Mea it’s wide spread in Mexico but this was not something usual before the Spaniards arrived. The Spaniards were hesitant to eat the “indigenous foods” because they considered it inferior and that will eventually lead them to be less European. The indigenous diet was predominantly vegetarian. Cows, goats, horses, pigs and chickens came straight from Spain to provide a proper “Spanish diet” endangering indigenous lives. The lack of natural predators allowed these species to thrive and basically they ended up eating all the crops available, including the ones that fed the indigenous population such as maize, beans, tomatoes and squash. This was devastating for them leading to malnourishment and several deaths and eventually making them change their eating habits and switching to the Spanish way of eating. The Spaniard also eventually changed their eating habits and we ended up having dishes that look like this one in the picture: meat + corn + cactus pads. The food colonization was brutal, usually using religion and rewards to make the indigenous change their food habits, but also producing a lot of violence, of course some tribes resisted and even destroyed the spanish seeds to prevent them from growing them, but we eventually ended up mixing and creating our now famous mestiza gastronomy. Nowadays food colonization is less brutal and feels more natural. Yesterday I was talking with @carolina__carreno about the new American bakery trend, you can find it everywhere, and the adoption of this new trend did not require violence or destruction, only social media posts and some influencers. I wonder how the future of food will look like, if we will eventually have a worldwide gastronomy or if we will be able to preserve our culinary identity, or maybe a little bit of both. What do you think?
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