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Reports
Food Globalization and Local Diversity
The Case of Tejate
Daniela Soleri, David A. Cleveland, and Flavio Arago n Cuevas Geography Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060, U.S.A. ([email protected])/ Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4160, U.S.A. ([email protected])/Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias, Campo Experimental Valles Centrales, Melchor Ocampo 7, Santo Domingo Barrio Bajo, Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico ([email protected]). 1 XI 07
CA Online-Only Material: Supplements AC

Globalization is often assumed to lead to a reduction in cultural and biological diversity, but a view from the beginning of plant domestication suggests that the interaction of foods with forces along the global-local continuum has outcomes for biological and cultural diversity that are contingent and difcult to predict. This phenomenon is apparent in the case of tejate, one of a family of beverages made with maize and cacao that have a very long history in Mesoamerica. Today, tejate is arguably the most important traditional drink in the Central Valleys region of Oaxaca, in southern Mexico. It is commonly made with maize, seeds of one or two species of cacao, seeds of mamey, and rosita de cacao blossoms. Analysis of tejates current role and its relationship with farmer-named maize diversity in two communities of the Central Valleys, one less and one more indigenous, reveals that the preparation of tejate is positively associated with greater local maize diversity. At the same time, it suggests that this relationship could change as a result of contemporary globalization, in which tejate has become more popular with urban consumers and has moved to the United States with Oaxacan migrants. Tejate is an example of the persistence and change of an important traditional food over timeits origins in indigenous America made possible by interregional migration and trade, its persistence and change through European colonization and independence, its decline during late-twentiethcentury economic globalization, and its current change and expansion in an era of intensied globalization.

2008 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2008/4902-0005$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/ 527562

Leaving out massive fragments of the past to discuss globalization as a unique contemporary event is not only shortsighted but often ethnocentric and limits our understanding of the global-local dynamic (Mintz 2000). Globalization is often assumed to lead to a reduction in cultural and biological diversity, but a view from the beginning of plant domestication suggests that the interaction of foods with forces along the global-local continuum has outcomes for biological and cultural diversity that are contingent and difcult to predict. Since plant domestication began 10,000 years BP, crops and foods made from them have often been part of longdistance migration and trade and imperial networks, and many local foods are the products of processes at broader scales. Today, accelerating changes in the worlds economic, sociocultural, and biophysical systems are creating unprecedented challenges for the distinction between local and global foods. The relationship among food, globalization, and agrobiodiversity is apparent in the case of tejate, one of a family of beverages made with maize and cacao that have a very long history in Mesoamerica, and the cultural and biological diversity of maize (see CA online supplement A). Tejate is made in the Central Valleys region of Oaxaca, Mexico, with maize domesticated and grown in the region and products of trees indigenous to Central or South America but imported to the region in ancient timesseeds of two species of cacao (Theobroma cacao and T. bicolor), pixtle (the seed of mamey, Pouteria sapota), and owers of Quararibea funebris, known as rosita de cacao. Additional products of other nonindigenous plants are frequently used, including sugarcane (Saccharum spp.), introduced by Europeans, and coconut (Cocos nucifera), both from Southeast Asia (see CA online supplement B). Tejate has been one of the most important drinks in the Central Valleys and has played a traditional sociocultural role in work parties, festivities, and family meals. Despite its cultural importance, its history, preparation, and use have not been documented (J. Iturriaga de la Fuente, personal communication, February 2005), only a few anecdotal descriptions being available (e.g., Santiago Santiago 2002; Gonza lez Espero n 2006). An account of tejate preparation and the results of interviews with members of 60 rural households indicate that, while the traditional home preparation and use of tejate in some communities has been decreasing as a result of external social and economic changes, its cultural and social signicance remains high. Tejate illustrates the persistence and change of an important traditional food over timeits origins in indigenous America, made possible by interregional migration and trade, its persistence and change through European colonization and independence, and its decline during late-twentieth-century economic globalization. Now it appears to be entering a new stage of globalization that promises not only to expand the geographical extent of its consumption but also to change its traditional composition. In this paper we analyze the current state of tejate preparation and maize

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diversity in two communities that differ in the extent to which they have been affected by globalization, as reected by assimilation into mestizo culture. We also document the recent globalization of tejate both within Oaxaca and through migration to the United States.

