For the Love of Corn

Let’s talk about food in Mexico.

I loved “Mexican food” before this trip. We would go to the Mexican restaurants in town and order tacos, burritos, quesadillas, fajitas and tamales. We loved beans and rice, and guacamole with tortilla chips. And we knew one type of mole — the one with cacao.

It turns out I knew very little about actual Mexican food. We spent a month in Mexico, mostly in the state of Oaxaca plus a few days in Mexico City. We have learned so much about local cuisine, while barely scratching the surface. 

Mexico is the birthplace of corn. This is significant not only for shaping the cuisine of the Americas, but of actually helping to shift human civilization from largely nomadic to agrarian societies. Over many generations, the brilliance of our ancestors in this region cultivated corn, redesigning this plant from producing tiny grass seeds to the robust ears we know today. 

We saw love and deep respect for corn, from how it is harvested, dried, alkalized, boiled, and ultimately milled and shaped into tortillas of all sorts. 

We saw love for the variety of corn crops, even celebrated as an interactive exhibit at the Oaxaca children’s museum.

We saw love in the embracing of the “imperfection” of huitlacoche, the spore that sometimes takes over the corn to create a brilliant and tasty fungus-ized corn.

We saw the love and respect of the maguey cactus in which every part of the plant is harvested and utilized - from the needle and thread thorny tip to the paper-like lining of the new growth, from the medicinal honey water to the processing of mezcal. 

We saw the love in the elevated Oaxacan restaurants like Tierra del Sol, Quince Letras and Levadura de Olla in which the sacred story of the food was celebrated alongside the chef’s creations — a prominent table of beloved heirloom tomatoes; cooperative climate justice work; the cooking on the traditional comal in the dining room so all can see. 

I haven’t had many chances in my life to appreciate the story of my food with such depth. I left feeling full of gratitude for these lessons. What an important reminder that our sense of cuisine in the US is often so limited (props to our friend Rogelio who posted a frustrated dinner scene with “Mexican” food from across this enormous country all jumbled together as one). 

Toby asked yesterday if there are foods in Japan apart from sushi and ramen. Here we go with a whole new education.