The Arrival of Wheat in Mexico
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76 Voices o Mexico /October • December, 1994 The arrival of wheat in Mexico n terms of subjugation, means eating not wheat or corn but expedition, with large consignments of settlement and the imposition of something bad."' grain and bread making up a key part order, Spain began building its The Conquest of Mexico was of the provisions. I new empire when Christopher prepared from Cuba at the initiative of The results of the Conquest are Columbus undertook his second the island's governor, who entrusted it common knowledge. It began in 1519 voyage in 1493. This was a genuine to one of his best men, Hernán Cortés, and was consummated two years later expedition to the Antilles consisting of a 30-year-old native of Extremadura. with the fall of the Aztec Empire in 17 ships, 1300 men and considerable Following the wise saying "con pan y August of 1521. Regional conquests quantities of cattle, seed and utensils. vino se anda el camino" (with wine were carried out subsequently, up Santo Domingo or La Española, and bread you make your way), through the 18th century with the Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica Cortés assembled an impressive conquest of Nayarit, Tamaulipas, marked the beginning of Spanish Texas and the Californias. Joseph Acosta, Historia natural occupation —as well as wheat's first y moral de In the late 16th century the las Indias, 1586-1588 (Natural and Moral ports of entry to the Americas. History of the Indies, 1586-1588), quoted in structures began to take chape which Columbus noted in his diary that it José Luis Martínez, Pasajeros de Indias would characterize the Colonial epoch was on these islands that he first tasted (Indies Wayfarers), p. 59. and consolidate the Conquest guayas, chiles or peppers (confused with Asian pepper), bread and cassava cakes —which, made from yucca root or manioc and very popular in the islands and coastal regions, were eaten by the Spaniards during their crossings to the continent since they did not have their own bread or biscuits (biscoctum or hard crackers). Father Acosta, who was evidently disgusted by them, described cassava cakes as follows: "...a thin, long and narrow cake. Dry, this is the bread they eat; it is a thing without taste and insipid.... It must be „., s,,,...-,:___7*, ›,„,..0...,..,_ moistened in order to be eaten, ...... , -- . _ because it is harsh and rough.... It --91 lasts a long time, and thus is taken by navigators in place of biscuits.... It Excerpt from Cristina Barros and Mónica del Villar, El santo olor de la panadería (The Holy Smell of the Bakery). Procuraduría Federal del Consumidor and Fernández Cueto Editores, Mexico City, 1992. A variety of European-type breads in Mexican baskets. V oices of Mexico /October • December, 1994 77 politically and spiritually, on the basis rule, it would be difficult to would have it, "If you have no of the economic and social conquest. distinguish the indigenous from the tortillas, eat bread." In rural areas the haciendas were foreign. The richness and regional Wheat had been introduced in the developed as a form of land tenure variety of this culinary mestizaje arose Antilles beforehand, with poor results and as the principal unit of in accord with-the mixtures of local due to climatic conditions; the humid production. Of particular significance products- and traditions in the tropical climate was unfavorable. As were cereal-producing haciendas colonized lands, as well as the tastes for Mexico, it is quite possible that which modified the Mexican and contributions of the Spaniards the first crops of wheat carne from landscape so that corn, beans and according to their places of origin: the shipments of grain brought by maguey cactus now shared the land Andalusia, Castile, Asturias, the Cortés, who, from early on, promoted with wheat, sugar cane, rice, barley, Basque country and Galicia. new crops both on his own lands and oats and alfalfa, among other crops. Salvador Novo contrasts the value on those of other conquistadors In the cities economic activity was of this conjunction to the greed that and settlers. slowly growing. Manufacturing centers precious metals awakened in Some chroniclers, from López de were founded, aboye all in Mexico the conquistadors: Gómara to Humboldt, helped spread City, Puebla and the Bajío region, with The most valuable thing the the legend attributing all of New cloth the foremost product. conquistadors took away from Mexico Spain's wealth in wheat to Juan Commercial and handicraft activities is certainly not gold, teocuítlatl, the Garrido. Garrido, a black man who were carried out in markets, excrement of the gods. Gold is death, some maintain was Cortés' slave or warehouses, stores and workshops. At inertia. It runs out, it hides itself, it