Ingredients for traditional Maya food are sadly disappearing

Magaly del Roció Pech Chuc learned the secrets of Maya food from her mother, Justina Chuc Can, a cook in the community of Xpichil, where the pair run a restaurant.

But Magaly laments the difficulty in finding ingredients such as ibes, a type of bean grown in milpas, or corn fields.

“There are ingredients that we use that are practically disappearing; they come from the cornfield, and now many people no longer want to cultivate them,” she explains.

Ibes are one of the basic ingredients of a pib (a type of tamale), prepared for Hanal Pixan — the region’s take on the Day of the Dead. They are cooked ceremonially and buried in ovens sunk into the ground.

At this time of year, a kilo of ibes costs more than 200 pesos (about US$10).

In Oaxaca, for example, great efforts are made to rescue all varieties of the Chihuacle chili, one of the main ingredients of the famous black mole.

Maya food is going to be harder to make if certain ingredients go extinct. — Mayan women preparing tamal dough for the Hanal Pixan, day of the dead, Yucatan, Mexico. Photo: Mardoz Lule / Adobe

New eating habits replacing Maya food

Claudia Albertina Ruíz Santis, prepares traditional Maya food from the highlands of Chiapas. She points to changes in eating habits, often caused by population movements.

“We seek to preserve and conserve these foods, especially the indigenous peoples’ food, because they have great wealth. Chiapas is rich in many ways and has great gastronomic wealth,” she said.

For Claudia Ruíz, the loss of an ingredient from ancestral cuisine affects many areas.

“We want to be part of this food conservation and preservation process so that not one ingredient of a dish is lost because part of the culture and part of our identity is lost,” she warned.

She said recipes have been quietly disappearing in Chiapas, the southern Mexican state with the country’s largest indigenous population.

“We have become so consumerist, and this has also displaced our traditional cuisine, not only in cities but also in villages,” she warned.

For teacher Carmelita Atlahua Xalamihua, a traditional cook in the Zongolica mountains in Veracruz, fast food has become a great enemy of “good cooking.”

Flor de gato was grown on coffee plantations and used for traditional foods, but is now in danger of disappearing. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

“We value ingredients that have been lost, for example, flor de gato (literally, cat flower), which is grown in coffee plantations, but it is hardly consumed anymore. People don’t know about it, and it is in danger of extinction,” she laments.

Warning the public

Traditional cooks from indigenous communities gathered recently to warn about the loss of ingredients in Mexican cuisine, which is considered a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Thirty-two women considered the guardians of ancient Mexican cuisine recipes gathered in the Riviera Maya to discuss the loss of ingredients that are pillars of the diet of rural and indigenous communities in the country.

According to Adriana Lizeth Fernández, a gastronomy expert and traditional cook from the state of Zacatecas, one of the biggest problems is that current generations do not consume natural products that are basic ingredients in Mexican cuisine.

“There is a lack of interest, especially among the younger generations, in not consuming chaya (a green leafy plant similar to spinach, which is wild, and you can find it anywhere,” she says.

The gathering served as a platform to raise awareness about the importance of preserving these ingredients and promoting their use in traditional dishes. The cooks stressed the need to educate younger generations about the cultural and nutritional value of these foods, hoping to inspire a renewed appreciation for Mexico’s rich culinary heritage.