Pueblos del Maiz / Tasting History - Corn Traditions

Friday April 12, 2024 9:00 am - 11:00 am
Saturday April 13, 2024 9:00 am - 11:00 am
At Mission Garden’s Placita and O’odham Ramada
Free. Your gifts to the garden keep it growing!

Mission Garden’s Tasting History program joins the Tucson City of Gastronomy tradition of celebrating and teaching about corn—an event known as Pueblos del Maíz.

Whether you call it corn, maize, maíz, or Zea, there’s a lot to learn about the thousands of years of corn domestication and the many traditional ways of processing and using it. At this event Mission Garden partners will come together to demonstrate some of these traditions. 

Making Cal

Making cal, or mineral lime, for use in making nixtamal

Guest presenter Nic Breckenfeld will be demonstrating the process of making lime or calcium hydroxide (cal) from local limestone. The unique and fascinating process of nixtamalization requires cal and unlocks critical nutrients in the corn. Nic will show all steps to this process, from local rock to useable product. 

Nic Breckenfeld has been a science teacher in the Flowing Wells school district for over a decade, specializing in chemistry and earth science. He is a U of A geosciences alum who also works with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society in Jr education. He follows other passions like gardening, natural building and environment conservation. 

Corn Traditions by ORO House

ORO House will have an interactive presentation about corn traditions.

Here is more information from ORO House about their organization. ORO House is a family run nonprofit. As we’ve experienced housing changes, income insecurity, trauma, and so much more we have had to find ways to make growing work for us. In Tucson, we’ve been able to build an amazing community around gardening and now that we’re working to share that information with other BIPOC folks (and friends) of our community. We want to share the knowledge we’ve gained over the years so that others can find the peace and joy we’ve found.

Taste of traditional O’odham corn dish, ga’iwsa

This program will also include interpretation (if not taste, pending O'odham ga’iwsa availability) of O'odham corn traditions. 

Educational Display of local indigenous corn

We’ll have Mission Garden’s corn display about all the indigenous corns, highlighting the four corn varieties that MG grows.

Nixtamal Demonstration

Ernesto Olguin will demonstrate and share about the nixtamal process, and its history. He will discuss the different techniques, ingredients, tools, and describe the Tohono O'odham 60-Day corn (grown at Mission Garden). ORO House will provide their molino (mill) so Ernesto can show how to use it, and he will make tortillas with fresh masa for visitors to taste!

Ernesto is a Mexican immigrant. He has been in the US for 40 of his 42 years of age and has been searching for his place in this world for just as long. Through exploration of his Mexican heritage and culture he does not feel lost or outside of American culture. Corn being an important part of Mesoamerican history is one avenue for him to feel the love and importance of his ancestral traditions lost through assimilation as he grew up in the US. Ernesto wants to share the pure joy that corn brings to him!

Event Timeline
TBD

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Please reach out to Abby at abby@missiongarden.org with any additional questions