"MESOAMERICAN DIET: ORIGINS"

CICY - TEVEUNAM -DOCUMENTALIA MX

Synopsis

What foods were prepared in the nowadays territory of Mexico before the rise of Mayan, Olmec, Toltec, and other pre-hispanic cultures? This documentary unveils the diet that could have been created in Mesoamerica 10,600 to 4,400 years before the present, before the invention of ceramics (pots and comales) and before the cultivation and domestication of the species fundamental for the traditional agriculture system called milpa, cornerstone of the great Mesoamerican civilizations. In West-Central Mexico, in the surroundings of the Colima volcanoes, Daniel Zizumbo and Patricia Colunga, researchers from the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research (CICY), together with biologist Alondra Flores, have uncovered biological and ethnographic evidence as to how the Mesoamerican diet could have formed, combining six basic species: maize, beans, squash, chili peppers, tomatoes, and agaves. Their findings suggest that the archaic diet could have been one of the incentives for the development of the milpa agrosystem and the domestication of its species and that with this foundation, and integrating many other species, native and from the rest of the continent, Mesoamerican cultures developed traditional cuisines that were diverse, nutritious and balanced. The authors propose that “there is future in the ancestral”, and that the revalorization and recreation of the Mesoamerican diet is basic to surmount the dire issues of diabetes, obesity, and loss of biocultural diversity in the area.

Trailer

from Dany_Aldana on Vimeo.

Credits

Produced by
Yucatan Center for Scientific Research (CICY)
TVUNAM
DocumentaliaMX.

Director
Pascual Aldana.

Screenplay
Pascual Aldana
Patricia Colunga
Daniel Zizumbo.

Production Manager
Daniel Aldana.

Executive Producers
Patricia Colunga
Daniel Zizumbo
Alondra Flores.

Animation and Visual Effects
Daniel Aldana.

Duration
78 minutes

Languages
Spanish and English

Copyright
CICY
TVUNAM
Pascual Aldana Yañez
November 2014

Screenings

https://ucanr.edu/survey/survey.cfm?surveynumber=16178
The Plant Breeding Center will be hosting their Second Annual Community Film Screening on January 28, 2016,
with a presentation of the documentary The Mesoamerican Diet:Origins.
The event will take place from 6:00 - 8:30 PM in Auditorium 1001 of the Genome Center at UC Davis.
Executive Producers Daniel Zizumbo and Patricia Colunga will also be taking questions via Skype following the screening.

27 de octubre,
12:30 hrs,
Bento Gonzalves, RS. Brasil,
10o Simposio de Recursos Genéticos para América Latina y el Caribe
http://www.10sirgealc.com.br/programacao/

29 de octubre,
13:00 hrs,
Cineteca Nacional,
Sala 6, Cd. de México,
Festival Pantalla de Cristal
http://www.revistapantalla.com/festival/documentales.php

Awards

Mention Pepe Benitez Muro "For disseminating the cultural diversity of Mexico and recording the traditions of the people”.
Pantalla de Cristal Festival. National Cinematheque. Mexico City, Novembre 5, 2015

Nominee as finalist (best 5 of 67 documentaries) for 11 of 17 categories:

Best Documentary (CICY, TVUNAM and Documentalia MX)
Best Director (Pascual Aldana)
Best Photography (Pascual Aldana)
Best Edition (Pascual Aldana)
Best Postproduction (Daniel Aldana and Pascual Aldana)
Best Animation (Daniel Aldana)
Best Soundtrack / Music (Pascual Aldana)
Best Soundtrack / Audio (Pascual Aldana and Daniel Aldana)
Best Direction of Art (Pascual Aldana and Daniel Aldana)
Best Research (Daniel Zizumbo, Patricia Colunga and Alondra Flores)

Publications

Zizumbo-Villarreal, D., A. Flores-Silva, and P. Colunga-GarcíaMarín. 2014.
The food system during the formative period in West Mesoamerica Economic Botany 68 (1): 67-84.
Published on line 05 March 2014. doi: 10.1007/s12231-014-9262-y.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275342992_The_food_system_during_the_formative_period_in_West_Mesoamerica

Zizumbo-Villarreal, D., A. Flores-Silva, and P. Colunga-GarcíaMarín. 2012.
The Archaic Diet in Mesoamerica: Incentive for Milpa Development and Species Domestication.
Economic Botany 66 (4): 328-343. Published online: October 24, 2012. DOI: 10.1007/s12231-012-9212-5.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257776825_The_Archaic_Diet_in_Mesoamerica_Incentive_for_Milpa_Development_and_Species_Domestication

Zizumbo-Villarreal, D. and P. Colunga-GarcíaMarín. 2010.
Origin of agriculture and plant domestication in West Mesoamerica.
Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 57(6): 813-825. Published online February 02, 2010. DOI: 10.1007/s10722-009-9521-4.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225361062_Origin_of_agriculture_and_plant_domestication_in_West_Mesoamerica

Colunga-GarcíaMarín, P and D. Zizumbo-Villarreal. 2015. Mesoamerican Archaic-Period Diet.
pp. 311-312. In:Karen Bescherer Metheny and Mary C. Beaudry, co-editors.
The Archaeology of Food: An Encyclopedia. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
ISBN-10: 0759123640, ISBN-13: 978-0759123649. 702 pp.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281099164_Mesoamerican_Archaic-Period_Diet

Contacto

patricia.colunga@gmail.com
pascual@exploramexicodocumentales.com