Food globalization and local diversity

Current Anthropology Volume 49, Number 2, April 2008 © 2008 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2008/4902-0005$10.00

Reports

Food Globalization and Local Diversity
The Case of Tejate
Daniela Soleri, David A. Cleveland, and Flavio Aragón Cuevas Geography Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060, U.S.A.(soleri@es.ucsb.edu)/Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4160, U.S.A. (cleveland@es.ucsb.edu)/Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias, Campo Experimental Valles Centrales, Melchor Ocampo 7, Santo Domingo Barrio Bajo, Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico (faragoncuevas@yahoo.com.mx). 1 XI 07*************************************************************************

On-Line Supplements
(Online text with supplements: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/doi/full/10.1086/527562?co okieSet=1#apb)

Supplement A Tejate's Origins
The people of Mesoamerica have been preparing and drinking frothy beverages made with maize and cacao for millennia. Cacao-based beverages were an important part of ancient diets in the region,consumed especially by the elite and thought to have been a key element in ceremonies, including those that established and maintained important social alliances (Henderson and Joyce 2006, 147-52). Mayan paintings from 1,300 years BP depict the preparation of frothy chocolate beverages by pouring the liquid from vessel to vessel from high above, aerating it to create the desirable surface foam (Coeand Coe 1996, 50, 116-17). Fourteen clay vessels from the mid-late Formative Mayan (1,750-2,600 years BP, following Evans 2004) archeological site of Colha in northern Belize were probably used to prepare the chocolate-based drinks consumed at the time (Hurst et al. 2002). Using new analytical techniques, researchers found theobromine, a compound unique to cacao among Mesoamerican plants, in theresidues inside these spouted vessels, providing strong evidence that the native peoples of this region have been drinking cacao-containing beverages for over 2500 years.

The possibility that cacao and the other nonlocal tejate ingredients (pixtle and rosita de cacao) reached the Central Valleys of Oaxaca long ago is supported by archeological evidence that even during the Early Formativeperiod (3,200-2,900 years BP) long-distance trade was occurring between the Mixteca people just NW of the Central Valleys and areas on both Pacific and Atlantic coasts (Evans 2004, 171), probably including or crossing zones where cacao, pixtle, and rosita de cacao were grown. There is circumstantial evidence that tejate may have been an important ceremonial beverage in ancient Zapotec culture. Vesseltypes associated with consumption of frothed cacao beverages by royal classes and for ceremonies among other cultures in the region (e.g., Mayan and Aztecan), are also present in the archeological record of the Zapotec civilization in the Central Valleys (Coe and Coe 1996; Powis et al. 2002). The Aztec were drinking foam-topped beverages when the Spanish invaders arrived in the New World (Coe andCoe 1996, 87). In his extensive Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, 1547-82, Sahagún (1988, 626) described the preparation of beverages by first grinding cacao beans and then regrinding them together with cooked maize, after which a stream of water was introduced in order to create a foam-topped beverage. He also noted the addition of other ingredients to these beverages includinghoney, flower water, and aromatic spices suggestive of those used in making tejate today.

Additional References Cited
Coe, M. D., and S. D. Coe. 1996. The true history of chocolate. London: Thames and Hudson. Evans, S. T. 2004. Ancient Mexico and Central America. London: Thames and Hudson. Henderson, J. S., and R. A. Joyce. 2006. Brewing distinction: The development of cacao beverages in...