I decided to focus this week’s reflection on the Pan de Coco Instagram story from Bryan Ford. I really enjoyed watching him make this bread because you can learn a lot about a person’s heritage or upbringing by the food they enjoy cooking. I especially love it when there is a personal story behind a dish, and as mentioned on Bryan’s blog, he grew up in Honduras where he paints a picture of a dinner table full of various soups and roasted meats, and a little unassuming coconut roll: Pan de Coco.

It’s important for these kinds of recipes to be celebrated in order to give proper representation to heritage foods like Pan de Coco. Traditional baking/cooking is underrepresented in the culinary industry, which tends to favour innovation and exciting new gastronomy techniques – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but respecting and connecting with the kind of cooking that comes from your culture is vital to the preservation of those dishes.

As a side, I also really liked how Bryan did every step of the kneading dividing, and mixing by hand. Hands are the original cooking tool, and in my opinion, the best way to make sure your food will be delicious is by connecting directly with the ingredients!

While looking through all of the new keywords this week, my attention was drawn to Mestisaje. From what I understand, it is essentially a term used to describe a person of mixed Latin American origins. It seems to me that this term is mostly a product of colonization, considering its prerequisite is the racial mixing between Latin America and other regions of the world.

Growing up, I – and most of us – were taught about European imperialism. My own racial identity is Scottish and Afro-Caribbean, where I can trace my African side back to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade when my ancestors were brought to Jamaica. Through my background, I can begin to understand the term Mestisaje in Latin America, where people who identify with this word could have been a product of Spanish or Portuguese colonization. 

With that being said, I appreciate how Mestisaje has seemingly evolved in meaning over the years. In the beginning, as highlighted by the keyword post, it used to signify the impurities of “hybrid” individuals, creating a very clear division between their Latin blood and European blood. It made sure that though they were partially European, their Latin American heritage would keep them inferior to “pure” Europeans. Today, from what I can see, Mestisaje is now a more positive term, which reflects the unique backgrounds of mixed individuals that are something to celebrate and not feel shame for. Though the wounds from colonialism are still very much apparent in many communities, I think this is a great reclamation of a once negative term.

Upon reading Roger Rumrrill’s interview with Guillermo Arrévalo and Joshua Homan’s chapter, I had heard of ayahuasca through TV shows and movies, but my knowledge didn’t go much deeper than that. I associated ayahuasca with the media stereotypes of it being just another form of tripping or awakening parts of your mind. I had a vague understanding that it was a product of South America, but I had no idea of its spiritual and healing purposes.

In Rumrrill’s interview, Sr. Arrévalo mentioned that many people come for ayahuasca treatment due to troubling things like depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues, as well as helping patients that have suffered from trauma. He uses the example of sexual assault and rape, in this case. This would indicate that ayahuasca healing is not only made for those suffering a spiritual crisis or unbalance but also those who are under psychological stress as well.

Something that really stuck out to me regarding this ayahuasca tourism was the number of people who claimed to be shamans who were administering the brew. He says “Many who say they are healers don’t know how to cure…They give the prepared potion to the client but get no results…If these European or American patients go to the liars, also, they constrain the work of real healers” (Rumrrill, 205). This could end up being dangerous for the patient, and I understand why he may be upset by this happening more often. I will say, though, that I do understand why many have turned to false shamanism. Being able to feed your family and afford a roof over your head are incredible motivators.