Methods
The data reported here come from ongoing investigations of tejate being conducted in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca as part of a larger study of farmers knowledge and management of maize diversity. They were collected in interviews with a random sample of 60 families in two communities in the Central Valleys: Santa Maria in August 2002 and San Antonio in February 2003 (pseudonyms are used here). These communities were chosen to represent contrasting social and agroecological variation in the Central Valleys (table 1). Most important for this study is that Santa Marias originally Zapotec population has been largely assimilated into mestizo culture, including displacement of the native Zapotec language by Spanish, the disappearance of traditional dress, and the institution of municipal governance following the federal system. Until recently, Santa Maria sent relatively few migrants to the United States. In contrast, San Antonios Zapotec population maintains the Zapotec language, womens traditional dress, and some key social institutions such as municipal governance by customary rule (usos y costumbres) (Oaxaca State Government 2006), the tequio (community labor), and other forms of communal responsibility, even while many of its inhabitants have migrated to the United States. Although San Antonio has likely had greater contact with nonlocal culture through its migrants, it appears to have resisted acculturation in terms of important social and linguistic criteria to a far greater extent than Santa Maria. It is on the basis of this lesser degree of acculturation that we characterize it as less affected by globalization. Information on tejate ingredients and preparation comes from detailed formal documentation of its preparation in one Santa Maria household in August 2002, February and JuneJuly 2003, August 2004, and March 2006. This house-

hold continues regular tejate preparation and consumption and was well known to us from our previous research in that community. In July 2003 we interviewed vendors of tejate ingredients (patlaxtleras) in the Zaachila and Ocotlan markets and the two major markets of Oaxaca City (Centro de Abastos and Benito Jua rez) and vendors of tejate (tejateras) in the latter two markets about their sources for those ingredients. In April 2007 we interviewed a tejatera from San Antonio who lives and makes tejate in metropolitan Los Angeles, California.

Maize Diversity in Mexico

Many important crops were domesticated in southern Mexico, including maize, chile pepper, three species of squash, common bean, amaranth, and avocado (McClung de Tapia 1992), and it is probably the only place where maize was domesticated (Matsuoka et al. 2002). Indigenous cuisine was extremely diverse in both ingredients and recipes (Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares 1987; Pico and Nuez 2000; CONACULTA 2004) and was documented by the Spanish (Sahagu n 1988). However, Mexicos rich agricultural and culinary heritage has not been supported by recent changes in its agriculture. Since the beginning of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, agricultural development there has been dominated by a goal of transition to industrial agricultural production by means of technological innovations revolving around the use of modern crop varieties as opposed to locally selected farmers varieties and has focused on industrial food processing. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (Nadal 2000; Fitting 2006) has resulted in greatly increased imports of maize from the United States and changes in Mexicos maize production (Soleri, Cleveland, and Arago n Cuevas 2006; Wise 2007). Although maize diversity has been reduced in the course of these changes, much is still conserved in situ by smallscale, low-resource producers (e.g., for Oaxaca; Arago nCuevas et al. 2006). Neoliberal reforms have made it increasingly difcult for them to make a living (Appendini 1994; Hewitt de Alca ntara 1994), however, and their responses to

Table 1. Characteristics of the Two Study Communities in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Mexico
Study Sample Average (SD)d Respondent Age (years) 59.3 (13.7) 50.0 (12.3)

White Maize Cultivation, 2005 Indigenous Language Speakers (%) (n) 96.6 (2,327) 0.6 (14) Do Not Speak Spanish (%) (n) 15.4 (359) 0 Illiterate Population (%)a 29.6 15.3 Total Working Populationc 559 673 SelfEmployed (%) (n) 86.0 (481) 68.1 (458) Area Harvested (ha) 435.0 779.0

Municipality San Antonio Santa Maria

Total Population 2,410 2,518

Sex Ratiob 77.8 87.4

Production (MT) 445.5 958.6

Yield (MT/ha) 1.02 1.23

Maize Area Sown (ha) 3.7 (2.3) 2.6 (1.4)

Sources: INEGI (2000) and, for maize cultivation, SAGARPA (2007). a 15 years and older; estimated by CONAPO on the basis of the INEGI (2000). b Males/100 females. c 112 years old. d n p 60 (30 in each community).

