Tag Archives: corn

Book Preview–Milpa: From Seed to Salsa, Oaxaca Food, Recipes, Sustainability

When I visited photographer Judith Cooper Haden in her Santa Fe home recently, she showed me the final proofs for Milpa: From Seed to Salsa, Ancient Ingredients for a Sustainable Future. The book explores the Mesoamerican way of growing, cooking and eating food.

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The photography is stunning! Four years in the making, the book is a collaborative visual narrative filled with pictures that touch your heart, delicious recipes you’ll want to cook, and cultural commentary to understand more about how Oaxaca’s original people grow their food and the risks associated with environmental devastation.

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The book will be ready for printing, distribution and purchase shortly. It is a combined effort by community development organizer Phil Dahl-Bredine, Jesus Leon Santos, Goldman Environmental Prize winner and director, Center for Integral Small Farmer Development in the Mixteca (CEDICAM), cultural photographer Judith Cooper Haden and chef/teacher/author Susana Trilling.

You can pre-order this book today!

haden.judith@gmail.com, 505-984-9849 USA

With 289 pages and 267 photographs and bilingual presentation, it explores food issues, presents mouth-watering recipes, and offers stunning documentary photography about how the ancient agricultural knowledge and the wealth of 1,000 year-old seeds and planting practices are being revived in the environmentally devastated Mixtec region of Oaxaca. Through example, the narrative can help us meet the ecological, health and food crises of today.

This is a taste of what is to come.

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Judy Haden says, “I had no idea I was initiating a 4-year long odyssey when I asked Phil Dahl-Bredine, a 14-year resident in the Mixteca Alta, if I could somehow help him and the non-profit CEDICAM.  This first discussion over hot chocolate on the Zócalo quickly became the seed of a ‘political cookbook’ that incorporates Phil’s thought-provoking essays on local food and international sustainability issues, heritage seeds and the ill effects of GMO’s, Susana Trilling’s tasty and carefully tested traditional recipes from our Mixtecan cooks/contributors, and my own images.

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“The sepia portraits and the color food shots are, I think, so helpful in really understanding the conditions and the situation in the Mixteca Alta (a short hour north of Oaxaca City). Susana and I traveled to many small towns and villages over two years to interview the members of CEDICAM (http://www.cedicam-ac.org/) and spend hours with them learning and documenting their delicious recipes, and the planting of the crops. We visited feast days, religions holidays and private homes. Our plates were always full! 

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“The book is divided into different sections based on each milpa crop. As Charles C. Mann explained in 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, “A milpa is a field…in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melon, tomatoes, chilies, sweet potato, jícama, amaranth,and mucana….Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary.”

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The book has received heart-warming advance endorsements from many people, including Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter Lila Downs, vegetarian chef and author Deborah Madison, agro-economist Miguel Altieri, photographer Phil Borges, Chef Iliana de la Vega, seedsman Steven Scott/Terroir Seeds and food author Peter Rosset. This is very gratifying to the authors after working so long and hard on this project.

Milpa: From Seed to Salsa is an extraordinary book in many ways. It is a hopeful book that shows in careful detail how extremely well the old ways of farming and living in community can not only feed rural populations but also provide them with medicine and fodder for animals.  This is a viable alternative to big agriculture and so-called improvements from elsewhere; this is a fine example.

Milpa is also a remarkable book because, like the community of families that tends the milpa fields, this book is product of cooperation among some very extraordinary people—two activists, a chef, and a photographer, who all found a way to bring to light a story of hope with great wisdom and beauty, with the cooperation of the Mixtec community who live the life this book allows us to witness. I am so grateful for this book. It is a treasure.

~Deborah Madison, Chef, Writer, Teacher, James Beard Award winner.

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Judith Cooper Haden with Mixteca women

The book is bilingual (Spanish and English), with 290 pages and 276 images. It is beautifully printed in full color. Regular retail is $40.  Pre-orders through August 31st receive a 10% discount and a signed copy….and the first 25 pre-orders will receive a free 5”x7” brown-toned image from the book.  Shipping is additional. We use USPS Media Rates. Ship date is late September 2015. For orders and additional info, please write to:  

Judith Cooper Haden, haden.judith@gmail.com

The Season for Blue Corn in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca

This morning I awaken to the smell of the wood fire.  The smoke drifts through the air like a voice into my sleeping room, calling me. Magdalena is at the outdoor comal preparing tortillas.  This is the season for blue corn.

