Don Apolonio, Mixteca Non-GMO Farmer

Apolonio is a happy, contented man. He has raised a large family, he has a new block house with metal roof, a small modern kitchen with a gas stove, and a traditional adobe kitchen removed from the house due to the smoke engendered by burning wood as the fuel source....where the tortillas and tamales are made. He has an oxen or two for tilling and planting, and four successful children. One son has gone to 'el norte' to earn a living, as the land, until recently, did not support productive agriculture. His wife Francisca, daughter  Silvia, and daughter-in-law Rosa helped us immensely in gathering recipes and sharing cooking techniques for their simple, healthy recipes, created from their milpa gardens and companion plants of nopales and wild greens. Delicious....

Apolonio told us a saying  in Spanish, which our co-author  Phil Dahl-Bredine then translated into Spanish a similar English phrase, whose meaning is roughly: 'if you eat food, you are involved in agriculture!' How true. Yet most children in large urban cities in the United States have no idea where there vegetables come from, other than the store.