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Figure 1. Possible outcomes of globalization for diversity of traditional foods and associated crops: the case of maize and tejate in Oaxaca, Mexico. FV p farmer variety.

changing socioeconomic conditions in rural Mexico could have signicant effects on maize diversity. Farmers may continue to grow traditional maize varieties for their cultural value even when it is no longer economically rational in the narrow sense (Appendini, Garc a Barrios, and de la Tejera 2003). Some farming households have responded to worsening economic conditions during the past decade by expanding their maize production (Nadal 2000; Preibisch, Herrejon, and Wiggins 2002), which may be subsidized by migrant remittances. During the same period, however, others have reduced or abandoned maize production entirely in favor of international labor migration, which, in turn, may lead to decreasing knowledge of how to grow maize and prepare maize foods (Fitting 2006). Research in Veracruz has documented a decline in total maize area and the proportion of maize area sown to farmer varieties since the implementation of NAFTA and the economic changes that followed (Wise 2007, 79). Maizes long history as the central staple in Mexico has imbued this crop and the many foods of which it is an ingredient, with enduring cultural signicance (Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares 1987; Echeverr a and Arroyo 2000; Esteva and Marielle 2003). Indeed, Mexico has proposed to UNESCO that its maize cuisine be recognized and protected as a patrimony of humanity (CONACULTA 2004). The assumed relationship between the cultural and the biological diversity of food in Mexico has been suggested as the basis for new strategies for conserving crop genetic diversity and

supporting cultural identity and economic development (e.g., Larson and Neyra 2004); however, in many cases, little is known about the foods or their place in historical and contemporary society. Research in Chiapas, Mexico, showed that cultural diversity as measured by ethnolinguistic differences was not reected in maize diversity as measured by isozyme variation but was reected in some morphological characteristics (Perales, Benz, and Brush 2005). Later research in Chiapas and in Oaxaca suggested that maize diversity was associated with culturally based networks or practices that structured these maize populations against a background of ongoing gene ow (Benz, Perales, and Brush 2007; Pressoir and Berthaud 2004). The Chiapas study found no difference in the way maize was used between the two groups, and the Oaxaca study did not evaluate maize use as a variable affecting maize diversity. There are four main possible outcomes of globalization for traditional foods and the crop diversity originally associated with them, including either the loss or the retention of both food and crop diversity (g. 1). If migrant farmers take their traditional foods and ingredients with them, as is the case for many indigenous migrants to Mexican cities (Bonl Batalla 1996), loss of food diversity in some rural areas may be mitigated by an overall increase in cities. Modernization and acculturation can also contribute to the loss of traditional foods and the consumption of less nutritious industrial foods, leading to malnutrition, as documented in Yucata n (Leatherman and Goodman 2005). We use the case study of tejate

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to explore the extent of any relationship between maize diversity and traditional food.

