Traditional food knowledge in a Matlatzinca community, Temascaltepec, State of Mexico

Abstract

Food sovereignty relates to traditional food knowledge that makes food available through land cultivation, fishing, gathering and hunting. In the face of the loss of this knowledge, its preservation is necessary to conserve the traditional knowledge of the food systems through which biocultural diversity is preserved. The objective of this paper is to identify the food knowledge and culinary techniques of older adults in the community of San Francisco Oxtotilpan. Through an ethnographic retrospective approach using interviews, field diaries and photographs, from March to September 2022, the food memories of the elderly, from childhood to the present day, were recovered. The food knowledge (the consumption of quelites and edible insects and the hunting of wild animals) and the culinary techniques used to cook the foods that were part of the Matlatzinca community were identified and it was also observed how this gastronomic knowledge and these techniques have been modified. It is evident that there is a need to revalue the traditions and customs of the Matlatzinca people, as well as their gastronomy from a sociocultural perspective, as part of a process to preserve the community’s food and cultural identity, generating a sense of permanence.