November 24– 27, 2016
Guest Country: The Philippines
Centro Nacional de las Artes / Estudios Churubusco
Mexico City
Introduction
The time has come to make the fourth call for the world forum at a moment when gastronomies are expanding mightily on a global level, and, like before, we propose to celebrate the achievements of the past year even though we realize that, when it’s a matter of working on cuisine and nutrition, the race to be up to date is never-ending. As with any process, we can observe how the spectrum of issues calling for our attention has broadened now that good, clean, fair eating, as prescribed by Slow Food, has become fashionable.
In that sense, then, what is our task as members of that international community that is part of the global experience? It would be good to recognize that Mexico took a fundamental step forward when it achieved UNESCO recognition of its traditional cuisine as a World Heritage Treasure, and that, because of that, it has garnered a tool to protect it. At the same time, the country must take the necessary measures to recover and promote its cuisine and to collaborate in the world concert with those concerned about the future of food on our planet.
For this reason, the forum proposes to continue developing the thinking about crucial topics that involve us directly, and also about the challenges and promises implied by the current rise in local cuisines or the solution of the apparent dilemma between producing food for Mexicans or food for export. It is important to define the conditions and ensure gastronomically-based tourist destinations have the essential facilities, as well as to understand that a cuisine with identity like ours requires a legion of professionals well trained by educational institutions up to the challenge.
As in previous years, the forum will be attended by food producers, traditional cooks, chefs, and professionals of our cuisine from all over the country, plus teachers and students. This time, it will delve into two main thematic fields related to Mexican cuisine and the cuisines of the American Pacific, as well as analyze the important function of art and handicrafts as part of the culture of the table and modes of cooking.
There will also be a new section of fundamental importance for Mexico: an exhibition of the country’s gastronomical destinations that can be promoted for domestic and international tourism. The press and specialized buyers will have a special business round table discussion for this purpose. Also for the first time, the forum will promote an exchange between U.S. gastronomic entrepreneurs and Mexican producers in a meeting that will benefit both groups.
This call includes the invitation to the Philippines; we will also have a children’s area again, and a vast cultural program that will take place in the splendid CENART venue.
This is how, in a single venue, the efforts of an entire community dedicated to defending our incomparable culinary heritage can come together. This is how we unite our efforts to fill with content government policies that match our goals. Those goals are nothing less than the need to ensure that Mexican cuisine grows, flourishes, and is appreciated for its merits worldwide.
Organizing Committee
Conservatorio de la Cultura Gastronómica Mexicana Gloria López Morales
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
PLANNING AND OPERATIONS
Verónica Velazco Samperio
Fanny Cruz Ponce de León
Juan Antonio Elizarrarás
ACADEMIC AND GASTRONOMICAL PROGRAM
Sol Rubín de la Borbolla
Cristina Hernández de Palacio
Gladys Guerrero Ulloa
Fernanda Palazuelos
GASTRONOMIC DESTINATIONS OF MEXICO PROGRAM
Ruth Fajardo González
CUISINES OF MEXICO PROGRAM
Margarita Carrillo de Salinas
América Pedraza Calderón
HONORARY PRESIDENT
Alicia Gironella de’Angeli
VENUE
Centro Nacional de las Artes
Estudios Churubusco
MARKETING
CCGM
DESIGN
dn3 comunicación
Objectives
Promote the world forum as an emblematic platform on which all actors and factors of Mexican gastronomy can exchange knowledge, experiences, and information, and at the same time interact with other significant proposals of the world’s food and gastronomy.
Consolidate in order to project our country nationally and internationally through its cuisine.
Contribute to preserving, safeguarding, and disseminating Mexican gastronomy in accordance with the UNESCO’s plan of action. Generate links with other cuisines through the exchange of knowledge and trade in food to the mutual economic benefit of the different participants internationally.
Have a positive impact on health by fostering a food culture that supports good practices of a cuisine that has been recognized as a World Heritage Treasure.
Turn Mexican cuisine into an important vector for our country’s sustainable development and promoting its tourism, together with the gastronomic policy issued by the federal government.