Tejate Today
The tradition of making foam-topped beverages, including cacao-based ones, was established millennia ago and continues among contemporary peoples of Mesoamerica (McNeil 2006, 34748), with the production of abundant foam an important aesthetic and gastronomic criterion. One form in which the people of the Central Valleys of Oaxaca continue this tradition is their typical morning beverage of chocolate, for which cacao beans, granulated sugar, cinnamon, and almonds ground together at home or in small local mills are heated with water and then mixed and frothed just before serving with a wooden stirring device (the molinilloprobably introduced by the Spaniards). Another form of frothed beverage is the family of foamed Mesoamerican maize and cacao beverages (McNeil 2006) that includes pozol (maize soaked and cooked with calcium carbonate and mixed with cacao and sugar), pinol (thoroughly toasted maize, cacao, and spices; known as pinole in Mexico) (Popenoe 1919), and chilate (boiled ground maize and untoasted cacao) (Kufer, Grube, and Heinrich 2006), all from Guatemala. These and a number of similar drinks are prepared in southern Mexico (Chapa Benavides 2003), including tascalate (toasted maize, cacao, and sugar) and achiote (Bixa orellana) in Chiapas and pozol (cacao and toasted maize) in Tabasco (Javier Quero 2000) and adjacent areas, as well as chorote (fermented maize and cacao) (Castillo-Morales, Wacher-Rodarte, and Herna ndez-Sa nchez 2005). In Oaxaca, beverages similar to tejate but with different names are drunk in areas outside of the Central Valleys, among them pozonque (maize, cacao, and cocolmeca [Dioscorea macrostachya Benth.]) in the Sierra Jua rez and pozol (boiled maize and pixtle) and bupu (boiled maize, toasted cacao, cinnamon, and owers of Plumeria rubra L. [frangipani]) in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (Musa lem Lopez 2002). As the frothed maize and cacao beverage that is made today in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca, tejate has become emblematic of traditional Zapotec culture there. Ricardo Salvador, a maize physiologist, native Oaxacan, and Zapotec-speaker, suggests that the term tejate may be derived from the Nahuatl words textli (our or dough) and atl (water) (denitions for Nahautl words are from Karttunen 1992), combined as texatl (oury water) and then Hispanicized into tejate (personal communication, 2005). Interestingly, Herna ndez (1959 [1577], 305, cited in Dillinger et al. 2000) described atextli as a medicine made from a paste of cacao beans and maize, sometimes with vanilla or Piper sanctum as additives. Today in the Mitla Valley, Zapotec-speakers refer to tejate as cuuhb and to the foam as ghilo cuuhb, or ower of tejate (Munro et al. 1999; Lucila Mart nez Mart nez, personal communication, March 2006). In recent times tejate has been an essential food in the

Central Valleys, particularly in the Mitla and Zimatlan valleys (Gonza lez Espero n 2006) and especially during periods of strenuous eld work. Although many households and communities no longer regularly make it, it is frequently considered a required food and often expected as part of the payment for hired labor during the maize harvest. In our survey we found that everyone identied tejate with the hard work of harvest time, with many commenting that it is cooling, refreshing, and fortifying. However, the study communities showed differences in the frequency of tejate preparation and its uses. In Santa Maria, all those who make tejate prepare and consume it during the maize harvest and give it to the workers they hire to help with that harvest. There and in other mestizo communities tejate has also become a traditional part of Christian festivities such as those of Easter week, although only three households said that they prepared tejate for these occasions. Depending on the quantity being made, tejate preparation takes two or more hours, in addition to the time required for cooking the maize (see CA online supplement C). None of the households in Santa Maria reported making tejate daily, though they said that members of the previous generation, who were less involved in off-farm employment and outmigration and more completely dependent on agriculture, had done so. In San Antonio, 97% of households interviewed made and consumed tejate at least every two to three days. Most did so daily and considered it a staple part of the diet and an essential food for periods of heavy work. The frequency of tejate consumption in rural Oaxacan communities such as San Antonio suggests a signicant dietary contribution, but there are no published data on its nutritional content. In other regions of Mexico, analysis of the nutritional content of traditional maize-based beverages shows that they can make valuable contributions to nutrition, especially for poorer households (Wacher et al. 2000; Guyot et al. 2003). Even as some communities appear to be experiencing a reduction in the frequency of tejate making, tejate is being sought out in the markets of Oaxaca City and other market towns in the Central Valleys. During a three-week period in 1996 Cervantes Servin (n.d., 4950, 52) recorded 2935 tejateras registered in the Centro de Abastos market and 11 in the Benito Jua rez market, both in Oaxaca City. He estimated a net annual income of 39,000 pesos/tejatera (approximately US$5,100, using 1996 conversion rates), making selling tejate an important economic activity.

Tejate and Maize Diversity: What We Know So Far

From our interviews it is clear that tejate preparation and consumption are not distributed evenly throughout Central Valley communities or among households within communities, but our understanding of this and its implications for maize diversity is limited. Farming communities maintain maize farmer varieties for postharvest agronomic reasons (Ortega Pazka 1995) and gastronomic and cultural reasons (Gon-

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Table 2. Tejate and Maize Diversity in the Two Sample Communities

Santa Maria Maize Varieties per Household (Average) San Antonio Maize Varieties per Household (Average) Overall Maize Varieties per Household (Average)

Households (%) (n) Ever make tejate Yes No Make tejate more than rarely Yes No Make tejate with yellow or black maize Yes No