This is ancient corn — maize — organic, grown from kernels cultivated here in the Tlacolula Valley for 8,000 years.  In 2010, UNESCO named the archeological site and caves at Yagul as a World Heritage Site.  Here, they found evidence of corn cobs in the caves as the indigenous population shifted from hunter-gatherers to farmers, laying the foundation for cultivated agriculture in all of Mesoamerica.

This particular blue corn that Magda uses is grown on a rancho in the foothills outside of Teotitlan del Valle on the road to Benito Juarez in the Sierra Madre del Sur, an hour up the mountain.  She buys it already ground and then mixes the masa to the consistency of her liking, adding water to the dry corn powder.

  

Then, she will take a fist-full from the larger balls of dough, put it on the metate, knead it by hand, then knead it with the mano de metate (the granite stone that looks like a rolling-pin).  She will then form a small ball and put it between two pieces of yellow plastic and form it into the tortilla shape on the tortilla press.  Lots of upper body work!

Corn is sacred.  It is the sustenance of life. Indigenous corn is pure, not hybridized by Monsanto, and is full of nutritional value.  When eaten with beans and squash, it forms a complex protein.  Chef Susana Trilling and photographer Judith Cooper Haden are vocal advocates in Oaxaca for the anti-Monsanto movement. working in the Mixteca to preserve indigenous corn and the milpa crop-growing traditions.

Coming Up, April 2-9: Portrait Photography Workshop

Last night for dinner I ate this blue corn with organic lettuce and tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and lime juice, a hunk of Oaxaqueño cheese, and black beans.  I could taste the earthy deliciousness.  The coarse bits of corn told me this was real food.

Of course, it takes Magda’s wise and skilled hands to create this wonder.  She is now close to 70 years old.  Women live here until well into their 80’s and 90’s.  She is carrying on a tradition that not many of the younger generation will adopt.  It is hard work.  The outdoor fire is stoked with wood gathered from the campo (countryside).  The labor of tradition is in the souls of the grandmothers.

Soon it will be time for breakfast and we will eat this wonderful flat corn bread.  I can hardly wait!

Coming Up, April 2-9:  Portrait Photography Workshop.  There’s a space for you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tribute to the Women of Oaxaca by Lila Downs. Disfruta bien! Enjoy!


“Era importante para mí hacer un tributo a algunas mujeres de mi país que muelen maíz y lo llevan al canto y lo celebran como un milagro que a mí me ha inspirado mucho para poder seguir caminando y cantando.” ~ Lila Downs

“It was important for me to honor the women of my country that grind corn in song and celebrate it as a miracle that inspired me a lot to keep walking and singing.”~ Lila Downs

Video footage filmed in the Tlacolula valley of Oaxaca and the village of Teotitlan del Valle. Disfruta bien! This is where I get to live. Thank you Lila Downs and Paul Cohen for all you do.

Upcoming Oaxaca workshopscreative writing, photography, weaving and natural dyes — give you this sense of place.

Read more about the traditional trajes (costumes, dress) worn by Mexican women with commentary by Sheri Brautigam on Living Textiles of Mexico.

So Easy Recipe for Homemade Organic Corn Tortillas + Yummy Mini-Quesadillas

Mini-quesadilla on a Talavera de la Reyna plate

Who would have thought that making fresh corn tortillas would be so easy?  I have watched for years as Magda takes her organic corn kernels to the local molina (corn grinder) in Teotitlan del Valle, then adds lime and salt, mixes the dough, tenderly pats out the little corn circles by hand, and tends them with her thumb and forefinger at the hot comal in the garden kitchen.  I make a mental note:  Too much trouble.  Easier to buy them. But it doesn’t have to be like that!

