Today we offer an excerpt on the politics of culinary tourism in Indigenous communities in Mexico from the new edited volume Reimagining Marginalized Foods (University of Arizona Press). In this chapter, Lois Stanford, a cultural anthropologist in the Department of Anthropology at New Mexico State University, explains how the Ministry of Tourism in Michoacán, Mexico has promoted cultural tourism that both recognizes and assigns value to Indigenous foodways, but also appropriates and transforms them. In this excerpt, Stanford writes of her observations of Purhépecha chefs, and she critiques the effects on them of moving local food celebrations to a single, state-sponsored culinary event called the Encuentro de Cocineras. The culinary fair is part of Mexico’s on-going promotion of local Indigenous cuisines. Stanford writes that these events only focus on food preparation, which devalues cultural knowledge, and privileges those who “fit the image of indigenous chef” marketed by the ministry.
When the Marginal Becomes the Exotic
By Lois Stanford
In 2007, the Ministry of Tourism invited forty-five indigenous women to compete in the Encuentro de Cocineras in Morelia. I attended this event, and my discussion draws on my own observations. Moving the fair to the state capital [from regional centers] presented the indigenous women chefs with greater transportation challenges, since they were responsible for moving their equipment and food themselves. The women received vouchers to cover lodging and food expenses while in Morelia, but they assumed responsibility for transportation costs, purchase of all food ingredients, and transport of all cooking equipment required. In preparation for the increased professionalization, the Ministry of Tourism offered courses to interested indigenous chefs during which agency representatives taught the women how to organize the stalls and tables, arrange the food, and prepare food for transport over long distances, among other technical skills. The women who participated in these training sessions adopted culinary practices and stylistic arrangements that situated them more in line with the Ministry of Tourism’s conceptualization of indigenous chefs. The event was organized into two major series of activities: (1) a formal conference composed of presentations by food studies scholars, and (2) the food fair, in which invited indigenous chefs presented their traditional dishes, sold foods to tourists, and competed for prizes.[i]
The indigenous women chefs were “encouraged” to attend the formal conference, sitting in assigned seats in the front of a large hall. Formal presentations covered a range of food-related topics, all citing the significant contribution of indigenous foodways to the conservation of Mexican regional identity and traditional cultures. Implicit in these discussions was an alliance between Mexican chefs and food studies scholars, on the one hand, and indigenous women chefs, on the other, in defending the Purhépecha cuisine from the onslaught of “modern” Western foodways, characterized by processed junk food. Yet, contradictions and distrust underlay this alliance. Following one presentation by a CONACULTA representative, a representative from Morelia’s culinary institute rose to proclaim the importance of documenting and preserving traditional recipes, ultimately expressing her hope that “this year we can share the recipes from the food event.” In response, a Purhépecha woman stood up to state that her grandmother had handed these recipes down to her, and they were not hers to share. If she were to share the recipes, she asked, then “what will you need me for?”
Over the weekend, the food fair itself was held at Morelia’s convention center, drawing local residents and visiting tourists. In previous years, the food fairs had been held in the plazas of provincial towns, open to the public; by 2007, entrance to the event required purchasing a ticket, narrowing public participation. This event was marked by specific elements that heralded the transformation of Purhépecha cuisine under the promotion of culinary tourism: (1) the display and representation of the cuisine, (2) the commercialization of the food, (3) the judging, and (4) the construction of “authentic” indigenous chefs.
In comparison with earlier events, the 2007 organizers placed greater emphasis on the decoration of the stalls and presentation of the dishes. The Ministry of Tourism set up tents and tables for the attendees to eat at, and provided dishes and silverware on which the participating chefs were to serve their food. Each stall displayed a banner identifying the respective chef and her home community, and each chef was also responsible for decorating the stall and presenting the food in an “aesthetically pleasing manner.” There was a marked contrast between the elaborately decorated stalls of the professional chefs, restaurant owners, and commercial food vendors versus those of many of the indigenous chefs, who adorned their tables with flowers or baskets brought from their communities. The elaborate displays and presentation contrasted markedly with earlier years as the Ministry of Tourism restructured the presentation of the food to fit more closely its expectations of the representation of an indigenous chef.