Households (%) (n)

Households (%) (n)

83 (25/30) 17 (5/30)

1.64A 1.00B

100 (30/30) 0 (0/30)

1.87

92 (55/60) 8 (5/60)

1.76A 1.00B

10 (3/30) 90 (27/30)

2.33A 1.44B

100 (30/30) 0 (0/30)

1.87

55 (33/60) 45 (27/60)

1.91A 1.44B

16 (4/25) 84 (21/25)

2.50A 1.50B

50 (15/30) 50 (15/30)

2.27A 1.47B

35 (19/55) 65 (36/55)

2.32A 1.46B

Note: Means with different superscript letters are signicantly different from each other; Tukeys test, p ! 0.05.

za lez 2005). For example, farmer varieties may have different harvest times, kernel characteristics, processing qualities, and avors (Herna ndez Xolocotzi 1985, 1987, 76466; Soleri and Cleveland 2001). Research on maize farmer varieties in the state of Puebla showed that the nixtamal (maize cooked with calcium carbonate) and the cooking time of tortillas made from it differ for different-colored varieties (Rangel-Meza et al. 2004). Our data allow the testing of hypotheses about current associations between maize diversity and tejate in the rural Central Valleys and offer insights regarding the direction of future change. Maize diversity in this preliminary study was measured at the simplest level as the number of farmer-named varieties, recognized as a useful rst step for diversity inventories (e.g., Sadiki et al. 2006). Named varieties provide an indication of the diversity perceived and intentionally managed by farmers, but they cannot be taken as a proxy for genetic diversity; this will need to be assessed using molecular and morphological data. There was no signicant difference (Cochrans t-test, p p 0.0973) in the average number of farmer-named maize varieties grown per household between Santa Maria (1.53) and San Antonio (1.87), with the same range in each community (one to three varieties per household), indicating evenness (see Magurran 1988, 7, 1115) in the distribution of named diversity. However, San Antonio had more varieties (eight, including four different varieties of blanco criollo) than Santa Maria (ve, including two blanco criollos and one modern variety). These results suggest that maize diversity is being maintained at the community rather than the individual household level. Households in both Santa Maria and San Antonio reported using white, yellow, and black maize (96%, 33%, and 9% of all households, respectively) for their tejate, though signicantly more San Antonio residents (15/30 vs. 4/25) used yellow and/or black varieties (x 2 p 6.971, p p 0.0083). Those interviewed consistently said that traditional maize varieties

(ma z criollo) are the best for making tejate. Only one household (in San Antonio) made tejate with a maize variety that it did not grow. Across communities, making tejate, making it more often, and making it with colored maize varieties are all associated with maintaining greater diversity of farmernamed maize varieties (table 2). These same three tejate variables were signicantly associated with other variables characterizing maize agriculture for the two communities combined (table 3). Farmers whose households made tejate planted signicantly more hectares of maize (3.71) than those whose households never made tejate (0.90) (Tukeys test, F p 11.85, p p 0.002). Households that made tejate also had lower maize planting densities, perhaps because many of them were in San Antonio, where the climate is drier and intercropping with other species (e.g., Phaseolus vulgaris and Cucurbita spp.) is more common. Finally, respondents were signicantly older in households that made tejate more than rarely or made it with yellow or black maize. We have assumed that assimilation into mestizo culture is indicative of greater globalization and that farmer-named varieties are indicative of genetic diversity. Based on these assumptions, the results of these interviews suggest that, at the community level, greater globalization is not associated with signicant differences in the average named maize diversity per household (evenness of diversity) but is associated with lower named diversity richness and less use of that diversity for some traditional foods (tejate), including variations of those foods (tejate made with different colors of maize). At the household level across communities we found that greater named maize diversity was signicantly associated with making tejate, making it more often, and making it with colored maize.