General Vision of the Fourth Forum
The world forum reinforces the noteworthy recent advance of the promotion and projection of Mexican cuisine both domestically and abroad. At the same time, its prestige strengthens and gives impetus to Mexico’s brand.
It coincides with the multiplicity of efforts to build national awareness about the interest in reinforcing our agricultural system as a lever for development thanks to the productive chain that stretches from the furrow in the field all the way to gastronomical tourism and the export of Mexican products.
The results of 2015 left us a solid platform for our country’s development based on the Mexican diet and the agricultural system underlying it.
The challenge is for the world forum, its projection, and the strength of its call to be powerful enough to attract participants, buyers, and visitors from every corner of the globe to this annual meeting that proposes to be a focal point due to its incomparable appeal.
Conditions exist to make the forum a prestigious event that projects Mexican cuisine to the whole world on its merits, not to mention the infinite number of benefits that this implies for the country.
Academic Program
The Cuisines of the American Pacific
Art and Handicrafts for the Table and the Kitchen
“The Rise of Gastronomy: Challenges and Promises”
KEYNOTE SPEECH
Expo: Producers and Cuisines of Mexico
INAUGURATION
“Promoting Mexican Cuisine Nationwide; Festivals Plus Public Policy”
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
“Popular Literature in Gastronomy”
LECTURE
“Traditional Cuisine Comes to the Rescue of Health”
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
“The Cuisines of Mexico Seen through the Eyes of an Artist”
LECTURE
“Art and Handicrafts for the Table and the Kitchen”
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
“Gastronomical Tourist Destinations of Mexico”
KEYNOTE SPEECH
“The Cuisines of the American Pacific”
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
“The Manila Galleon Journeys with Wisdom, Flavors, and Products”
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
“Traditional Cuisines as Part of Sustainable Development”
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
“Mexican Cuisine as Seen Abroad in the Print and Electronic Media”
DIALOGUE
Gastronomical Carrousel
“Traditional Cooks Dialogue with Chefs and Other Colleagues”
“The Cuisines of the Manila Galleon”
“The Use of Wildflowers in Mexican Cuisine”
CUISINES OF THE AMERICAN PACIFIC
“Canadian Pacific: Vancouver”
“California”
“The Mexican Californias”
“Central America”
“Chile and Its Ocean Cuisine”
“The Cuisine of the Nayarit and Colima Coasts”
“Colombia and Its Traditional Pacific Cuisine”
“The Cuisine of Guerrero”
“Cuisine Inspired by the Michoacán Coast”
“Moroccan Cuisine a la Mexicana”
“The Cuisine of the Coast of Sinaloa”
Meeting of US Gastronomic Entrepreneurs,
Small Producers from Mexico’s Countryside, and CONABIO
Book Launches
The Cuisines of the American Pacific
This year’s World Forum of Mexican Gastronomy celebrates the cuisines of the Pacific and recognizes the influence the Manila Galleon has had on forging these culinary expressions even until today.
The first ship sailed from Manila in the Philippines for New Spain in 1656. Thus was inaugurated a trade route that would last for more than two centuries and would transport products from the East and from the colonies to Europe.
The ships made port in the Californias and later in Acapulco loaded with products that were then transported by land to Veracruz and from there shipped to Spain.
This twice-yearly journey left a profound mark on the lands it traversed, transforming customs and influencing the food along the way. Over the centuries, Asian ingredients became part of our cuisines, incorporating spices like cinnamon, anise, and pepper; and fruits like mangos, tamarind, and coconut. With the galleons also came inhabitants of their countries of origin, who brought with them unique techniques, like those used to make shawls, lacquered wooden objects, or Talavera ceramics.
In addition to Acapulco, the ships also sailed south down the Pacific coast, reaching Chile and Peru, where they picked up products like potatoes, one of the ingredients that became part of our cuisine and those of many countries in Europe.
Gradually, migration also began, bringing with it methods of preparation still used today in different traditional dishes, like, for example, ceviche. Rice, the mainstay of the cuisine of several Asian countries, soon became the basis for creole cooking, on which several cuisines of South America and the Caribbean are built today.
