I. The CCGM appreciates the invitation to participate in a forum of this relevance, especially if we take into account that on August 4 the President of the Republic, Mr. Enrique Peña Nieto, proposed generating public policies that make Mexican Gastronomy a strategic line for the development of the Nation. Attending lectures and meetings of traditional cooks in Italy at this time, Dr. Gloria asked me to convey her greetings and her apologies for not being with us. He also told me to share with you some reflections on Traditional Mexican Cuisine, which reflect the tasks carried out by the CCGM and the sense that we find in our activity for the cultural identity, history and development of the people of Mexico.
II. We are heirs of one of the 4 or 5 most amazing agriculture that has known the history of mankind and we are one of the three that has developed its evolution from a grain generator of civilization. Along with rice and wheat, we have corn as the architect of a millenary culture that built cities, built pyramids, followed the movement of the stars rigorously and exactly, gave life to gods and operated with such wisdom in the transformation and use of nature , that even the pests that affected their crops and the environment, ended up integrated into healthy diets.
III. Thousands of years of maturation of this surprising agriculture can only be understood by a complex and integral food culture, which had its basis in the regularity of the productive cycles, the permanence and transmission of the collective memory associated with the preparation of food and, finally, the symbolism, ritual and arts that were deployed in all private and public areas, festive and solemn, tragic and happy, where human life required something to be taken to the mouth.
IV. If those characteristics still seem limited in terms of their scope and social value, we should remember that after 1492, in America, particularly in the ancient Mesoamerican world, we find the place of origin of the first world cuisine, if we could call it that, multicultural where the journey of products, techniques, flavors and even beliefs, have a very long journey that began in other continents, times, cultures and religions, and flourished magnificently in our land.
V. The sixteenth century will see how the cuisines of the world began to enrich its palette of aromas, flavors and colors with the spread of chili and tomato, because before the red color was unknown in the dishes, at the same time it started a slow path of taste so that the chile will become the most consumed spice in the world today.
SAW. These really impressive dimensions, due to the depth of their cultural value, their historical density and the complexity of the Natura-culture and agriculture trilogy, placed the ancestral culinary knowledge and the Mexican food system under the protective dome offered by the Convention for the Safeguarding of Heritage. Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO.
VII. Those of us who formed the CCGM, under the wise leadership of INAH, were able to meet technical requirements that, in the end, led us to the great achievement celebrated on that memorable November 16, 2010. Conaculta, Sectur and Sagarpa were solid pillars to promote this initiative, since the The very nature of its functions showed the potential of our cuisine and its complex relationship with agriculture, with health, with the environment, with tourism, with culture, with life itself.
VIII. We are proposing the preparation of a working agenda with the Secretariats and Organisms that are part of the National Gastronomy Promotion Policy, to draw up an action plan aligned in the short and long term with the guidelines of this initiative and the National Plan of Development 2012-2018, with the aim of influencing, among other aspects, in the following areas:
a) The safeguarding of the traditional cuisine of each federative entity;
b) Guarantee the multiculturality of gastronomic expressions for the present and the future, in a humanistic, sustainable and vindicating perspective of Mexican culture;
c) The strengthening of the knowledge system of the traditional kitchen and the certification of competences of the people carrying this knowledge;
d) Promote educational, undergraduate and graduate programs, with a view to project, nationally and internationally, the Mexican gastronomic heritage;
e) The generation of cultural goods susceptible of becoming tourist products without the risk of their physical or identity destruction;
f) The integration of actions that multiply the good results in the transfer of value to producers, cooks, cooks, kitchen and food professionals and service providers;
g) The design of effective transversal public policies for the strengthening of the culinary culture and the Mexican food system as a primary source of wealth and socioeconomic development.
IX. The task is complex and we have to overcome a really complicated international context and with many national issues pending solution. But the challenge is in our present, in our area of responsibility and, of course, with all the weight and the decision for us to act. For Mexico and for what we expect from our Homeland, it’s worth it. If we do not do it, then do not ask that “the mocho jug hold a liter”.
José Francisco Román Gutiérrez
Mexico City
CCGM / UAZ, September 9, 2015