The Future of Tejate

Modernization in Mexico, as elsewhere, is often correlated

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Table 3. Maize Agriculture and Tejate across the Two Communities (Pooled Data)
Maize Area Planted Households (%) (n) Ever make tejate Yes No Make tejate more than rarely Yes No Make tejate with yellow or black maize Yes No Average Hectares Respondent Age Households (%) (n) Average Years Reported Planting Density Households (%) (n) Average kg/ha

92 (55/60) 8 (5/60)

3.71A 0.90B

92 (55/60) 8 (5/60)

56.31A 47.80A

92 (54/59) 8 (5/59)

4.91A 6.90B

55 (33/60) 45 (27/60)

3.68A 2.54B

55 (33/60) 45 (27/60)

59.06A 51.37B

54 (32/59) 46 (27/59)

4.37A 5.93B

35 (19/54) 65 (35/54)

3.54A 3.29A

35 (19/54) 65 (35/54)

62.26A 53.26B

36 (19/53) 64 (34/53)

4.50A 5.10A

Note: Means with different superscript letters are signicantly different from each other; Tukeys test, p ! 0.05.

with loss of traditional culture, including a diminished role for traditional foods (Esteva and Marielle 2003; CONACULTA 2004, 15253). In Oaxaca this process is present but is tempered by other forces, including a strong cultural afnity for local maize varieties and foods made from them that in some cases contributes to their persistence or resurgence. Today there is a resurgence of traditional Oaxacan foods in general and especially of the maize-based foods deemed important for maintaining cultural identity in the face of perceived threats such as transgenic maize (e.g., Consejo Ind gena Popular de Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Mago n 2002; Gonza lez 2005) and industrial fast foods (e.g., Weiner 2002). In these cases traditional food, maize, and agriculture are the foci of resistance. The interplay of change and tradition as manifest in food is apparent in some of the processes of contemporary globalization, including migration of people and ideas, commercialization, and industrialization. These processes are affecting and will continue to affect tejate and local maize diversity. One form of the resurgence of traditional foods in Mexico is their growing popularity and commercialization outside of rural communities, among local urbanites and tourists (Barkin 2002). For example, the new restaurant Itanoni in Oaxaca City features traditional Oaxacan foods made with maize farmer varieties, though not tejate (e.g., Caistor 2002). Tejateras are not only making tejate available to consumers in Oaxacan markets but also taking it to Oaxacan consumers elsewhere; it is featured in the street fairs accompanying the annual Guelaguetza celebration in the city and at the Fiesta de Tejate in the Central Valley town of San Andre s Huayapam, both of which attract Mexican and foreign visitors. Individually and in groups, women from San Andre s Huayapam actively market tejate as well as novel foods based on it such as tejate cookies. Still, commercial tejate production is not a recent phenomenon; reports of the sale of frothed maize and cacao beverages in Mexican markets date back to the time of the Spanish invasion (Sahagu n 1988, 62526). Not surpris-

ingly, the quality, purity, and taste of commercialized tejate are frequently criticized by those who regularly prepare it for their own consumption. Negative comments about the maize varieties and quality of maize used and the use of industrial fats as foaming agents are the most common. A new commercial form of industrially produced tejate sold under the name tejatli even eliminates the role of the tejateras. Tejatli is an enriched, powdered form of tejate for preparacio n instanta nea (instant preparation) developed by entrepreneurs in Oaxaca (Martinez 2008), who told us that they used local farmer-variety maize in its production. The resurgent interest in traditional foods beyond Mexico will also affect their future. For example, at the Disneyland amusement park in California an exhibit of a tortiller a has been built that promotes an industrial version of this food while playing on its traditional status (Lind and Barham 2004). Also in southern California, a tamale museum has recently opened, funded by Maseca, the worlds largest producer and processor of dry maize our made from maize modern varieties (Tamale Museum 2006). Tejate itself is moving into new locations far from Oaxaca. Migrants from San Antonio in metropolitan Los Angeles told us that three women from the Central Valleys were making tejate in their homes there and selling it to fellow migrants. We interviewed one of them, a woman who had been living in Los Angeles for six years and making tejate for her family and for sale for the past three. Each week, she prepares tejate from 50 pounds of both yellow and white maize purchased at the neighborhood pet store as whole-grain birdseed. The ashes used in cooking the maize come from a fast-food chain that produces wood-barbecued chicken. Pixtle, cacao, and rosita de cacao are sent to her by her family in Oaxaca via a courier service, and in grinding them she uses a metate and mano carried from Oaxaca by a family member. Another family is starting to make tejate for its own consumption using tablets of dried pixtle dough sent by relatives in Oaxaca and, presumably, maize our purchased in Los Angeles.

