HISTORY

Food can be used to express emotions, to comfort, to trigger memories, and to connect people to who they are and where they are from (Knepp 2010). The tamale is a food symbolic of festivities. Served at holidays and celebrations, the tamale ties people to culture. A mixture of Native American and European ingredients and techniques, the tamale is a reflection of the conquests, travel, and changing cultures that shaped Mexican cuisine (Pilcher 2014).

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During the colonial period, Spanish conquistadors introduced to Mexico various new ingredients (Pilcher 1996). Tied to their Catholic beliefs, the Spaniards brought the Mediterranean trilogy: wheat, olive oil, and wine. Representing the body and blood of Christ was bread and wine, and used to baptize children was olive oil. Along with this trilogy of ingredients, the Spaniards also brought domesticated animals including pigs, cows, sheep, goat, and chicken. With a new climate, came difficulties transplanting the new ingredients, forcing settlers to adapt their cuisine. No longer affordable in New Spain (Mexico), olive oil was replaced with rendered pork fat, and wine was replaced with whatever drink was available. Wheat remained part of the new settlers cuisine and became a symbol of status for the elite. Conflict emerged as the new settlers attempted to force their cuisine and lifestyles on the native people. Priority was placed on cultivating wheat, but a lack of grain mills and culinary know how left the native women using wheat to cook tortillas, instead of bread.

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Prior to the Spaniards arrival, Native Americans had built a diet primarily around corn, beans, and squash. With new ingredients available, Native Americans began incorporating these ingredients into their diets (Pilcher 1996), but without a taste for wheat, the natives remained loyal to corn. Corn remained the staple grain in small communities, while wheat worked its way into urban areas. Corn tortillas and wheat bread began to symbolize status. It divided the poor living in the countryside from the elite living in the progressive cities.

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When the Spaniards were colonizing the northern border, they were accompanied by Nahuas, the indigenous people of Mexico (Pilcher 2014). Easy to carry across lands is culinary knowledge (Knepp 2010), and the Nahuas brought with them tamales, introducing the food to what is now southwestern United States (Pilcher 2014). The tamale had evolved to include pork fat, which when mixed into the corn dough created a lighter texture. This mixing of pork and corn, reflects the influence Europeans and Native Americans had on today's Mexican cuisine.