servant, was born in Lisbon, traveled the beginning of the 17th century the remains in its own being or simply to Castile and from there embarked for following curious facts were recorded, changes from one set of greedy hands the Antilles. illustrating the kind of activities going to another. That which is good, cualli, As a conquistador he participated on at the time: there were 28 chocolate is that which feeds man and that in seizing Tenochtitlán and was factories, 13 bakeries, 68 clothes stores, which, like man, is capable of rewarded with a plot of land which 2 tailors, 3 barbers, 4 shoemakers, 7 reproducing and prospering, being was part of a tract belonging to Cortés, silver- and goldsmiths, one bookseller fruitful, being eternal, new to each located in the area currently known as and one optician for a population of spring, to each reincarnation. That is the Ribera de San Cosme. He is said to about 58,500. 2 the true and imperishable wealth.... have found three grains of wheat The 16th century can be That which does not run out: our while cleaning the rice eaten by the characterized overall as a period of seeds, plants, fruits.... 4 Spanish army. When he planted them adjustment and surrender, of clashes Of all the products that were on his plot of land, only one grain and assimilation, conquest and brought to Mexico, one in particular germinated, producing one hundred subjugation, interchange and symbolized European culture and and eighty grains, from which the mestizaje.' In this process, those sustenance: wheat, a grain that —side cereal was propagated throughout aspects related to man's production for by side with corn— would provide Mexican territory. 5 his own sustenance are among the our fields with a symbol of cultural While it would be difficult to most pleasing, valuable and enriching mestizaje. The original situation of locate the exact date that wheat was areas in both cultures. "tortillas vs. bread" gradually first sown in Mexico, we do know The result was an amazing, newly changed to "tortillas and bread" in that by 1524 significant quantities fledged Mexican cuisine in which, as a the Mexican diet, converting the were being harvested. That was the Spanish saying "If you have no year that, in a message to Spanish 2 Francisco de la Maza, La ciudad de México bread, eat cakes" (tortas) into the emperor Carlos V, Cortés requested en el siglo XVII (Mexico City in the 17th Mexican saying "If you have no Century), quoted in Georges Baudot, La vida cotidiana en la América española en tiempos bread, eat tortillas" —or as some 5 See information on Joan or Juan Garrido in de Felipe II, siglo XVI (Daily Life in Spanish Diccionario autobiográfico de conquistadores y pobladores de la Nueva America Under Philip II, 16th Century), 4 Salvador Novo, Cocina mexicana o historia (Autobiographical Dictionary of the p. 272. gastronómica de la ciudad de México España Conquistadors and Settlers of New Spain), 3 Mestizaje: the process of racial and cultural (Mexican Cuisine or Gastronomic History of mixture. (Editor's note.) Mexico City), p. 30. p. 99. 78 Voices of Mexico /October • December, 1994 the grant of various conquered towns recover their own customs and the such as those of Actopan, Alfajayucan such as "...Cuyuacan, where I have propagation of their own sustenance, and Itzmiquilpan in the sate of cultivations of wheat"; the request of their sacred food. Hidalgo, or one of the first Franciscan was answered in an edict dated Religious orders —such as the convents, built in Huejotzingo, May 2, 1531.6 Franciscans, Dominicans, Puebla, which includes an area Unlike the Antilles, the Mexican Augustinians and Jesuits— played a for breadmaking. highlands turned out —luckily for the key role in spreading the cultivation Famous monastic wheat mills Spanish— to be favorable ground for and processing of wheat, in all the were located in Santiago Tlatelolco, wheat cultivation. It is understandable areas of Mexico where they traveled, property of the Dominicans, and the that they felt the need to have bread all the way up to Sonora and Jesuits' Belén mill. Orders of nuns like their own and not just our tortillas the Californias. also carried out important work in the and tamales. Bread was the basis of They not only propagated popularization and spread of various their diet and their religion. Once cultivation of wheat, but in various kinds of bread, especially pastries. settled here, they were anxious to convents and haciendas, in addition to At the beginning of the Colonial sowing, they milled it and made bread period, the main obstacle to wheat 6 Archives of the Hospital de Jesús, Pile 17, for their own consumption, according exp. 3, quoted in José B. Mancebo, Las cultivation was not the land but the to European custom. Testimony of this Lomas de Chapultepec. El rancho de Indian population.