Tag Archives: maize

10/15/23

Late Thoughts on Menus

This week’s readings on Cookbooks and Menus were honestly thrilling reads. As I have shared in class, I am very passionate about food and the food industry, having worked both back of the house in the kitchen and front of house as a server for over 5 years. One particular point I really enjoyed from Gora’s reading is the mention that menus are contracts of sorts, that lay out what customers can expect from a given restaurant. I had never thought of menus this way, as contacts, but it’s true. I am realizing that menus are also grounds upon which the customer-staff power dynamics are played out: they protect me as the server by providing me a guideline that I cannot deviate from, and they protect the customer by informing them about allergens, ingredients, and often, restaurant policy (ie, often menus will have fine print saying “gratuity automatically applied to groups over X”, etc.).

It was also fun to do the activity with the Alimentaria Mexicana menu. Our in-class discussion and Tamara sharing about the fancy restaruant she went to in Mexico City (I’m sorry, I forgot the name!) made me think about this restaurant I have been hearing about in El Salvador. It’s a new restaurant called El Xolo / El Xolo Maíz / El Xolo – Maíz Criollo (all the same place folks!). Here is their website.  It is located at MUNA, the National Museum of Anthropology, in one of San Salvador’s nicest, safest, richest neighbourhoods. The restaurant is currently #91 in the Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants list. The title of the website is “El Xolo – An Homage to Criollo Maíze and to Local Produce”, and their ‘About’ section speaks of using ingredients originating from indigenous Salvadoran communities, “removing intermediaries to create a direct impact in our producers, dignifying their work and supporting them in the development of better agricultural practices.”

I have never been to El Xolo, but I would like to. I have heard that they have a set menu for each night, and that a dinner meal costs about $50 usd, plus any extras and drinks. Although I commend that they even mention respecting and supporting indigenous producers on their website, as this is not usual in Salvadoran society, their prices do not create a welcoming feeling to the average Salvadoran. Indigenous communities in El Salvador are largely overlooked, and live mostly in rural, poverty-stricken regions. It makes me wonder, who is the tartget customer base for this restaurant? Is it upper-class Salvadorans who often descend from the same oligarch families that have contributed to the displacement of indigenous communities and dispossession of indigenous lands to grow coffee plantations? Or is it the foreign visitors who stay at the Sheraton Presidente hotel, located just minutes up the street from MUNA? I do not think it’s Salvadorans, and much less indigenous or rural communities, who often receive just around $50 usd as their monthly government pension.

Check out El Xolo and tell me what you think. How does their website compare to the Alimentaria Mexicana’s website, especially given the context of each restaurant? Would be interesting to hear your thoughts.  See you all in class soon!

10/3/23

Reencuentro and the Importance of Food – Reflection of Lix Lopez Visit

Elder Lopez’ visit this past Thursday was truly a gift. Prior to this term, I was not aware of the Mayan in Exile Garden at UBC. Learning about this space from Elder Lopez left me feeling hopeful, as it was a lesson of the positive impacts that result from Indigenous self-determination and Indigenous food sovereignty.

When reflecting on the visit, I think back to the concept of “desencuentro” that we learned about in class. As explained by Tamara, there is a desencuentro, a misunderstanding or non-meeting, between different cultures and different ways of knowing. Namely, there is a desencuentro between the oral and the lettered: lettered cultures clash with cultures that rely on orality. In class I brought up how lettered cultures, by not recognizing ‘other’ ways of knowing, like those of oral cultures, deny themselves an expansion of knowledge. It was an honour to learn about how Elder Lopez, when faced with the desencuentro between his Mayan worldview/traditions and Canadian/Western society and worldviews, resisted and made his way back to his ancestral roots to eventually become a Ceremonial Knowledge Keeper. It is exciting that, thanks to the Mayan Garden, future generations of Mayan children will be able to experience a reencuentro and learn about their ancestral culture at the garden.

Elder Lopez’ visit also responds to the central and recurring themes we’ve touched on in class: The importance of food, and the importance of studying food. Near the beginning of his presentation, I was excited to hear Elder Lopez talk about how when people have safe food supplies, they can build empires. This idea is what has sparked my passion for food security and especially Indigenous-led initiatives toward food security. Moreover, food and the cultivation of food crops have been central to the preservation of Elder Lopez’s, as well as his community’s, traditional knowledge. One of my favourite moments of the presentation was near the beginning, when Elder Lopez spoke about how all the generations before him, all of his ancestors, had gardens, and so gardening is in his blood. In this way, food and the cultivation of food is also spiritual, and has the ability to both connect us to something bigger than ourselves while also leading us back to our roots and ancestors.

I am enjoying learning new ways of studying food, such as approaching food and food crops with the knowledge that they have spirits, that they hold knowledge.

Something to reflect on: Has the way you approach food and food crops changed as we learn about the role of maize in Mayan society? Are you more likely to wonder about the soul of the vegetables/plants that you are eating?

09/4/23

Welcome!

¡Hola y bienvenides a LAST315! We’ll be using the blog throughout the semester to reflect on readings and discuss course materials before/after class. Your first task will be to compose and post your own “I am from” poem to begin thinking about our relationship to food and the land. See Tamara’s “I am from radishes” below for an example (instructions are under Canvas Modules).

Looking forward to learning together this term!