(Sample post by Tamara)

When Rubí Orozco Santos discusses her new project, she explains that she proposed to create a new set of poems inspired by “the practice of nixtamalization in the borderland.” This metaphor stayed with me, as it seems particularly generative and nuanced for many reasons. First, as Orozco Santos points out, nixtamal comes from Nahuatl and means “formless dough.” Thus, the word contains both alteration and enhancement (nixtamalization as the chemical softening and enrichment of corn) and potentiality and formlessness (the dough has not yet been shaped and cooked). This made me think of poetry. Both processes take crude materials (inedible corn, words) and turn them into something pleasing and palatable and nourishing. And yet, what emerges in both cases is unfinished. The “unformed dough” needs additional labour (rinsing, hulling, grinding, shaping, cooking) to be edible while the poetry needs an audience (to be read, and in some cases read aloud; to be ‘chewed’ and contemplated). By conceiving of her poetic work as ‘nixtamalized,’ Orozco Santos invites us to participate in the creation of the work.

Later, she observes that the alkaline process varies based on its geographical location; in the U.S. Southwest, juniper ash is used while the Olmec civilization employed oyster shells. I recently read that, in Chiapas, they use snail shells for this process (Chiapas 329). This detail underscores how the local land and knowledge are integral elements of the process, and thus, a widely used and far-flung technique is grounded in a particular area and community. Similarly, Orozco Santos situates her work–“the nixtamalized poetry of the borderlands” shares in a Mesoamerican past, but has established roots in a new place.

Reflecting on all of these associations, nixtamalization emerges as a particularly powerful way to think about creativity and life in the borderlands. Did you identify other reasons that this metaphor is so potent to think through “foodways and wordways”?

312 words

Bibliography

Chiapas viaje culinario. Secretaría del turismo, 2014, www.turismochiapas.gob.mx/sectur/descargables/libro/Chiapas,_viaje_culinario.pdf. Accessed 13 September 2023.

Marrufo, Richie David, host. “Episode 35: Rubí Orozco Santos.” The BWOMS Podcast, episode 35, Power at the Pass, soundcloud.com/bwoms/ep35.