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Early Fusion Food: Inside a Colonial Mexican Kitchen
© 2005 Karen Hursh Graber
Her Bio
Her Home Page
One of the rewarding aspects of investigating the history and evolution of Mexico's rich and varied cuisine is the availability of authentic sources. The Spanish chroniclers took painstaking notes on nearly every aspect of indigenous life upon their arrival, including food and cooking techniques, and continued, after the Conquest, to keep household journals, diaries and recipes. Many of these manuscripts have been carefully preserved, reflecting Mexico's pride in both its history and its food. Although printed cookbooks did not appear until after independence from Spain was won, manuscript cookbooks provide an insight into the culinary fusion of the Colonial era.
This column has covered a variety of pre-Hispanic foods and their preparation, including the many dishes based on corn, beans, chiles and Mesoamerican herbs. These gastronomic elements were combined with those brought to the New World by the Europeans to form the basis of one of the world's great cuisines.
Exploration of the fusion that took place during the Colonial period has been opened up considerably by the CONACULTA (National Counsel for Culture and Arts) publication of the Colección de Recetarios Antiguos (Collection of Old Recipes) with introductions and notes by Mexican historians. This series provides the Mexican public with glimpses into the formation of the social landscape, since cuisine played a significant part in the blending of cultures that shaped modern Mexico. Care has been taken to transcribe these hand-written pieces into texts that are very nearly complete versions of the originals, with experts like Teresa Castello Yturbide providing glossary-type guides to antiquated cooking terms.
One such volume, written in 1780, is the Libro de Cocina de Fray Geronimo de San Pelayo, the cookbook of a Franciscan friar in the kitchen of Mexico City's San Fernando monastery. The convento cooking of the Colonial nuns and friars has long been considered among the most important contributions to the development of a mestizo cuisine, and several writers and historians have delved into this area. The convent-born mole poblano alone has been the subject of a whole literary genre exploring the origins of the dish, with Salvador Novo, Paco Ignacio Taibo and others contributing to the discourse. However good these modern takes on Colonial culinary creativity may be, the 300-year-old work of a cook who hand-wrote the recipes for what was prepared in his kitchen on a daily basis is exciting for both its intimacy and authenticity.
Although the friars followed a humble diet that reflected their vow of poverty, they were ordered by Church officials in New Spain to observe a less rigid regimen, so that they would have the strength to preach. Feast day meals, however, especially those dedicated to the Virgin, were elaborate affairs.
As written by Friar Geronimo, the menus for these meals consisted of two principios (appetizers) followed by soup, ham, chicken, grilled meat, dessert, wine and fruit. In addition to the many Catholic feast days, the Franciscans especially celebrated those of the saints who had been members of their order and anniversaries of the tonsures of their prelates. There were less festive days as well, specified as "soup days" or "rice days" according to the liturgical calendar. During Lent, the friars ate lentils, potatoes, fava beans and various kinds of eggs. Friar Geronimo included a list of which dishes were appropriate for each day and, like a modern-day head chef, he kept careful count of the quantities of ingredients needed for each meal.
There were seventy friars living in the convento during the time Friar Geronimo wrote his cookbook, and the ingredients he used came from a variety of sources. Some were raised by the friars themselves, some were donated to the convento and others came from haciendas. From the chinampas, the floating gardens that were reached via canals, came fresh vegetables. The friars also went to the city's market plazas to buy products from other parts of Mexico and the coasts.
Looking through the recipes, it is clear that the author was familiar with a wide variety of both Old and New World ingredients. Many of them reflect Spanish and Arab influences, along with those of Italy and France. . . . . . ...
In reading Friar Geronimo's cookbook, it is clear that the cooks of his time had so many more ingredients and techniques to work with than either the Europeans or the Mesoamericans had before the Conquest, that the resulting culinary fusion was not surprising. The indigenous mullis evolved into the Colonial moles and clemoles and the Spanish pepper-based pebres into the rich, modern Mexican dish of the same name.
Following are recipes adapted from Friar Geronimo's versions which, like others of his time, do not provide measurements and assume that the cook is familiar with the techniques (something that many Mexican recipes still assume.) Although Marco Buenrostro and Cristina Barrios provide the book's cooking notes, with an introduction by Elsa Cecilia Frost, they have not changed the text in any way, so that all measurements and proportions provided below are my own, with a little taste of Mexican culinary history in every bite.
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Karen Hursh Graber - E-mail
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