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These new events in the globalization of tejate indicate that it is important to distinguish between the fate of traditional maize foods and the extent to which local maize diversity is used to prepare them. In the case of tejate the impact will depend on many factors. For example, the maize varieties available for use in homemade and commercial tejate in Oaxaca will be determined in part by the varieties grown by local farmers and by their cost. The changing cultural value of tejate could, in turn, inuence farmers decisions about maintaining maize varieties. For example, the husband of one thirdgeneration tejatera in the city of Oaxaca recently left a professional position to devote himself to full-time cultivation of organically grown local maize farmer varieties to supply her tejate and tortilla masa business (D. Soleri, eld notes, February 2007). In contrast, in the United States the contribution of tejate production to conservation of Oaxacan maize diversity may be negative because of farmer varieties replacement by locally available modern varieties. We are not aware of any Central Valley migrants planting Oaxacan maize farmer varieties in the United States, and day-length sensitivity may prohibit this. While the importation of tejate into the United States by some Oaxacan migrants is evidence of its importance to them, how this will affect its symbolic and material content and maize diversity both in its new context and in rural Oaxacan households remains to be seen. Other consequences of globalization for food within and beyond Mexicos borders may also have a profound effect on local maize diversity. For example, the availability of maize farmer varieties will be inuenced by their use in other foods, especially tortillas, a staple of Mexican cuisine that is increasingly being industrialized. This is relevant in the case of tejate because none of the households reported growing a maize variety that was used exclusively for tejate (although we are now nding households in which the only traditional food still made at home with their own maize is tejate [D. Soleri et al., eld notes, November 2007]). Maseca has aggressive marketing plans to expand into smaller towns and replace the inferior wet maize method that is used in making 49% of Mexicos tortillas (Maseca 2004, 11). Some of the commercial tortiller as still use the wet method (on-site cooking with calcium carbonate of whole grain), sometimes including farmer-variety grain. This would be eliminated by conversion to equipment for the use of dry our. Finally, the rapidly increasing use of transgenic maize in the United States and elsewhere and intense pressure to permit its planting in Mexico may also have a signicant effect on traditional foods and maize diversity. While the presence of transgenes in Oaxacan maize farmer varieties has been reported in some locations (Alvarez-Morales 2002), the data indicating presence or absence in Oaxaca (Quist and Chapela 2001; Ortiz-Garc a et al. 2005) are inconclusive (Cleveland et al. 2005). There is, however, new evidence that transgene ow to farmers traditional varieties has occurred elsewhere in Mexico (Serratos-Herna ndez et al. 2007). The probability that transgenes have entered populations of Mexican maize farmer

varieties and their potential to affect maize diversity are widely debated (Cleveland and Soleri 2005; Soleri, Cleveland, and Arago n Cuevas 2006). Ongoing concerns about unintentional ow of transgenes via seed and pollen into maize farmer varieties in Oaxaca and the possible future approval of transgenic maize for commercial production in Mexico could affect tejate production and consumption, as has been reported for other traditional maize foods in Oaxaca (Caistor 2002). Consumers concerned about the cultural, health, or environmental consequences of transgenes may avoid foods thought to contain them. For some, transgenic maize is a signicant violation of their cultural heritage and values, and the presence of transgenes threatens the survival of their maize farmer varieties, traditions, and identities (CEC 2004; Gonza lez 2005). Alternatively, these concerns may diminish and disappear with time. In a study of farmers knowledge and attitudes relevant to transgenic maize, we interviewed 110 farmers from two Oaxacan communities different from those described above. The farmers ranked the following four types of maize in terms of their preference for sowing them in their own elds and eating them in their homes (Soleri et al. 2005): their local farmer variety, a locally available modern variety, their local farmer variety containing a transgene commonly used in maize, and the locally available modern variety containing the same transgene. For sowing and especially for eating, the farmer variety was the most strongly favored, and those containing transgenes the least, with some farmers refusing to include the latter in their rankings at all. These results suggest that farmers attitudes toward transgenic varieties could affect maize diversity and that traditional foods made with them such as tejate might be jeopardized by the presence of transgenes if farmers and consumers knew of their presence.