In an effort to market the indigenous dishes, the Ministry of Tourism charged an entry fee to the attendees. Upon entering the convention space, the visitors wishing to purchase food had to purchase vouchers from Ministry of Tourism representatives. Periodically throughout the two-day event, ministry staff collected the vouchers from the chefs, exchanging them for cash. As well, the Ministry of Tourism had identified in advance certain “preferred” dishes, which they promoted by identifying them on the stall’s banner. Those chefs with more training and experience had prepared dishes that traveled well and stood up well over the course of the daylong event. In fact, many of these chefs had prepared most of their dishes in their home communities, drawing on the labor and assistance of their extended kin networks. They brought the already prepared food to reheat and offered a limited number of dishes, which they could highlight to the judges as particularly authentic.
Those chefs with less experience brought ingredients with them, only to face the great challenge of preparing labor-intensive traditional dishes in a timely manner. This contrast between dishes, such as tamales, that could hold up for a day versus more fragile albeit often more traditional cuisine was apparent in the stall where my student and I worked. In an effort to present dishes containing relatively exotic and obscure wild greens and spices, and thus to demonstrate the variety and richness of the Purhépecha cuisine, our colleague opted for dishes less familiar to the tourists. She explained that the fair provided an opportunity to teach non-Purhépecha tourists about the history and diversity of her indigenous cuisine. Thus, while she prepared her dishes, carefully constructing the small tamales by hand, we frantically set up the stall, arranged the dishes, and stalled passersby who were looking to purchase food. By the time all the dishes were presented, the first dishes were cold and unpalatable. Those chefs with more competitive experience offered special dishes to the judges, courting them with their salsas and savory dishes.
During the course of the event, judges visited the different stalls, tasting the offerings and making notes on their clipboards. They interviewed the chefs, inquiring about cooking procedures, ingredients used, and so on, and recording information about the recipes. None of the women I interviewed knew who the judges were or how they had been selected. Several women commented on the irony that mestizo judges, particularly male judges, were evaluating the authenticity of indigenous food.
Finally, in the process of planning the Encuentro de Cocineras the Ministry of Tourism essentially singled out particular chefs for recognition and transformation. Ministry representatives selected the competitors from different indigenous and mestizo communities throughout Michoacán, basing their selection on the individual chef’s reputation and participation in prior food events. Through this process, the Ministry of Tourism essentially branded certain individuals as the recognized chefs from their respective communities, although within the communities, other women were often recognized as equally talented and capable. The selected women were extracted from their communities and presented to the tourists in Morelia as the best of their community. Thus, food preparation, normally recognized as a collective activity within the community, became an act that distinguished individual women, granting them higher status.
From Reimagining Marginalized Foods: Global Processes, Local Places edited by Elizabeth Finnis. © 2012 The Arizona Board of Regents. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press. Reimagining Marginalized Foods: Global Processes, Local Places is now available from the University of Arizona Press. The volume brings together ethnographically based anthropological analyses of shifting meanings and representations associated with the foods, ingredients, and cooking practices of marginalized and/or indigenous cultures. Contributors are particularly interested in how these foods intersect with politics, nationhood and governance, identity, authenticity, and conservation.
[i] Represented in this food event were two women chefs, cousins from the community of San Lorenzo, located in the district of Uruapan, Michoacán, whom my students and I had met the previous summer. During the course of the food fair, one student and I helped out in the stall of one of the women, while another student worked in the stall of her cousin. My observations of the changes in the organization of the event and the implications of participation for indigenous women chefs are based on this experience of participant-observation, with the assistance of two graduate students, Aaron Sharratt and María Harvey.




Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Program
Organization of American Historians



















