Description: Sabores y saberes de la milpa (Flavours and Knowledge of the Milpa), published in Spanish and Nahuatl, is the product of an extensive collaborative project between two collectives from Mexico City, Casa Gallina and Calpulli Tecalco. The book documents an educational programme developed by both organisations, comprising a series of workshops and field trips designed to explore key aspects of milpa culture, its produce, and its diverse culinary applications. This project now seeks to generate dialogue around a shared interest between the inhabitants of Milpa Alta and Santa María la Ribera in Mexico City. The book features typical milpa products such as tlaolli (corn) in its various forms, yetl (beans), and wild and cultivated plants such as quelites, chilacayohotli, and metl (maguey). It also covers vital processes in our food culture such as nixtamalization.
Teaching ideas: Students can begin by exploring the book’s glossary of milpa products (tlaolli, yetl, quelites, metl…) and practice describing each ingredient using vocabulary related to texture, color, and use. As a creative activity, students can record themselves preparing or explaining one of the book’s recipes as if hosting a cooking class, which is an excellent opportunity to practice the imperative and the use of reflexive verbs in instructional contexts. The bilingual nature of the book (Spanish and Nahuatl) opens a conversation about linguistic diversity and the relationship between language and traditional ecological knowledge. Students can reflect on how indigenous vocabulary may encode specific relationships with the land that do not have equivalents in English, Spanish, and how this variation happen appear between other languages too. Finally, a group discussion can compare milpa polyculture with industrial monoculture, using comparative and contrastive structures to analyze the environmental and cultural implications of each agricultural model. In group discussions can also be made with the descriptions and questions included.