Yucatán 2014: On The Road and Off The Grid

Cook It Raw is an annual gathering that brings internationally recognized and emerging chefs together with dedicated producers, community leaders, academics and cultural producers to discuss and explore the politics of food through four guiding principles – environment, tradition, creativity and collaboration. Our programming showcases ideas, issues, people and ingredients that are fundamental to the iconic, site-specific cuisines in our areas of focus.  Through immersive strategies, Cook It Raw participants are able to examine local food systems, understand the narrative of the area, apply these ideas to their own work and become advocates for change.

This year, our program content is built entirely around experiential methodologies.  The people, products, raw materials, ingredients and stories that we encounter in our Yucatán field trips will shape the direction of our investigation. Mayan culture today has strong ties to its ancient roots, and our exposure to as many of these elements as possible will inform our understanding of the deeply important place culinary tradition has within Mayan culture. For our final session in Yucatán, we bring our group of international chefs to Mérida to experience and explore the how culinary traditions are kept alive through the ritual aspects of contemporary Mayan culture.

Ritual, Tradition & Day of the Dead

Oct 28^th – Nov 2^nd, 2014

For our third and final session, we will focus on cuisine as it relates to ritual and festival – specifically, the culinary traditions of Hanal Pixan the Mayan celebration of Day of the Dead. In our previous gatherings, we have travelled around the region to explored the social, nutritional and cultural ties between mankind and nature that Mayan communities continue to respect and reinforce through their agricultural, culinary and community practices and preservation of ancient food system approaches. For this gathering we will stay in the historic, colonial city of Mérida, and close the circle of our investigation into the essence of Yucatecan food and the Mayan traditions that have continued to thrive throughout ancient, colonial and contemporary contexts.

While our chefs investigate, experience and experiment, our artists will create interpretative tableaux while our photographers and camera crew document the process. Our final gathering in Yucatán will truly be a 360° sensory experience.

HANAL PIXAN: COLONIAL INFLUENCES

In contemporary Mexican culture, the roots of the Day of the Dead ritual celebration can be traced to ancient reverence and connection to death and the deceased. When the Spanish imposed their colonial systems and culture upon the Mayans in the 17^th century, they brought their own cultural recognition of lost ancestors. In time, these traditions started to blend with Mayan rituals and customs, giving us the colourful celebration we will experience during this final session in Yucatán.

sh colonial buildings that are plentiful in downtown Mérida, and are visible today in the walls of the main cathedral in the Centro Histórico district.

Celebrating Day of the Dead is a tradition that dates back to ancient MesoAmerica – with archeological evidence showing the Maya venerating their ancestors in their homes for over 3,000 years. Hanal Pixan is the Mayan Day of the Dead and is celebrated in the state of Yucatan and larger villages in the peninsula.

Meaning literally "food for the soul" in Maya Yucateco, Hanal Pixan is the name of the celebration to receive the souls of the dead every year. While Day of the Dead is celebrated throughout the Latin American world, the Maya can trace the origins of Hanal Pixan to pre-Conquest ceremonies. These ancient Mayan traditions were combined with Spanish Catholicism and transformed into this celebration that has been practiced by the Maya for countless generations. Unlike Day of the Dead, the Mayan celebration is longer, spanning nine days, from October 31^st until November 8^th, where families hold seven separate feasts over eight days with offerings made to the souls of children and adults. Hanal Pixan rituals incorporate Catholic festivities of All Saint’s Day and the Liturgy of Souls, based on the idea that the dead live on in a separate realm from which they come to visit us every year. It is a joyous and sacred time where families show their love and respect

Yucatán is the homeland of the Maya, an indigenous group of people that have lived in this area for thousands of years and whose descendants continue to reside in this region. The city of Mérida, where Cook It Raw will be based, has the highest indigenous population of any large city in Mexico, with 60% of inhabitants being of Mayan ethnicity.

Founded by Spanish Conquistadors in 1542, Mérida was built on the site of the Mayan city of T’hó and is considered to be the oldest, continuously-occupied city in the Americas. Ancient carved stones from T'ho were widely used to build the Spanish colonial buildings that are plentiful in downtown Mérida, and are visible today in the walls of the main cathedral in the Centro Histórico district.

Celebrating Day of the Dead is a tradition that dates back to ancient MesoAmerica – with archeological evidence showing the Maya venerating their ancestors in their homes for over 3,000 years. Hanal Pixan is the Mayan Day of the Dead and is celebrated in the state of Yucatan and larger villages in the peninsula.

Meaning literally "food for the soul" in Maya Yucateco, Hanal Pixan is the name of the celebration to receive the souls of the dead every year. While Day of the Dead is celebrated throughout the Latin American world, the Maya can trace the origins of  to pre-Conquest ceremonies. These ancient Mayan traditions were combined with Spanish Catholicism and transformed into this celebration that has been practiced by the Maya for countless generations. Unlike Day of the Dead, the Mayan celebration is longer, spanning nine days, from October 31^st until November 8^th, where families hold seven separate feasts over eight days with offerings made to the souls of children and adults. Hanal Pixan rituals incorporate Catholic festivities of All Saint’s Day and the Liturgy of Souls, based on the idea that the dead live on in a separate realm from which they come to visit us every year. It is a joyous and sacred time where families show their love and respect for ancestors, while celebrating the cycle of life, family relationships and community solidarity. 

HANAL PIXAN:FEASTING & RITUAL FOOD

The Mayan codices depict images of gods and supernatural beings involved in activities that frequently are related to food, with maize and cacao having the most significance. The Popol Vuh, literally meaning ‘Book of the People’ is the sacred text of the Mayan k'iches (language) from Guatemala, and is considered to be the Mayan Bible. Mayan creation and death cult myths are very much tied to food, and were revered and recorded in iconography in their codices, star maps, buildings and sculptures.

Historically, we know that in Mayan communities, events in the lives of people at all levels of society - births, baptisms, ear-piercing, marriage, pregnancy, death, and other life-stages - required special dishes for feasts to mark these occasions. Food in ancient Mayan culture was very much connected to the cycle of life and death - and remains at the centre of Mayan life today.

Many of the dishes prepared during Hanal Pixan are described in the Popol Vuh, including mucbilpollo and chilmole, dishes made with poultry. The pre-Columbian versions would have been made with pavo (turkey), but now they are generally prepared with chicken, which was introduced by the Spaniards in the 16th century.  Special red tamales chachak wah (masa mixed with achiote paste) are wrapped and buried (much like a deceased would be) and baked the pib. In reference to glyphs from the Mayan codex, the “red tamal” or “great tamal,” are significant in the Maya ritual ancestor worship. It is traditional to include three round tamales on household altars to represent women and/or four rectangular tamales if the deceased is a man. The original numbers are based pre- Columbian numerology associated with the specific labor of each gender: the three-stoned hearth for women and four-cornered milpa for men.

For the ancient and modern Mayan, the dead are never truly gone and remain connected to us throughout our lifetimes. Offerings of food and drink year after year are symbolic of the idea that the place of ancestral burial was in the home, and that the dead continue living with relatives, long after they are gone from this world.