I discovered the simplicity of homemade tortillas during the cooking class I recently took with Pilar Cabrera Arroya, chef of La Olla Restaurant in Oaxaca.   She bought the masa (corn dough) already prepared fresh that morning at her local market.  Back at class, we used the tortilla press to make 6″ tortillas that we used for mini-quesadillas — a perfect botana (appetizer).

Testing the masa (dough) for pliability

So, back home in North Carolina I bought a similar tortilla press at my local Mexican tienda, stopped at my local organic market and purchased a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Masa Harina (not organic), followed the recipe on the bag and went to work. (Readers recommend using Gold Mine organic masa harina.)  Of course, the comal (griddle) you see below is a thin steel one that I picked up from the Tlacolula market, hauled home and then seasoned.  You might be able to find a comal like this at your local Mexican store, too.  Thinner is better for making tortillas and roasting peppers, garlic, onions, tomatoes, etc.  Season it first before using!

I use Bob's Red Mill Masa Harina (organic)

Steps for excellent, fresh and easy tortillas:

1.  Mix the dough according to package instructions.  Let it rest for an hour in a covered bowl.  Test the dough with your thumb to be sure it is soft and no cracks appear on the surface.  If needed, flick water on it, then knead to absorb moisture.  Your thumb should make a nice, soft impression!

2.  Take a small thin plastic bag that you have used to package your vegetables from the supermarket.  Be sure it is clean has has no veggie residue on it.  Cut it in half and trip off any excess.  Lay one half on the bottom of the tortilla press.

Dough ball is centered on plastic

3.  Heat your comal on a medium-high burner.  Do not add oil.  The comal should be dry.

4.  Form a 1-1/2″ to 2″ ball of masa with your palms.  Center it on top of the plastic.  Lay the second sheet of plastic on top of the ball.  Press.  Flip the plastic covered dough to the other side and press again.  Flip and press again (3x).

5.  Lift the plastic encased dough off the press.  Gently remove one side of the plastic.  Careful, don’t tear the edges of the tortilla!  Then, remove the second sheet.  Place on the hot comal.

Gently peel the plastic from the tortilla

6.  Good things come in 3’s!  Pilar says to cook the tortilla on one side for about 30-45 seconds, turn it, cook again, and then turn it and cook one more time.  I like a little color on my tortilla, so you can watch to see how well you like it done.  There should be little bubbles on the surface of the first side, then the second side should be smooth and a little puffy.

Cook tortilla until it begins to puff, turning 3x

Lay tortilla onto hot comal (no oil)

7.  Make a little quesadilla:  use Oaxaca string cheese (quesilla) or a slice of Swiss or Monterrey Jack cheese.  Put the tortilla back on the hot comal.  Add the cheese, a tablespoon of green salsa verde, chopped onion or scallion, a sprig of cilantro, and Buen Provecho!

Quesadillas with fresh corn tortillas hot off the comal

And the taste is so much better than what you could buy in the store.  Plus, this would be a great party activity — make your own tortillas!

P.S.  Come to Oaxaca with us for the 2011 Day of the Dead Documentary Photography Expedition led by Bill Bamberger.  Register today!

NAFTA, Hybrid Corn, Oaxaca Milpas and Climate Change: Which Corn Will Survive?

June 16, 2010, The Nation, Retreat to Subsistence by Peter Canby

http://www.thenation.com/article/36330/retreat-subsistence

Here is a lengthy and worthwhile article written about the breakdown of NAFTA promises and the pressure on the indigenous Oaxaca farmer to give up small plot farming of native corn, beans and squash (milpas) in favor of supposedly more highly productive hybrid corn.  Never mind that it takes fossil fuel energy in the form of chemical fertilizers to feed hybrid corn.  Never mind that insecticides and herbicides required for this type of farming destroy the wild herbs and vegetables that could be the source for food evolution and seed adaptation.  The author suggests that it is the indigenous farmers who will develop the crops that will sustain drought, heat, cold, etc. because they will need to continue to feed their families and communities.  Just as maize was cultivated 8,000 years ago, the evolution of food will continue as long as adaption is politically and economically supported.