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Record 2 of 2 in Dissertation Abstracts 1992-1996
TI: VIVAN TAMALES. THE CREATION OF A MEXICAN NATIONAL CUISINE
(CUISINE)
AU: PILCHER-JEFFREY-MICHAEL
DN: PHD
DD: 1993
SN: TEXAS-CHRISTIAN-UNIVERSITY (0229)
AD: BEEZLEY-WILLIAM-H
PG: 319
LA: ENGLISH
AB: This dissertation uses cuisine to examine the role of women in
creating Mexican national identity. The national cuisine that exists
today centered around Precolumbian foods such as tamales
and enchiladas received acceptance by Mexico's upper and middle classes
only after World War II. Precolumbian civilizations developed a
highly-refined cuisine based on maize, beans, squash, and chiles.
Nevertheless, sixteenth-century Spanish conquistadors rejected their
foods, and Mesoamerican culture in general, preferring to build New
Spain on a European model. The natives influenced the new culture, but
only surreptitiously. For example, when Spaniards refused to eat corn
confections, Indian women ground tortillas and chiles in European
stews. The result was a mestizo cuisine, but throughout the colonial
period and into the nineteenth century, Mexican elites took their
inspiration from European fashions and denied Indian influences.
Porfirian leaders even hoped to transform native eating habits, weaning
them from corn, which they considered nutritionally inferior to wheat.
This campaign, deriving from the "tortilla discourse," was an attempt
to transform the lower classes into imitations of the bourgeoisie.
Post-Revolutionary rural modernization plans, including educational
missions and the Green Revolution perpetuated this emphasis on wheat.
Mexico's urban middle class finally embraced tamales as part of
the indigenista cultural movement, which culminated in the 1940s. In so
doing, they created a truly national cuisine. This study challenges
theories based on Old World models by revealing that the popular
sectors had a large role in the formation both of cuisine and
nationalism.
SU: History-Latin-American (0336); Anthropology-Cultural (0326);
Sociology-Ethnic-and-Racial-Studies (0631)
SO: VOLUME
54-08A OF DISSERTATION ABSTRACTS INTERNATIONAL. PAGE 3171.
NO: AAI9402456
WEBLH: 
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