Food and Drink

• Rosario Castellanos, "Cooking Lesson" ("Lección de cocina")
• Marisa Brandt, "Zapatista Corn: A Case Study in Biocultural Innovation"

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Roma, official trailer:

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Buy Zapatista Corn!

If you want to buy your own Zapatista corn, just click here!

The price is “pay what you can over $7.50.” And as part of your purchase, you have to “agree that [you] will never patent nor abuse the genetic material or life force of this seed.”

• Stephanie Elizondo Griest, "Does 'Authentic' Mexican Food Exist?" (BBC, February 1, 2021)
• GMO-Free Zapatista Seed Corn, order it here!
• Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked
• Mexican Cookbook Collection
• Massimo Montanari, Food is Culture

1. What are the various possible meanings of the title of Castellanos's story, “Cooking Lesson”? What do we learn from cooking? What does the narrator learn?
2. “In my next movie I’d like them to give me a different part” (351). What does “Cooking Lesson”have to say about performance, playing a role? What roles does the narrator imagine are available to her?
3. “And yet…” (353). How does “Cooking Lesson” end? It seems to end rather inconclusively, with the three dots suggesting something still to come. What might come next?

Food and Drink questions

Can we think of any other similar movements against neoliberal policies that have gained traction in the region and how were their techniques similar or different to that of the Zapatistas?

Who do you think got the most credit of this project? Is it the Zapatista communities or the researchers?

How does Rosario’ details of the cooking lesson resemble the roles of women in society?

What is a role of gender in society? Is it constantly changing for the better.. or worse? Why? What is an example of the situation like the wife in “the cokking lesson” in today’s world?

How have you seen the reflection of this poem in the lives of women and wives who surround you. How is this an example of culture?

If you had to, would you define David Alfaro Siquerios’s mural, “Tormento de Cuauhtémoc” (1951), in Mexico City’s Bellas Artes museum, as high culture? What about the image of Cuauhtémoc’s torture in general? Why?

What are Castellanos’ comments on culture, and how does she view a woman’s place in culture, be it general, sub, or popular? And, what are the barriers that one may have to experience popular culture, are there ways to redeem this?

is food culture or is culture food? Could culture come from food and the notions, identities and customs that come with it, or is food simply produced/considered an element of culture?

What was one of the most interesting questions the main character asked in your opinion?

what do you think marriage is about?

What do you guys think about the symbolism of her preparing the meat? Does it mean something that she is the one talking about herself as the food and simultaneously cooking it?

Do you think a woman can be both liberated and live a domesticated lifestyle? How do higher education, a career, and personal ambitions challenge the traditional role of a wife? Can they co-exist?

how did you interpret the beef metaphor?

how do specific cultures press these oppressive gendered roles onto women? Are these metaphorical cages, just the modern-day way to dress up the word chattel to still be able to control women?

is this story part of popular culture? And considering how the story challenges cultural aspects, in a culture, where does change comes from? Popular or high culture? Or both?

Women are often compared to food (and food to women), how does this comparison shape the way women are viewed (both by others and themselves)?

Can we eventually get rid of gender roles? Do you think we’ll ever reach a world that doesn’t work in binaries? How much do you think gender roles have shaped your life and the role you play in the world?