Seed Sovereignty Documents | Deep Seeds and First Foods

Land race
chimeras from Acequia Institute Seed Library. Crosses in 2015 included Hopi blue flint, 

Zuni red flint, and our local white flint Maíz de concho (Zea mays clibanus). Photo by
Devon G. Peña.

Centers of Origin and Diversification

of Maíz in the Río Arriba

LINKING SOIL, SEED, AND FOOD IN THE

SURVIVAL OF HERITAGE
CUISINES

Moderator’s Note: This newly revised and edited essay was originally prepared by invitation of the editors, from a
tip by Loretta Sandoval, as a contribution to the May 2016 special issue of The Green Fire Times on “Saving New
Mexico’s Rare Seeds”. For the on-line version of the essay go to Deep Seeds
and First Foods. For the full content of the special issue (Vol 8, No. 5),
go to Green
Fire Times. I wish to thank Seth Rothman and his colleagues at GFT for convening the authors of the special issue and the opportunity to educate food justice and slow food
advocates in New Mexico about the acequia farmers of Colorado’s San Luis Valley
and our way of life and native seed stewardship. The hypertext links in this version are activated for the convenience of the readers. This version also has a complete bibliography with hypertext links where available.

Devon G. Peña, Ph.D. | Seattle, WA | May 16, 2016

For several decades, farmers, eaters and resilience advocates
have made impassioned calls to reorient our food systems toward local and slow
foods. From an indigenous vantage point, this also means remaining mindful of
what I call “Deep Food” or what my friend and mentor, Delbert Miller, calls
“First Foods,” by which we wish to designate the heritage cuisines that arise
in a place-based manner as a result of a long duration process of indigenous
agroecological, ethnobotanical and ethnogastronomical knowledge and practices
that are true sources of bioregional foodsheds.

Valuing this link between land, seed, and food, in 2010 UNESCO
designated the heritage cuisine of Michoacán, México, as a major contribution
to world cultural heritage. The report notes that Michoacán and other
indigenous communities in México are homes to heritage cuisines that have been

…preserved since ancient times through oral transmission of
skills and knowledge between generations; through symbiosis among cookery,
cosmogony and environment, and…in the complex cultural system encompassing
rituals, ceremonies and celebrations… that is a powerful factor in social
cohesion and…identity. 

The symbiosis between “cookery, cosmogony and environment”
mentioned in the UNESCO report is more than mere poetic language. It reflects
an interest in and desire on the part of conservation advocates for us to
understand how foodways and actual farming practices are inextricably connected
and must therefore be protected together. The foundation of a unique heritage
cuisine is, in the end, good healthy soil and a diverse inventory of native
landrace crops. UNESCO outlines the inseparable links between land and cuisine
in its exposition of the Michoacán paradigm:

Traditional Mexican cuisine—and in this case, the Michoacán
paradigm—is an integral part of the ancient cultural system based on corn,
beans and chili…[and includes] unique farming methods like the milpa (self-sustainable
field of corn and other crops) and chinampa (man-made farming islets in
lake areas). Besides its originality, [this system] is ancestral, collective and
communitarian in nature…(2010, 3; brackets added)

The Río Arriba or Upper Río Grande bioregion is also home to
heritage cuisines that bear the marks of deep place-based origins. One
especially iconic indigenous food of the Río Arriba is chicos del horno, listed
by Slow Food USA in the Ark
of Taste, a compendium of rare, endangered and disappearing foods and
foodways. Chicos are made from the roasting—and pressure-cooking—of native
white flint maize in adobe ovens and are a good example of local, slow and deep
food.

The author
removes chicos from overnight oven roast during

Fall 2015 horneada at the Gallegos family farm. Photo by Rene Gallindo.

The acequia farmers of the southern San Luís Valley
(SLV)—Costilla and Conejos counties, in Colorado—are among the heirs and
successors of the oldest nontribal indigenous family farmers in the United
States. They produce renowned place-adapted, heirloom landrace maize, bean and
pumpkin/squash varieties. These crops are considered part of the extended
Mesoamerican Center of Origin.

The concept of “center of origin” was first developed by the
Russian scientist, Nicolai Vavilov, who identified several distinct
biogeographical regions across the globe that are home to the wild ancestors of
crops domesticated and diversified by indigenous farmers over millennia. These remain places where the co-evolution of
crops and wild ancestors persists as a direct result of surviving indigenous
cultural selection and agroecological practices. 


Noted ethnobotanist Gary P. Nabhan followed Vavilov’s travels
across vast stretches of northern México and the U.S. Southwest, where Vavilov
searched for and identified dozens of native landrace crops sustained by
indigenous farmers and cultivated since well before European invasion and
conquest (Nabhan
2011). Centers of origin are also centers of diversity. In an earlier work,
Nabhan appears to include the Upper Sonoran Desert country of the SLV as a
northern periphery sub-basin of Aridoamerica (Nabhan 1985: 393). More recent
scientific research involving new field accessions squarely places our valley
within the center of origin and diversification of maize. See map in Fig. 1,
Matsuoka, et al. (2002, 6081; Figure 1 below).

