On Christmas Eve, my family and I always make our traditional Mexican dishes. As always, my grandmother is the best cook of all, and she taught my mom well, and my mom taught my sister and I. Now that I look back and think, how did my grandmother become the great cook she is? Where did these recipes come from? After visiting the event held in my schools ballroom yesterday, it informed me about the Mexican Cuisine history, and everything that is behind all the Mexican grandmothers that are great cooks. The event started off with one of the guest speakers Miguel Dominguez who is a Professor of modern languages here in Dominguez. He started talking about the history behind the domesticated plants of Mesoamerica. Mexican Mesoamerican cuisine includes amaranth, chia, avocado, guava, papaya, sweet potatoes, yucca, chocolate, etc. He states, “I know all Mexicans know about these.” And laughed. He talked about the history behind all these plants. Some of these originated from the Native Americans such as the Aztecs, and Mayans, and are still used today. My family uses these plants on the daily basis, but unlike the Aztecs or Mayans, we don’t plant our crops, we can simply just go buy them in the groceries now. He mentioned how important the “Three sisters” were. The three sisters are the three main crops of the Natives groups that include the maize, beans and squash. The three crops were always planted together, beside each other. The three crops benefit from each other. The maize provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles. The beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants utilize, and the squash spreads along the ground, blocking the sunlight, helping prevent establishment of weeds. The squash also benefits the other crops because it leaves mulch, creating a microclimate to moisture the soil.
The next guest speaker besides Miguel Dominguez was Jennifer Gomez, who was from Long Beach City College. She is a culinary professor and is infatuated with chocolate also know as the cacao. She states that the Olmec’s first discovered that the cocoa fruit. The Olmec’s were almost certainly the first humans to consume chocolate, originally in the form of a drink. They crushed the cocoa beans, mixed them with water and added spices, chiles and herbs. Over time, the Mayans and Aztecs developed successful methods for cultivating cocoa as well. The way she spoke about chocolate, you could tell she was very passionate about being about to work with such a sweet flavor. Chocolate has been, and is still is used today on the daily basis. Last but not least, the last speaker was Oscar Ochoa, who is a Grant administrator in Dominguez hills. He spoke about the Chiles,
