Last month, Mexico asked the United Nations to designate Mexican food a “cultural patrimony” that must be protected. Mexican cuisine dates back thousands of years to the Mayas and their diet based on diverse varieties of corn, beans and vegetables. Traditional Mexican cuisine should never be confused with what passes for “Mexican food’ in many U.S. restaurants and fast food joints. This photo shows 2 young women in Oaxaca enjoying a traditional chocolate drink called chocolate atole. Photo: Ginny Grossman
Art & Culture
March 14th, 2010 | By Mary Stucky
Does Mexican Food Deserve UN Designation?
February 9th, 2010 | By Mary Stucky
Reporting from the Mexican village of Malinalco
In one of our reports from Mexico, we’ll explain what this 83 year old woman is selling in the market in Malinalco, a village nestled in a valley several hours from Mexico City. It can’t be found in U.S. supermarkets but has been an important food in Mexico since pre-hispanic times.
(Hint: they’re not chilies.)
Coming soon from Mexico, Round Earth stories on social issues, culture and politics which will be broadcast on PRI’s The World, the World Vision Report and other outlets. We are honored to bring these stories and voices from Mexico to millions of people in the United States.
November 5th, 2009 | By Mary Stucky
Hope for Panama Hat Weavers in Ecuador
The finest hats are woven of straw that is so thin and fine it looks like linen. | Photo by Andi McDaniel
Some of the finest straw hats in the world come from Ecuador. The best sell for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Most of that money goes to the dealers and retail stores — the weavers themselves don’t earn enough to live on. But a retired U.S. advertising executive says he has a plan to create more demand for the hats and pay the best weavers a decent wage. Mary Stucky reports from the central coast of Ecuador.
May 2nd, 2009 | By Round Earth Media
What’s Cooking? Dosas
Rashmi and Kabir Sharma eating Dosas in their apartment just north of Delhi. | All Photos by Mary Stucky
Dosas are a a sort of thin crepe wrapped around a filling — often potatoes — as popular in India as pancakes here. Savory. Crispy. Eaten all day long. Making the perfect dosa starts days before it’s eaten.
January 10th, 2009 | By Mary Stucky
Chocolate, Gift of the Gods
School girls eating Dona Maria’s hot chocolate. | Photo by Ginny Grossman
Mexico is the birthplace of chocolate. The story goes that the Mayan god Quetzalcoatl presented his people with a gift from the garden of paradise: the cacao tree from which chocolate is made. Nowhere in Mexico is chocolate held in higher esteem than in Oaxaca – it is said that every man woman and child in this city in southern Mexico consumes chocolate at least once a day.
Mary Stucky went to Pilar Cabrera, a native of Oaxaca and a well-known chef, to learn the secrets of making a special kind of Mexican hot chocolate known as chocolate atole. They start on a busy street in the center of town – where for blocks around the air is rich with the smell of chocolate.
December 15th, 2008 | By Round Earth Media
GLOBAL HIT: B’itzma (Guatemalans Rock for Peace)
B’itzma play the standard rock instruments: guitars, bass, drums, but also the marimba, the chirimia, a Mayan flute, and the turtle shell. This is Juan Jimenez. | Photo by Andi McDaniel
In Guatemala a majority of the population is Mayan Indian. For centuries they have been excluded from national political and economic life, but today they’re finding their voice in music. One Guatemala rock band called B’itzma (BEETZ-MAH) sings in an indigenous language called Mam. B’itzma, by the way, means “Harmony.” The band has a big following in Guatemala and in the US.
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May 6th, 2008 | By Round Earth Media
Bolivia Protects Potato Diversity
Papa Lisa in the market in Cochabamba, Bolivia | All photos by Don Losure
By Mary Stucky
Nowhere is the lowly potato more revered than in the Andes of South America. This is where potatoes originated. In just two countries — Peru and Bolivia — there some 10,000 different varieties of potatoes, in colors ranging from green to black to pink. Each has a unique taste and culinary purpose.
May 6th, 2008 | By Mary Stucky
Oaxaca’s Weavers Keep Culture Thriving
Arnulfo Mendoza weaving a rug. | Photo ©Linda Brooks
Twenty years ago, a young Canadian backpacker named Mary Jane Gagnier stumbled upon a tiny village in the southern Mexico state of Oaxaca, fell in love with a local weaver — and never left.
To this day Mary Jane and Arnulfo Mendoza live in Teotitlan del Valle. That’s pretty typical in this village nestled in the dry foothills of the Sierra Juarez, where people stay put — unlike many in Mexico, who are forced by poverty to emigrate.
September 3rd, 2007 | By Round Earth Media
Who Owns Peru’s Culture?
At almost 8 thousand feet, Machu Picchu perches above a lush valley in the Peruvian Andes. | Photo: Michael Beebe
Machu Picchu, one of the world’s great archaeological sites, dazzles tourists from all over the world.
But those tourists who travel to Peru can’t see hundreds of treasures that were found at Machu Picchu. Those treasures are in New Haven, Conn., at Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History.
Peruvians are outraged that these antiquities are so far away, and they are demanding that they be returned.
How did the treasures end up at Yale?
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May 14th, 1993 | By Round Earth Media
One Thousand Tibetans
A man participates in Tibetan New Year religious ceremonies at the Tibetan cultural center in St. Paul, MN. | © Keri Pickett
Followers of the Dalai Lama start a new life where it’s just as cold as Tibet…but a lot flatter. Minnesota meets an ancient culture in this documentary by Round Earth Productions’ Mary Losure.
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