by Wayne Lundberg
Bernal Dias del Castillo and even the single most important researcher of Spanish archives on Mexican history, Mr. Bradley Smith, and others, were not in the recipe business. They focused on conquest, politics and war strategy. All we have are glyphs and very few codices that predate the writings of the priests who made a point of writing whatever they could observe of Amerindian culture. Some were lucky enough to have lived within the confines of nunneries in Puebla, where most Mexican pre-Columbian food secrets were discovered and then improved upon to blend with European taste buds.
So all we have is conjecture and imagination as to how a rice sized maize kernel drew the attention of some nomadic tribe in such a way as to invent hybridization, then planting and harvesting, then preparing that incredibly small grain into something fully digestible by the human being. It has been and remains as one of anthropologist's greatest challenges. One I have been pondering since digging up the first artifact I discovered in the back yard of our ranch in Veracruz.... the birthplace of the Olmec... the birthplace of agriculture in the Americas.
Nutritious grain and food in every other part of the world, from rice to wheat to cotton was growing naturally in full size and flavor for the nomads and collectors to use. Maize is the one that creates the puzzle in that humans created it from an impossible start if we only use logic.
Life in Mexico Before the Tortilla
Before the tortilla, there was life, but life without that essential human need for security, a life of endless scrounging. Let us imagine what a day might have been like. Before the tortilla the men would wake up early, kindle the fire, grab a flint pointed arrow or spear and head for the hills. The women would breast-feed the infants, coax them into activities and tend to the fire keeping it alive. During the day the women would walk the ‘neighborhood’ in search of onion-like tubers, potato-like tubers, fruits, berries, herbs, eggs from nests, eggs from anthills, worms from cacti, grasshoppers fat from over-eating, and maybe even play a bit of tag to bring a smile and a laugh to liven up the day.
They knew that in a moon or two they would move on to the next camp. Maybe one they had used the year before. A year defined by the setting sun over known mountains, hills, trees and the changing temperatures.
One day, an overly pregnant member of this tribe, too ‘heavy’ to forage, remained in the camp. With nothing else to do, she rummaged the past. She was surprised to see a familiar little plant she had played with during her last pregnancy in this same spot, taller, thicker, greener than the plant she had taken that little seed from the last time.
With nothing else to do, with time on her hands, knowing others would bring the food and fuel for the fire, she tickled the plant and saw a cob. A small cob. But much bigger than the one she remembered from last time. Puzzled, curious, playing a game with her unborn child, making a ‘bet’ that next time they came here she would have a bigger and better cob, she determined to spend just enough time of her day watching this, and other similar plants, as the moons went by month after month.
There came a day when the cobs were filled with little kernels. She bit into a cob, clinching the kernels in her sharpened teeth. She had yet to get to the age where her teeth would lead to her death because she would not be able to chew the meat nor raw vegetables… only the fruits and berries, and that would never be enough. But this time she was able to bite and that drop of fresh maize juice was sweet, and it was good, and she was overjoyed.
Some historians say this may have been the beginning of religion in America. Others say this may have been the beginning of agriculture. I’d say both.
There were no CNN cameramen around to record this incident. There are no historians writing the details of this event. There is only conjecture. All we know, is that maize in its original form was miniscule and absolutely worthless to the nomad tribes of the time. Then, suddenly, some three to six thousand years ago, we see the deliberate hybridization and cultivation of maize in Tlatilco near Mexico City, and in the jungles along the Gulf of Mexico known today as Veracruz, Tabasco and Yucatan.
What We Know about Maize
Diggings of ancient ruins and attempting to decipher a society through it’s art is a challenging task. Imagine a historian in ten thousand years from today uncovering the original Mickey Mouse film as the only remaining evidence of this lost civilization! We don’t have a clue as to knowing why the monolithic Olmec heads were made. We can guess they were built and put on the path leading to the village where they were created in order to scare away any possible marauder or hunting party hungry enough to kill another human being for dinner. But we don’t know.
But almost at the same time in the high valleys making up Mexico City and the tropical jungle of the coastal zone, maize was planted in a deliberate manner. I have in my photographic collection of ancient artifacts a thumb-sized mold of an Olmec head. I believe it to be how little clay heads were made to put over each grain of planted corn as a scarecrow. I’ll never know if this supposition is true or not. But from the number of these thumb sized heads are found throughout the lands cultivated by the Olmecs and later cultures, it makes a lot of sense.
The question is how did this come about? What made this insignificant grain so interesting that it gave birth to a whole new culture. It erased hunting and gathering, and created agriculture and religion. But if you or I were to eat a raw corncob, even one slightly boiled, it would not be of sufficient nutrient value to carry a family through a winter. It does not contain enough nutrients.
You must process it with calcium oxide (lime) overnight. To make it more difficult, you do not use fresh kernels, but dried kernels pressed from a cob. Then you must grind it into dough. Then you must pat it into a thin pie. Then you must put it on an earthen comal.
And to do all of this, you must have invented a pot into which you will place the kernels with enough substance to survive night after night heating and cooling. And the comal must be thin enough to transfer heat from the embers through to the patty soon to become tortilla. The mother of all nutrition in the new civilizations to be born from this marvelous human invention, which must have been inspired by a supreme being.
In Mexico After the Tortilla
After the tortilla men no longer pricked their thumb testing the sharpness of the atlatl, spear or arrow. They told their women to bring them a taco while still in bed.
And then they imagined how wonderful it would be to have this luxury forever. And they became the future rulers, and with it, the end of the Garden of Eden on earth.
About Wayne Lundberg: "At the age of seven I landed in Mexico City and within two months I taught myself enough Spanish to start teaching my Mom. Let fifty years go by and I'm back in Mexico hired to bring about corporate culture change to the sixth largest company in Mexico, teaching their executives and managers how to compete against the likes of Wal-Mart. I'm now comfortably retired in sunny Chula Vista doing occasional consulting gigs for the Small Business Development Centers around California."
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