Figure 1. Centers of origin and
diversification of Zea mays.

The turquoise
dots represent accessions from AZ, NM, CO.

Source:
Matsuoka et al (2002)

As a center of origin and agrobiodiversity, the Culebra
watershed acequia farms are recognized for contributions to heirloom maize
diversity and for sustaining several vanishing artisan production methods and
practices involving the use of native crops. This is especially true of a maize
white flint variety known as “maíz de concho.”

The Upper Río Grande Hispano Farms study (1995–99), supported by
the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH Grant RO-22707-94) and the Ford
Foundation, included what is likely the first scientific field and lab research
on the local white flint maize grown by acequia farmers in the Culebra
watershed of Colorado.

Maize geneticist Ralph Bertrand-García, of Colorado College,
collaborated in the 1995 field study and found that the white flint maize
produced by the Corpus A. Gallegos family in San Luís is a highly inbred parent
line. This implies genetic purity and the absence of transgenes from
commercial, conventional hybrid or genetically engineered (GE) maize. The 1995
field study was done before commercial plantings of genetically modified (GMO)
maize in the United States when the associated transgenes were not yet a
threat.

Bertrand-García once suggested to the author that Culebra concho
may share morphological qualities and possibly genome qualities
associated with ancient Anasazi corncob remnants found at sites across the
desert Southwest, including Mesa Verde, Chaco and Grand Gulch. This inquiry
supports oral histories in Costilla County, which declare that concho
originally came from Anasazi ancestral maize populations via modern-day Taos,
San Juan, San Ildefonso, Picuris and other northern pueblos.[1]

Seed exchanges among indigenous farmers from these communities
continue today. Some of the concho varieties may have also evolved out of seed
stocks from northern México (Sonoran) populations, as an examination of the Centro
Internacionál de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT) online
library of Mexican landraces appears to suggest; for e.g., the Blandito de Sonora land race shares
morphological and gastronomical qualities with the maíz de concho that we grow in the Culebra watershed in Colorado.

In the Gallegos concho parent-line, Bertrand-García identified
three adaptive responses to conditions in high-altitude cold deserts
characterized by short growing seasons and late spring and early fall frosts.
These include 1) rapid development with average of 74–80 days to maturity
(between sowing and harvesting); 2) resistance to desiccation and tissue damage
from intense ultraviolet (UV) solar radiation at high altitude and early or
late frosts; and 3) adaptation to diurnal temperature extremes with a daily
average range between upper 30s to low 40°F and highs of 80°F during the
growing season. These are significant traits in the context of today’s
climate-change challenges and should qualify the genomic integrity of the
Culebra bioregional landrace maize populations as a national agrobiodiversity
conservation priority.

Miguel Santistevan (2003) has also described the specific
heirloom white flint used by acequia farmers as maíz de concho. Adopting the
scientific name Zea mays clibanus for this population, he notes that the
heirloom variety is grown in rotation or intercropped with maíz de diente, another
local flint, so named because farmers describe the kernels as “horse’s teeth.”

Gallegos
family horneada,  August 2015. San Luis, CO.

Photo by
Devon G. Peña.

There is a wide range of distinct inbred parent lines, as well
as a constantly shifting mosaic of native chimera varieties like those depicted in the opening photograph above that reflect a concern for incorporating
adaptive morphological, forage, biomass, nutritional, and culinary qualities
valued by acequia communities. Some chimeras of two or more parent lines from
local landraces often have features expected separately in dent and flour corn
landraces. One of our local heirloom varieties, gifted to The Acequia
Institute, in 1998, by the late Corpus A. Gallegos, can be described as a
“floury flint.” Depending on the timing of harvest, it can be used to produce
chicos or pozol (hominy). But left on
stalk to develop as seed corn, it can be used for making cornmeal or masa harina after nixtamalization.[2]

The Slow Food USA listing of chicos as an endangered food in the
Ark of Taste project includes concern for disappearing artisan craft
skills involved in constructing and maintaining the crucial adobe ovens and
place-based knowledge required to prepare the oven-roasted chicos for
consumption or sale. Despite the scarce number of producers, chicos remain a
living icon of heritage cuisine and the center of acequiera/o foodways and
farming practices. Like the Michoacán paradigm, the production of a heritage
cuisine like chicos del horno requires the unity of land, water, seed and
cookery. It also involves our religious heritage and spirituality, as evidenced
by continuing observance of the Feast Day of San Isidro across northern New
Mexico and southern Colorado, when chicos are still traditionally served along
with other bioregional foods.

Three
generations participated in 2015 annual Gallegos family horneada, San Luis, CO. Photo by Devon G. Peña.

The maíz de concho varieties sown by acequia farmers bear living
evidence of genetic affinity with wild ancestral forms. During the 2010 harvest
cycle of maíz de concho at Almunyah de las Dos Acequias, the home of The
Acequia Institute, we sowed a seventh generation of Gallegos heirloom white
flint from the same parent line studied by Bertrand-García. We found two stalks
produced the tunicate florescence instead of whole cob alignment of maize
kernels.

Figure 2. From George W.
Beadle
“The Ancestry of Corn” (1979).    

