Daughter of the lake was a strong love letter to Mother Water, and included all the emotions that are often removed from mining and its subsequent effects. Especially jarring were the multiple scenes where locals would anxiously ask the camera what would come of them once all the water was gone. Having often visited these parts of South America, I was disappointed with myself that I had not known about these tensions, and the strain it places on farmers. This film was very moving, and paired with the Argumento and Pimento reading, the themes of evolving Indigenous communities within the context of the capitalist growth mindset is one that may seem difficult to reconcile. However, the introduction of sumaq causay was one that made the decisions that Indigenous groups take more understandable. To protect water, food, and other important facets of life that others want to exploit is a noble and brave thing to take on, and shows the altruism the Quechua and other pan-American Indigenous groups take on. I found the complexity of potatoes fascinating, and wish I knew more about the varieties that I buy at the store. Potatoes are incredibly nutritious, and their deep ties to Quechua culture being overlooked in development projects continues a dangerous precedent. This is similar to what we have read about in other weeks: Mayan corn being re-sold to Mexicans, the continuation of a system that exploits those that try to conserve history through food.

Enrique Olvarez’s episode of Chef’s Table was one of the most interesting episodes I have watched from the series. Though I had heard of mole before, I had never seen it or understood what it was. The complete blackness of the mole was shocking to me, because it is not something that I normally see in the foods that I eat. I was intrigued by the food critic saying that Mexican food is generally regarded as cheap, mainly street food – I hadn’t thought of this before, but I have never been to an upscale Mexican restaurant, neither have I heard of one before Pujol.

The diversity of Mexican food was striking to me, especially the mention of chicatana ants being used in cooking and only being available in the Oaxacan coast for less than a week per year. However, this should not have been so shocking, as I knew that the food was UNESCO-designated. This is a fundamental antithesis to the type of Western food system that provides low-quality ingredients all year round. The respect and passion that Olvarez has for all the ingredients he works with show how important they are to Mexican, Mesoamerican culture. This tied into the podcast lecture, that was very informative in terms of cultural habits and the reasons why corn is so sacred to the Mesoamerican peoples. The mention of milpa (sustainable Indigenous corn agriculture) in Chef’s Table was probably one of the most important parts of the show, because it shows that there is hope in conserving traditional practices in Mexico, whilst modernizing them.

I appreciated the clarification of what was considered Latin America in lecture – I was coming into the class a bit unsure about whether some countries or specific regions were excluded from Latin America. For example, the region of Bahia in Brazil was one that was a bit of a fuzzy ground for me, given that its history is directly linked to the Atlantic slave trade, and has a dense Black population.

Belasco’s introduction to the present food system was an interesting analysis on the development of peoples’ attitudes towards food over the years. I find it bizarre to look back on the very turning point of how food is made from farm to table, especially considering how, globally, people have been returning to their kitchens to learn basic cooking skills as of the last few months. Honestly, I unfairly hold a lot against all the people who played a part in the overhaul of the food system to the food-industrial complex, because of all the miscellaneous allergies, intolerances and mystery reactions to food that I and the majority of my friends have. It is no coincidence that we are all ill at a time where even the most basic of food has suffered so many changes, and even the savviest consumer can be duped at the grocery store. We have replaced slow cooking with fast shopping, and we don’t even have the time to check in with ourselves and see how what we are eating is affecting our bodies and mental states. I recently listened to Michael Pollan’s new audiobook Caffeine (which might be of interest to others who, like me, are blindly dependent on coffee) and what stuck with me the most was how much more aware he was of how caffeine affected him after drinking a coffee three months after completely quitting coffee. I know it’s idealistic, but I found myself fantasizing about being able to do an elimination diet with food that no longer exists: food that never saw endless chemical and genetic changes, Indigenous food, food that everyone lived off that didn’t make them sick.