Bread in Colonial Mexico
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I’m delighted to share with you a glimpse of my current research about bread in colonial Mexico. The pages are illustrated with a series of magnificent designs that are some of the bread stamps preserved in the historical archives of Puebla, Mexico. Each stamp was created or commissioned by each and every baker in the city in order to obtain their working licence and had by law to be used to stamp his or her daily production of first class bread with it. I hope you feel inspired to begin or continue your own quest to find out more about gastronomic heritage, food history and bread baking traditions in the world. Rocio Carvajal
Wheat and bread are two humble travellers that have dwelled many adventures far and wide across the earth.
Countless changes have occurred since the first golden crops of wheat shone under the Middle Eastern sun over ten thousand years ago. Mighty empires rose and expanded with bread as their staple food. Loaves of many kinds joined marching armies, explorers and travellers into Europe where soon became part of the diet of many cultures. Wheat along with rice, corn, barley, oat, rye, millet and sorghum have provided humanity with sustenance, rewarding long months of hard work and ensuring the survival of entire civilizations.
Around the 1520s wheat and bread left from southern Spanish shores and across the Atlantic Ocean they went on board of warships. Wheat seeds proved an uncanny resilience, surviving storms, excessive humidity, lack of fresh air and yet they still had to face the most important challenge of it all: to adapt to very different conditions of soil, altitude and unexpected seasonal changes. The Spanish conquistadors tried in vain to grow wheat in the Caribbean islands and time after time only obtained rotten sprouts that eventually succumbed to the merciless heat. After bitter years of struggle, seeds were taken into the heart of New Spain, to the Province of Puebla. These high plains with rich soils, nurtured by volcanic minerals offered the perfect conditions of humidity and altitude for wheat to thrive.
Success at last! At the heart of Puebla’s province many rivers powered dozens of watermills where wheat grains were turned into flour. The city’s countless trade roads enabled producers to send thousands of pounds of flour to all of New Spain and even as far as Puerto Rico, Florida, Havana’s fortress, Santo Domingo and the Antilles. Puebla also supplied prisons, regiments and viceregal fleets. At the peak of its agricultural success it even provisioned the viceroyalty of New Granada in South America that is today’s Peru, Venezuela and Colombia with flour and grains.
All transactions had to be pre-approved by the city’s mayor and for Puebla this meant a clockwork coordination between grain producers, mill owners, granaries, shipping businesses and bakeries. In New Spain bread making was almost exclusively a commercial activity, meaning that bread wasn’t usually baked in colonial households, unlike tortillas which by contrast were a quintessential homemade food of both indigenous and mestizo diets. In Colonial times bread selling was only allowed to take place in public places such as main squares and shops where it was weighed in front of the customers. It was strictly forbidden for bakers to own or be partners in shops where their bread was sold.
Bakers were also demanded to produce and register a bread stamp known as pintadera, to obtain their permits. These stamps were carved in either wood or metal, impressions of each stamp still accompanies every baker’s file. Some had more than one. The diversity and complexity of the designs made them hard to copy and bakers often competed to have the most beautiful and intricate design for their loaves. But only one type of bread was required to be marked and this was a refined white bread called floreado which literally means “bloomed”. This first class loaves were made with refined white flour and were by consequence the most expensive.
Other types of bread were common bread made with the residues of the sifted flour from the floreado and the low quality buns sold by piece and not by weight were pan baxo an elongated small bun heavily dusted with flour and semitas, a bun with a crisp thin crust topped with sesame seeds baked over toasted bran. Many historians believe that semitas were introduced by either crypto Sephardi Jews and/or Spanish crypto Muslims.
The old spelling of “semitas” changed to “cemitas”. These poblano buns are traditionally used to make very rich sandwiches. Preaparation: The bread is sliced and garnished with olive oil, the interior of the lid is generously covered with wedges of fresh hass avocado. A bed of fresh “string” cheese known as “quesillo” is placed at the bottom. Other ingredients such as schnitzel, ham, fried chicken breasts, pickled pork, sausages or chorizo can be added too. It is then topped with raw onion rings, papalo leaves which have a strong herbal taste and either chipotle or jalapeño both pickled. Before putting the upper lid on, everything is drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with salt.
Within the bakery files of 1617-1750, volume 228 of Puebla’s General Archives dozens of documents referring to licences, permits, decrees, taxations many other legal records can be found.
But without a doubt the beautiful collection of bread stamps is the crowning jewel of the files, although some are better printed and preserved than others they all display magnificent designs, most of them meaningful only to their creators but each tells a story that we might never fully know but we can at least delight in their innocent artistry. As a part of my gastronomic research I’ve long pursued a fading trail of crumbs to piece together the recipe for making the bloomed bread or pan floreado.
For over two years I’ve tracked down information in specialized libraries and historical archives until I was finally able to assemble as accurately as possible a 300 year old recipe and have been baking it ever since. Instead of stamping by pressing the seal directly on the bread I’ve recurred to making a stencil and using a mix of cocoa powder and pepper to imprint the design on the loaves. As part of a very extensive research of historical breads I have been weaving a narrative to provide not only technical aspects of such recipes but bread itself has become the element that binds together everyday life with agriculture, politics, economy, cultural history, migrations, industrial and agricultural evolution and above all the will to preserve within every golden crust thousands of years of history and identities that we can recreate time after time.
About the author. I am a blogger, gastronomic researcher, author, cook and baker of historical recipes. I have a BA in communications and a MA in international aid for development. Have worked as an educator and have experience working in the cultural sector in different projects related to tangible and intangible heritage. I enjoy participating in collaborative food and gastronomy research works. Feel free to send me any comments or enquires about my research: Email: rocio.carvajal.cortes@gmail.com Twitter: @rocio_carvajalc Instagram: @rocio.pinky
Visit my blog! You will find many fascinating articles about gastronomy, book reviews and food history: http://betheheroofyourownkitchen.com
rocio carvajal 2015