Conclusion
Tejate is a local specialty in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca a traditional beverage made with ingredients many of which have been grown in the region for centuries and techniques that have been developed and used by the people of Mesoamerica for millennia. It is one of a group of foam-topped Mesoamerican beverages made today with similar ingredients that have long been valued and enjoyed for their cultural signicance, avor, and nutrition. The Europeans brought sugarcane from the Old World, and cane sugar was eventually integrated into some forms of these beverages. Today some new tools, such as hand or electric mills, are being used in tejate preparation. Our study found that contemporary tejate preparation is associated with maize diversity, suggesting the need for better understanding of the role traditional foods play in diversity conservation. The traditional role of tejate does not appear to be changing dramatically for many rural households in communities such as San Antonio that still prepare and enjoy it frequently. However, the extent of out-migration from San

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Antonio, especially to the United States, and our nding that tejate preparation was signicantly more common in older households indicate that a massive change in maize diversity conservation and traditional food preparation may occur there and in similar communities in the next generation. Tejate making has already diminished in more acculturated, globalized communities such as Santa Maria, although even among households there that no longer make their own tejate it retains much of its traditional cultural value. At the same time, demand appears to be increasing in urban areas served by commercial tejateras, with changes in how it is made, by whom, and when and where it is consumed. Commercialization of prepared tejate combined with human travel and migration and more recently its industrialization appear to be extending the geographic and social territories of tejate. This may be facilitated by a change in expectations: respondents in Oaxaca said that tejate should be made only with local (as opposed to commercial or modern) maize varieties, primarily because they make it taste better. And yet, Oaxacans in Los Angeles, some from the very same families as those interviewed in San Antonio, are now purchasing tejate made with U.S. maize modern varieties packaged as birdseed. Perhaps nostalgia leads to concessions that might not otherwise be made, as is the case for Hopi farmers who substitute commercial sweet maize in traditional religious ceremonies if Hopi sweet maize is not available (Soleri and Cleveland 1993). Although tejate making continues to be based on traditional processing and maize varieties and other plant species domesticated and still grown in Mesoamerica, its future may increasingly depend on the evolving forces of globalization. These include increasing migration from the Central Valleys to the United States and increasing interest on the part of local Oaxacans, tourists, and others from outside of the Central Valleys in traditional local foods. It will also depend on efforts to support the role of traditional foods and their nutritional, culinary, and cultural contributions to Oaxacan society. The potential effects of such variables are a part of our current research on tejate in Oaxaca. Thus, tejate will continue to provide a case study of a traditional food for which globalization has played a role in its creation, expansion, contraction, and movement into new contexts. Whether globalization will ultimately support, enhance, or diminish the biological and cultural diversity that tejate depends on and reinforces will depend on the conuence of many different forces, and simple generalizations are inappropriate. For now, although changes are occurring, tejate is persisting as a cultural icon and may even be ourishing in the current wave of globalization. However, these changes seem to mark a transition of tejate out of poorer households into the diets of better-off and foreign populations, perhaps with less discriminating palatesa movement away from its rural context with unknown consequences for the diversity of traditional cultures and maize.

Acknowledgments
We thank Lorenza, Delna, and Maxima Castellanos and their family for sharing their knowledge and tejate with us; the Oaxacan households who participated in the survey; the patlaxtleras we interviewed in the markets; Louis Grivetti, Elisabeth Randall, and Barbara Voorhies, for help with sources; Kirsten Tripplett, Janine Gasco, and Barbara Voorhies, for comments on a draft; Alfonso Garc a Villago mez of the Jard n Etnobota nico in Oaxaca, for assistance in plant identication; Pulciano Go mez, for assistance in nding U.S.based tejateras; Pamela Munro and Lucila Mart nez Mart nez, for assistance with Central Valley Zapotec terms; Ricardo Salvador, for suggestions regarding the evolution of the term tejate; Luis Alberto Vargas; Ben Orlove and the anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions; a UCSB Humanities Grant for support during summer 2002; and the Wallace Genetic Foundation and the National Science Foundation (SES9977996), for funding for research with farmers of maize. We alone are responsible for errors.

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