The Philippines
The guest country for the Fourth World Forum is the Philippines. This Southeast Asian island’s gastronomy has been influenced both by its Asian neighbors and the cuisine of Spain, which colonized it for three centuries. The Manila Galleon sailed from its shores to the Americas, replete with merchandise, and the exchange between the two hemispheres left profound marks on both their territories.
The forum will provide us with space to reflect about this phenomenon with the presence of specialists from both nations.
Expo: The Gastronomical Destinations of Mexico
In this fourth forum, in coordination with the Secretaría de Turismo and the Consejo de Promoción Turística de México, we will host the participation of a group of states from around the country. With each one promoting a specific site or route, we will be able to familiarize ourselves with a particular aspect of their gastronomy.
Course
This course has been created to show, step by step, a useful methodology for recognizing, making an inventory of, valuing, and taking advantage of the culinary and gastronomical elements that make up our nation’s heritage.
Mexico’s culinary and gastronomical heritage, declared in 2010 an Intangible World Heritage Treasure and that has been historically safeguarded in our country’s communities and cities, is an essential part of Mexican identity. As such, it has the potential to be used and valued with innovation, sustainability, and responsibility in cultural tourism.
This course emphasizes that a cultural heritage is not only the expression of the identity of human groups and communities, but also an opportunity to expand Mexico’s tourism offering and become an authentic driving force of development, wealth, and well-being for its inhabitants and communities.
In this forum, we will host participants from several states from around Mexico. Through the promotion of a specific site or route, this will allow us to become familiar with a particular aspect of their cuisine.
The Cantina and Its Snacks. Estudios Churubusco
This is a venue for relaxing and tasting the immense variety of traditional and contemporary beverages Mexico has to offer: tequila, mescal, sotol, pulque, and wine, among others, accompanied by snacks, which are absolutely de rigueur in any cantina.
The place of traditional Mexican beverages
Snacks
Mexico’s wines
Beer
The Cuisines of Mexico
Patio of the Escuela de Música and the Escuela de Artes Plásticas
Indisputable representatives of our tradition, cooks have a special place in our forum. Every year, participants seek out their space because they want to see why our cuisine has been recognized by the United Nations as an intangible cultural heritage. These cooks understand its value and take part in its preservation.
Participants
Outstanding academics, communicators, chefs, and traditional cooks will be present at the Fourth World Forum of Mexican Gastronomy.
Children’s Area
Children will also be able to participate in forum activities. They can enjoy themselves in different workshops over the course of the event and also have a chance to learn, having fun, about our gastronomic heritage.
Expo: Art and Crafts for the Table and the Kitchen
The items used in indigenous and mestizo kitchens, both in the countryside and the city, for preparing everyday food, as well as ceremonial and ritual dishes, are part of the cultural expressions that identify each of our country’s regions. Their forms, iconographies, materials and finishes, the techniques for making them, and the history that brought them to life are part of this diversity.
Objects as ancient as 3000 years old and others of more recent creation are the cultural background and heritage of artisans, artists, and cooks. A long history of human settlement gives rise to a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural geography in our country, where we can trace the roots of contributions from the Spaniards (already influenced culturally by the Arabs and other peoples), from the Negro population that arrived as slaves or servants, and, starting in the nineteenth century, from migrants mainly from Europe and Asia.
The objects used in the kitchen to prepare food are cultural expressions that identify each region of the country. And in this forum, they will occupy a special place.
Dialogue between US Restaurateurs and Producers from Mexico’s Countryside
For the first time, the forum is launching an initiative to bring together a group of US entrepreneurs involved with Mexican cuisine with national producers for an exchange. We will also have the benefit of the participation of national officials and specialists from CONABIO to optimize the results of this first effort.
Entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, producers, and tourism officials will meet and make this event more complete and attractive.
CENART and Estudios Churubusco
Four professional artistic training schools belonging to the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) are housed in the CENART facility: theater, dance, music, and the visual arts. The Center for Cinematographic Training (CCC), which belongs to the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía (IMCINE), also makes its headquarters there.
The activities of the Fourth World Forum of Mexican Gastronomy will be held in these facilities, while “The Cantina and Its Snacks” and “Expo: The Gastronomical Destinations of Mexico” activities will take place in the Estudios Churubusco.