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My mother and father always took me with them to the market, or tianguis as we call it in Mexico City, to go shopping. My dad would carry the reusable shopping bag and my mom the change purse, while I'd tag along and sample all kinds of fruits from vendors along the way. Little by little, we'd buy everything we needed to stock up our pantry for the week. On weekends, we'd go to the Jamaica market in Mexico City to buy fresh flowers, and the treat my parents always bought me was absolutely beautiful: a grilled corn-on-the-cob with chilli powder and lime, or a small cup of esquites, which is basically the off-the-cob version of the same snack.
I really loved the grilled corn-on-the-cob because I always felt like it had an extra kick to it: I could taste the piquín chilli powder with every bite and the corn kernels were nice and toasty on the outside and perfectly tender on the inside. My hands would end up all red from the chilli powder. The corn vendor that would set up his stand right at the entrance of the Jamaica market, is still there to this day. As far as I know based on my own experience, the stand has been there for over 20 years now, but I'm almost positive it has a much longer history.
The hands of the women who grill the corn are permanently tanned from the heat of the coal burning grill, the giant kettle filled with kernels, the sharp wooden sticks for the corn-on-the-cob and the flat block of wood they use to poke the sticks ear of corn to a tee, the tongs they use to fish out the corn from the boiling water… I could go on and on talking about the endless gastronomical gems that you find at a corn stand, but, that would probably be unnecessary since we as Mexicans have corn deeply engrained in our souls, culture, economy, countryside, cuisine: Mexico is a country of corn.
Mexico's National Commission for the Understanding and Use of Biodiversity use the term species to group different types of corn, which are then broken down into subgroups due to the fact that, since the cultivation of corn is dynamic and ongoing, pollination occurs naturally and yields vary from year to year. Since prehistoric times, farmers traveled long distances to exchange seeds as a way of increasing yields or experimenting with cross-pollination. As a result, today there are around 220 species of corn in Latin America, 64 of which are in Mexico (with 59 of those species being native to Mexico). These species are divided into seven subgroups, which roughly translate to: conical, Sierra de Chihuahua, Ocho Hileras, cahalote, tropical premature, tropical serrated and late maturing.
Maize, a national issue
Over the last three years, NGO's such as the Maize Collective (Colectividad del Maíz) have taken legal action against the growing of genetically modified corn in Mexico. They argue that the push towards genetically modified corn is a sort of crop monopoly that is putting at risk many varieties of corn that are endemic to Mexico. This issue is something that has been making headlines all over the world, not only in Mexico. For example, GM 1507, BT11 and Mon810 are three varieties of corn that are under legal review in the European Union. In a letter dated July 5, 2016, the Slow Food movement announced that it is against the authorization of these genetically modified foods, arguing that “there is no public demand for these genetically modified crops, which pose public health and environmental risks, and in addition, lead to socio-economic problems.” But, what is really at risk? And most importantly, how do genetically modified foods affect what we eat?
The Mexican dilemma
Michael Pollan, in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma, asks “What is there to eat?.” The answer to which might seem simple, since all you have to do is look around a grocery store. But, do we really know what goes into a can of corn soup or a commercial tortillas that don't go bad for over a month? Why have we reached a point where we're constantly bombarded with diets, food guides and nutritional tips? For centuries, the evolution of our sense of taste taught us how to differentiate between what was toxic and what wasn't. But today, in the information age, we seem to be more lost and confused than ever before.
I recently went to the Morelia market in Michoacán, and I ate a grilled red corn. The red variety wasn't as tender as those we're used to eating back in Mexico City and after the first bite, I began to wonder about all the different varieties of corn I've yet to taste. But most importantly, I thought to myself: will I ever have the opportunity of tasting them? Something similar happens to me when I eat certain tortillas or other dishes prepared with a blue variety of corn, which sometimes taste exactly the same as the yellow corn we're most accustomed to. Many of the people who make those types of tortilla today use a creole, genetically modified variety of blue corn.
Examples of snacks and dishes that use the original variety of blue corn are seen in several quesadilla stands throughout Mexico City, the tortillas that accompany Mole Madre, an aged mole sauce served at what is considered one of the best restaurants in the entire world, Pujol, and many other traditional stands and restaurants throughout the city.
An article released by the BBC by the chef and researcher Thomasina Miers talks about the history of the use of blue corn in the Ozolco community, which is located in the Sierra Nevada region of the State of Puebla. It talks about how Mexican blue corn is at risk of going extinct as a result of modern technology, which tries to cultivate a single type and variety of corn, despite the fact that blue corn has several properties that make it healthier than yellow corn. For example, it has 20% more protein than the yellow variety. If blue corn were to disappear, we would be forced to say goodbye to many dishes that several regions of Mexico are known for, such as blue-corn quesadillas, tortillas, tetelas, tlacoyos, blue corn esquites, and blue corn dumplings. They'd just end up being a delicious memory of something that went extinct.
Cuisine is a direct result of what happens on the farm. If the latter comes into danger, so does the former and the gastronomical industry knows this. This isn't a petition that's simply based on gluttony and nostalgia. It's about legitimate concerns about the diversity of native corn, the rights of consumers to buy products that don't contain dangerous pesticides, the rights of farmers to freely use, exchange and cross-pollinate their own seeds, and receive decent pay for their hard work, just to name a few. This is a plea for the corn that belongs to all of us and that's been grown in Mexico for millennia, and most importantly, the food that we Mexicans and our ancestors have eaten every single day of our lives.
