MILPA: From Seed to Salsa : July 2015

Hope for a Beleaguered Planet....

Our book Milpa: From Seed to Salsa - Ancient Ingredients for a Sustainable Future explores through a blend of essays, recipes and documentary photography how the ancient agricultural knowledge and the wealth of 1000 year-old seeds and planting practices still in use among the Mixtec peoples of southern Mexico can help us to meet the ecological and food crises of today.

The essays, written in conjunction with campesino farmers, serve as a warning about the complicated dangerous effects inherent in the rapidly expanding distribution of GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds in Mexico, the birthplace of corn. Our documentary cookbook discusses alternatives for campesino farmers across the world and gardeners and consumers who care about food safety. Using the example of the Milpa planting system in the Mixteca Alta region of Southern Mexico just north of Oazaxa City, the book supports recent studies by UN investigators that show that small plots of land, heritage seeds and sustainable practices can in fact feed the world while enriching the soils on which we all depend for life…….

Milpa contains the traditional recipes lovingly shared by the local indigenous Mixtec women, allowing readers to re-create the culinary magic that flows from this ancient agricultural system. Recipes are painstakingly tested and photographed in traditional indigenous kitchens as well as in a professional modern test kitchen. Please purchase the book, below.....

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Advance Praise for MILPA: From Seed to Salsa

We are receiving terrific advance book previews...please take a few minutes and have a look ~

It was a real pleasure having Norma Schafer (author of the popular blog Oaxaca Cultural Navigator), in my home a couple of weeks ago, and she was able to get a sneak peek of our manuscript. Her view of our book is grounded in much personal experience in her now full-time home in Oaxaca.

http://oaxacaculture.com/2015/07/book-preview-milpa-from-seed-to-salsa-oaxaca-food-recipes-sustainability/

And we recently caught up with Lila Downs and Paul Cohen in Seattle during their concert tour promoting their new album Balas y Chocolate. They took time out of their hectic schedules to read and then write an endorsement of our book for which we are so grateful and appreciative.

Judith Haden and Lila Downs

“This wonderful book is a delightful voyage for the eyes, the spirit, and the tastebuds. Through amazing recipes, photos, and narrative it takes the reader on a journey in time and reveals the sacred Mixtec relationship with the Mother Earth, which has evolved over thousands of years. Using this wisdom, it points to a hopeful future rooted in diversity, balance and strength.”

“Este maravilloso libro es un viaje hermoso para la vista, el espíritu, y el paladar. A través de increíbles recetas, fotos y narrativa lleva al lector a un viaje en el tiempo y revela la relación sagrada de los mixtecos con la Madre Tierra que ha evolucionado a lo largo de miles de años. El uso de esta sabiduría señala a un futuro de esperanza arraigada en la diversidad, equilibrio y fuerza.”

Lila Downs, Three-time Grammy Award-Winning Recording Artist and Composer

For questions, please write to Judith Haden: haden.judith(at)gmail.com

MILPA: From Seed to Salsa/Ancient Ingredients for a Sustainable Future

Chef Susana Trilling

MILPA: From Seed to Salsa. Our sub-title pretty much says it all: Ancient Ingredients for a Sustainable Future.

We've been hard at work trying to complete the final edits in two languages for the book we've been working on for so long now ~ tweaking the actual book design and layout, getting the proper images edited for each essay and recipe, making sure the flow is right, and that it all looks as great as we feel it should. Self-publishing is a really daunting experience, especially if you: 1. care about your subject 2. feel a responsibility to the people you are working with, and 3. want the images you see on the computer screen to match what the reader will see in the final book! Never having done book packaging before, it was a huge learning curve for us, but I think it's finally finished. We are very proud of it. And so, off to the printer!!!

We have received such kind financial contributions along the way, both in the US and in Oaxaca, and are so very grateful to everyone...we are mostly volunteers doing this in our 'spare time' of which there seems to be very little these days. Thank you so much for your patience!

Here you have a glimpse of Susana proofing the book a couple of weeks ago.....in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We attended the International Folk Art Fair to support the Oaxacan artisans who were selling their pottery and textiles.....

We are hoping to have the final copies to sell to the public by the middle to end of September.....the book will be nearly 300 pages long, many stimulating essays, tasty recipes, and some nice images to top it off. Regular retail is $40 US, but pre-orders are 10% off! In Oaxaca in September you will be able to purchase the book at Amate Bookstore, at Seasons of my Heart Cooking School with Susana Trilling, and here in the U.S. from both Judith Cooper Haden in Santa Fe/Seattle/Portland, and Phil Dahl-Bredine in Oaxaca and Silver City, New Mexico. Jesus Leon Santos will have books for the CEDICAM vounteers and members.

Jesus Leon Santos

Judith Cooper Haden

Phil Dahl-Bredine

For questions please contact Judith Haden, haden.judith(at)gmail.com

BUY THE BOOK HERE !!

Who We Are.....

Phil Dahl-Bredine, activist and co-author of THE OTHER GAME: Lessons from How Life is Played in Mexican Villages, 2009, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York. Phil is a former Maryknoll lay missioner, who with his wife Kathy, lives and works in the tiny village of San Isidro Tilantongo in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca. He will examine firsthand how this 5,000 year-old culture and way of life presents concrete alternatives to the unsustainable aspects of life in Western culture that we must understand in order to move towards a sustainable future for ourselves, our human race and other dwellers on the planet. Co-founder and one of the directors of Instituto Paz en las Americas, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit corporation.

http://www.maryknollsocietymall.org/description.cfm?ISBN=978-1-57075-780-8

Judith Cooper Haden, project contact, photographer. OAXACA: The Spirit Of Mexico, 2002, 152 pages, 200+ photos, Artisan Publishing, New York. A former Peace Corps Volunteer in El Salvador, Judith has worked with and photographed indigenous populations for over 25 years, specializing in the world artisans, folk art, women's micro credit movement, and indigenous peoples of Latin America. Her images will document the traditional practices of the Mixteca. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. judithhaden@yahoo.com

http://www.JudithHadenPhotography.com

Jesus Leon Campos, activist, writer, campesino leader and environmentalist from Tilantongo, Oaxaca. Jesus is a co-founder of CEDICAM, and winner of the GOLDMAN ENVIRONMENTAL PRIZE, 2008.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/2008-goldman-prize-winner-jesus-leon-santos-land-drought.php

Susana Trilling, chef and author of the successful cookbook SEASONS OF MY HEART:A Culinary Journey through Oaxaca Mexico, companion to the popular National Public Television Series 13-part series of the same name. She additionally authored the popular In Search of the Seventh Mole. Susana has lived and taught in Oaxaca for over 20 years, and has mastered the nuances and art of Oaxacan and indigenous cuisine, bringing it to life in her classes, culinary tours, lectures and television shows which focus on pre-Hispanic foods, and traditional culinary, medicinal and spiritual herb usage. Susana will collect and codify these traditional Mixteca recipes and make them user-friendly for the home kitchen. http://seasonsofmyheart.com/

Kathy Dahl-Bredine is a Montessori teacher and founder of two Montessori schools. A former Maryknoll Lay Missioner in Oaxaca, she now works in indigenous villages in the Mixteca Alta with a program for empowerment of youth and women in preventative health and sustainable technologies, solar cooking and efficient wood stoves, organic gardening and composting.