"It’s a class I teach once a year; it fills within 24 hours"
May 6, 2015 7:42 PM   Subscribe

 
This is fantastic. Thank you. Both as a New Mexican and a human being, I find this interview endlessly fascinating.
posted by koeselitz at 7:59 PM on May 6, 2015


No kidding - there is so much to dig into here. Thanks!
posted by janell at 9:02 PM on May 6, 2015


I really liked the way they dug into "how do you teach a college class to a broad audience?" I wonder if there are websites where that is discussed for other fields. I wish I had taken Prof. Stanford's course when I was in school, but I don't think I would have realized how intentionally crafted the experience of being her student was.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:17 PM on May 6, 2015


I guess it depends on the posole, eh?

(Safety Protip - If I ever cook for you, a great way to assure I shank you as painfully as possible AND never offer you a dinner invite after your release from the hospital is season food without having at least one serious taste first. After that, go buck wild if you want.)
posted by Samizdata at 10:36 PM on May 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


This is great! I'm glad the kids in Cruces have the same reaction to the existence of Californian burritos as I do. Eugh.
posted by NoraReed at 10:40 PM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, because here in New Mexico… I don’t mean any disrespect, but it’s not Vermont!

Would you put oregano on your poutine?
posted by XMLicious at 11:22 PM on May 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


And, I use a series of films that… well, I’ve done work in Mexico on food as cultural patrimony, and so there’s a short film that Mexico’s tourism department did and then presented to UNESCO as part of their food as their heritage. And then France did one, and France presented it. And so we watch the two of them, and they’re very different because Mexico is presenting its indigenous heritage, the farming, and the land. And then France…well, it’s all Paris, it’s French and Parisian, it’s urbane and cosmopolitan, so they’re presenting a different national image. It’s a nice contrast.

This is rather unexpected, because when you go to France-not-Paris what you mostly find in restaurants is the local cuisine paysanne, not haute cuisine. There's as much peasant food in France as there is in Mexico.
posted by sukeban at 2:44 AM on May 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


There's as much peasant food in France as there is in Mexico.

And Mexico has as much urbanity and cosmopolitanism as France; her point is the choices in presentation made in by the two tourism ministries.

I liked the interview, and her class sounds like fun and that the students get a lot out of it.

(Safety Protip - If I ever cook for you, a great way to assure I shank you as painfully as possible AND never offer you a dinner invite after your release from the hospital is season food without having at least one serious taste first. After that, go buck wild if you want.)

In my perhaps limited experience, pozole is like pho, served with sides that are meant to be used in it. (Unlike grabbing the salt shaker before tasting.) Tasting first is never a bad idea, and people will add the sides in varying amounts, but there is an expectation that the soup as served is not complete until the other parts are added.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:11 AM on May 7, 2015 [4 favorites]


mmmmm...posole.

You haven't been able to get really good posole in the Indy area ever since Cafe Santa Fe went out of business umpteen years ago.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:05 AM on May 7, 2015


The best posole I've had (and have every weekend for brunch) is in New Jersey. And I lived in New Mexico.
posted by ryoshu at 6:09 AM on May 7, 2015


her point is the choices in presentation made in by the two tourism ministries.

Yeah, but the French are the ones who invented the AOCs because they are so proud of their regional, artisanal food and drink. There must have been some cherrypicking when choosing the videos.
posted by sukeban at 6:21 AM on May 7, 2015


Now I want to set up a personal food diary for my trips and travels around New Mexico. I knew of some regional variations in food, but not to this level. A great article on many fronts, thanks for this!

I was surprised how little discussion there was about indigenous foods, with the focus instead on the different regional Hispanic/Chicano traditions, but then I looked for some NMSU population statistics, and apparently the native/indigenous population is really small (as listed on Forbes.com, backed up by various statistics found around the NMSU website) .

And if you think New Mexico is a dusty desert state, Dreaming New Mexico put together a here's a 2-page PDF with information on what is grown around the state. Warning: it's 16 MB, and may be hard to view on mobile devices, as the second page has a lot of small text. But if you do download it, it has a section on biocultural legacies, which ties into this article.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:21 AM on May 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Because in California, where I grew up, we have “California burritos,” where you put the rice and all of this stuff in them.

Ugh, that's a Mission burrito. A "California burrito" has French fries in it. Omnomnomnomnom.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:26 AM on May 7, 2015 [3 favorites]


I am happy that Native Seeds/Search was mentioned. I have been a fan of their endeavors for decades. Many of their seed varieties originated in the dark chasm of pre-Columian ethno-agriculture.
posted by rankfreudlite at 12:10 PM on May 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Note: My ugh was meant as irritation, not disgust at the idea of a Mission burrito. I love Mission burritos. I LOVE ALL BURRITOS.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:48 AM on May 8, 2015


Whatever that was, it didn't look like any Mission burrito I've ever seen or eaten. Corn kernels? No.
posted by Lexica at 9:09 AM on May 11, 2015


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