am a skeptic about the Spanish picking up Mexican culinary techniques.

I think I have one more question but for now it escapes me. The session is open for comments. t

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