María Eugenia Toledo, center, with the Mujeres del Maíz
Haga clic aquí para leer el artículo en español
By Natalia Otero
María Eugenia Toledo, known as Maru, is the writer of more than 20 books on cooking and the ancestral tradition of Jalisco food. She has done field research like no one else and has found great discoveries that illuminate knowledge about a culture with great culinary richness that dates back thousands of years.
Today, she puts into practice all this knowledge in her Santina de Covadonga restaurant, together with the Mujeres del Maíz, a group of women knowledgable about the local cuisine, in an archaeological conservation house, located on the Teuchiteco ranch, in Jalisco.
Jalisco is located an hour from Guadalajara, and since no great architecture was found there, such as pyramids and temples, it was assumed for a long time that the indigenous peoples did not inhabit the place, but were passing through.
However, thanks to Maru's research, archaeologists as well as researchers were able to conclude that the indigenous peoples of this region were not nomadic.
They found that, around a lagoon, it provided them with everything they needed, which made them settle: water, corn and vegetables. As well as the stone, the firewood and the other utensils that, to this day, she uses to enrich the flavors of her kitchen.
“In our kitchen, there are some branches and some shrimp that we prepare on stone. First, we heat the stone and, on it, we cook the shrimp or the fish or the branches. When people try these dishes they are shocked by the incredible taste. The reality is that we do not add anything, but it is the smoke that the stone generates when it comes into contact with food. Very different from the flavor that a griddle can give”, explains Toledo.
Her restaurant works by giving samples of eight dishes to the groups and explaining the ancestral origin of the dishes. It is open only two Sundays a month.
“Our kitchen is not so modern nor does it have so much presentation because our goal is to recapture those flavors. And it is what people fall in love with, the flavors,” she says.
"The Kitchen Never Left Me"
For Maru, her interest in cooking started, as for many, from the influence of her grandmothers and mother. At the age of 12, on a family trip to Veracruz, in the Yucatan, she was shocked to see people who spoke dialects, dressed differently, and prepared food in a special way.
“That was when I made the comparison with Jalisco, where I couldn't find this. Then, my interest grew and I began to ask people, without finding answers: I had the impression that Jalisco food only dated back to 1940. Nobody told me about what was there, but I continued with my interest.”
In particular, the recipe for the capirotada caught her attention, since her mother and her grandmothers prepared it differently.
“When no one in my family gave me an answer, with more desire, I understood that it was I who would have to get the information. And with that, the years went by and I wanted to know where the recipes came from,” says Maru.
She studied Administration in college, but her curiosity for history and gastronomy did not leave her.
“My mother recently showed me my notebooks from college: one page was management notes, and five pages were recipes. The kitchen never left me: I tried, but it always came back. I made the decision to focus on something that I considered a very big hole. Well, there were no cookbooks, and people, despite having pots in her house that are over 2,000 years old, did not fully know the history of Jalisco,” she says.
The Epicenter of Prehispanic Cuisine in Jalisco
María Eugenia Toledo is admitted as a member of the Meritorious Society of Geography and Statistics of the State of Jalisco
“This year, the day I presented my latest book ‘Cooking and Life: The Ancestors of the Valley in Magdalena,’ an hour before, something so important happened in my life that I had not foreseen: The academy turned to see, with great interest, these Investigations."
On Sunday, July 23, Maru was admitted as a member of the Meritorious Society of Geography and Statistics of the State of Jalisco. She is the first female representative of the gastronomic area.
“For me that the same people from Jalisco take my work into account and admit me into that society is a great achievement and point of pride. Jalisco is assimilating; it is an important cultural contribution to our gastronomy”.
So, everything fell into place for her: she located the epicenter of pre-Hispanic cuisine in Jalisco, and her axis was corn, since they were not hunters. For this reason, the axis in Maru's kitchen is also corn.
“When you have corn, plus other vegetables and fruits, you can find a varied and complete diet. From the corn, even its leaves are used to give color to food. That's when I understood how God fed the first inhabitants: they didn't need anything more than to stretch out their hand and everything was there, with an incredible variety of textures and flavors,” she says.
Natalia Otero is a regular contributor to el Restaurante.