Two images: First is a diagram depicted in Figure 2 from the
study by Noble Laureate geneticist George W. Beadle (1979) on “The Ancestry of
Corn.” In Beadle’s diagram, (a) and (b) are designated “teocintle” for the wild ancestor of indigenous maize, Zea diploperennis; (c) is
designated as a “tunicate,” that is, a mutation in which the kernels
are aligned in separate single- or double-file formation instead of
clustered on a cob; (d) is designated as a “primitive” [sic] ear; and (e) is
designated as “modern” [sic] maize. Presumably the modern variety depicted here By Beadle is an ideal type derived from his commitment to Green Revolution high yield/high input hybrids. The Indigenous flour corn depicted by Beadle is ancient but not inherently primitive, even when considered as an archaic and purely place-based or autochthonous form.

Figure 3.
Tunicate florescence from Gallegos concho

parent-line. Photo by
Devon G. Peña.

Second is a photograph of a tunicate florescence that we keyed
as an example of a tendency in our own maíz de concho to revert back to wild
ancestral forms (Figure 3 on the right). These occurrences are indicative of the close genomic affinity
the local inbred landrace varieties have with wild and intermediary relatives.
The photograph in Figure 3 shows the tunicate white flint mutation from our
accession of the Gallegos family parent line of Culebra maíz de concho and was
collected during the 2010 harvest at Almunyah de las Dos Acequias Farm in Viejo
San Acacio.

Comparing this mutation with Beadle’s 1979 diagram suggests that
the occurrence depicted here is an example of the regression/mutation of a
local landrace to an intermediate wild stage. This is substantive evidence of
the legitimacy of center-of-origin landrace status for Costilla County maize
varieties like the Culebra-Gallegos maíz de concho because this can occur only
in landrace, inbred parent lines with close wild ancestors.

UNESCO policy seeks to protect the “intangible” cultural
heritage of humanity including the conservation of food, foodways and farming
practices as unified wholes. Acequia farmers, including Native Americans and
Chicana/os, are among those who integrate farming practices like permaculture,
soil biodynamics, seed saving and exchange and plant breeding with culinary and
gastronomical traditions comprising our heritage cuisine.

Protecting acequia water and land rights; conserving the genomic
integrity of the diverse seed stocks of native corn and other crops; respecting
the artisan knowledge of culinary recipes and ethnobotany handed down over
generations; remaining committed to mindful farming through indigenous
regenerative practices—all are critical to the resilience and flourishing of a
unique heritage cuisine based on the cultural and ecological integrity of the
homelands. Such protection has never been more urgent than in the era of GE
corn like the “transgenic” and “gene-edited” events being imposed willy-nilly
across indigenous, cultural, ecological landscapes by settler colonial farmers
buying into invasive, risky and harmful technologies sold by Monsanto, Syngenta
and their accomplices.

Devon G. Peña, Ph.D., is founder and president of The Acequia
Institute, a non-profit research and education foundation dedicated to the
protection and preservation of the acequia way of life. He is also professor of
Anthropology and American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington. His
next book was co-edited with Luz Calvo, Pancho McFarland, and Gabriel R. Valle
and is entitled, Mexican-Origin Foods, Foodways, and Social Movements: Decolonial Perspectives forthcoming from the University of Arkansas Press during Fall 2016 as part of the Food and
Foodways Series edited by Jennifer Wallach.



Endnotes

[1] Corpus A. Gallegos interview with Devon G. Peña, July 18,
1996; archived at The Acequia Institute.

[2]
A process for the preparation of maize in which the grain is soaked and cooked
in an alkaline solution, usually limewater, and hulled; the process makes the
lysine and other essential amino acids available to the human digestive system,
maximizing the nutritional value of maize consumption, a point overlooked by
many scientific specialists studying maize who repeat the mythic refrain about
the malnourished state of so-called maize-dependent consumers.

Bibliography

Beadle, G. W.  1979. The ancestry of corn. Scientific
American 242: 112–119.

Nabhan, Gary P. 1985. Native Crop
Diversity in Aridoamerica: Conservation of Regional Gene Pools. Economic Botany
39:4:387-399. Print.

Nabhan, Gary P. 2011. Where Our Food
Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine. Washington DC:
Island Press. URL: http://www.amazon.com/Where-Our-Food-Comes-Retracing/dp/1610910036.
Accessed May 2, 2016.

Matsuoka, et al. 2002. A single
domestication for maize shown by multilocus microsatellite genotyping. PNAS
99:9:6080-84.  URL: www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.052125199.
 Accessed April 3, 2015.

Santistevan, M. 2003. Trends in
maize diversity of northern New Mexico: A regional synopsis and case study in acequia
agriculture. Master of Science. Thesis in Ecology, University of California,
Davis. Print copy.

UNESCO (United Nations Economic and
Social Council). 2010. Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage. Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage. Fifth session Nairobi, Kenya November 2010 Nomination
File No. 00400 for Inscription on the Representative List of the Intangible
Cultural Heritage in 2010. URL: http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/RL/traditional-mexican-cuisine-ancestral-ongoing-community-culture-the-michoacan-paradigm-00400.
Accessed May 12, 2016.