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Porcelana Cacao, a native seed

by Crista Castellanos
written by Crista Castellanos

Cacao porcelana’s leaves

The cacao tree shown in the photo will begin producing its first fruits in eighteen months’ time. Surrounded by other cacao trees and shaded by palms, this little plant began life in July 2015, on the Diosconmigo farm, where Daniel Carei was brought up by his great-grandparents. Four hours down the mountain is Mingueo, the closest town. In this guajiro town, crossed by the main road between Santa Marta and Riohacha, APOMD (Association of Organic Producers of the Municipality of Dibulla) brings together farmers and producers who, with the support of Slow Food, hope to revive the native seed known as Porcelana cacao.
This seed originates from Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, and its natural habitat is over 200m above sea level. It grows close to water sources, protected by the shade of other trees, and its trunk can reach up to five metres in search of light. White cacao, as it is also known, has been preserved on indigenous lands. Maybe due to its delicateness and singular fermentation time, it does not attract large cacao producers in Colombia.
The majority of cacao varieties planted in this region of the country are sold to the National Chocolates Company and come from cloned seeds. They have been created in laboratories and introduced to the region by Daabon, a company known for its connection to forced displacement and the monoculture African palm plantations which extend across Magdalena and La Guajira. These clones come to farmers through technological packets that include the use of agro-chemicals and fertilizes that modify regions’ natural ecosystems. In addition to this is the damage done to biodiversity when farmers, attempting to secure the sale of their produce, only plant one type of seed.

But this is only a small part of the road travelled by industrial cacao to arrive on our tables. This story is not only about a product with cloned seeds but also about a selection of beans which lacks rigour. In industrial processes which prioritise quantity over quality, varieties are mixed without qualm when they are collected. Once the beans have been fermented for several days and then dried, they are moved to the roaster without taking account of their different sizes. The small beans are burnt, the big ones are not roasted enough and thus, they are ground together to make the same paste or base. The low quality beans or husks which are thrown out during artisanal processing, are kept during industrial processing. And at this point, already far removed from the original flavor and aroma of the fruit, the uncountable preservatives and flavourings of an industry which appears generous and diverse (light chocolate, instant, vanilla flavoured, cloves and cinnamon…) are added. It is worth asking oneself how much cacao there actually is in the chocolate we are purchasing.
There are also innumerable details in the story of recuperating a seed. Let’s stop beating about the bush and come back to white cacao. Has it survived because of its lack of commercial importance to the national chocolate industry? Has it survived by being part of the diet of indigenous families who have prepared it in their houses in the middle of the Sierra for years? It is possible. Malanga, guatila, and chachafruto are other examples of native fruits that have no commercial importance, but which are nevertheless a high quality source of nutrition. What is not named is forgotten, and often it is someone from outside who makes us look inside and value what we have neglected.
More than three years have passed since APOMD and Slow Food first met in Dibulla. For Yarido Banquez, vice-president of the association, this process has not only meant the rescuing of the seed but also traditional forms of cultivation. This includes practices such as making organic fertilizer from what the surroundings provide, paying attention to the phases of the moon, varying crops and planting in triangles to protect the land, in other words: a type of agriculture which observes and applies what Nature itself has done for centuries. Beyond the difficulties caused by the lack of water caused by the El Niño phenomenon, the most difficult thing, according to Yarido, is to spread faith amongst other growers. The disappointing results of past State and private initiatives have created disbelief amongst farmers, and it is not easy to convince them to commit to a process which requires time and perseverance.
These cacao producers plant without knowing whether they will harvest any rewards, the Sierra has taught them that a lot can happen in eighteen months. For them, a clear way of building peace in Colombia is to take up the knowledge passed on from their ancestors, some of whom were Arhuaco indigenous people. Today, they are farmers who are aware of the harmful effects of the Green Revolution, and that is why they are trying to stand up to an economy which enslaves them and which generates food by poisoning the countryside. This is why they consciously choose the seed, as it represents their intention to free themselves and to free the land.

 

Daniel Carei, Fernando Oliveros y Yarido Banquez. Porcelana cacao producers.

 

Images and words by Crista Castellanos. A project financed by Slow Food International and IFAD.
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Quinua y Amaranto, a vegetarian restaurant.

by Crista Castellanos
written by Crista Castellanos

 

Quinua y Amaranto, a vegetarian restaurant in the La Candelaria neighbourhood of Bogotá, offers much more than just good products and good food. A chat with Magdalena Barón, who has managed this project for more than eight years, generates ideas, words, and questions. The tranquility and thoughtfulness with which she speaks are refreshing. Her short pauses reflect a women who has built, over time and life experience, a connection between herself and what she believes, what she does, offers, and consumes. Remembering her while I write, I have the feeling of having spoken with someone who wants to be consistent in what she thinks and feels in her heart.
Without really knowing her, I’m just writing personal impressions here, and probably risk boring readers who like objective writing. But faced with the need for proof or justifications, all I can say is that the coherence she communicates is reflected in the work she does with the other women in Quinua y Amaranto every day. Work which is seen, smelt, and tasted at lunchtime, in a single menu consisting of a soup, main dish, juice, and dessert: a vegetarian corrientazo (basic meal) which has nothing basic or common about it. Flavours, smells and colours, juices, salads, sweets and cereals which, despite being from our continent, are largely unknown to us. Fruits, seeds and roots which we don’t use at home, which we don’t grow, whose smell we don’t know, and whose colour and shape we can’t even imagine. Our high-speed cooking limits us, and curiosity about ourselves falls asleep.
As well as telling us about quinoa and amaranth, the star products of the restaurant, Magdalena also talked about guatila, a food which is scorned as the “poor-person’s potato,” in the same way in which chicha was also looked down on for its supposed power to stupefy. She told us about mamay and arazá, amongst many more fruits and products which are a whole story in themselves, seeds of other items.
Beyond letting people know about a fruit or cereal known, this shop invites us to re-view everything that we are. It invites us to re-discover and value the forgotten as a key act in consuming, buying, cooking, and eating. It’s not simply about a vegetarian restaurant, it’s a place with a caring approach to work and commerce which questions our consumption habits. In a world where progress is synonymous with untiring machinery, speed, economic growth, and purchasing power, finding people that know and trust small-scale producers, offer a good quality product, without hurry, and small-scale, is always a nice surprise. Magdalena doesn’t sacrifice quality for quantity. For her, the success or progress of a business is not measured in franchises or in large-scale production, rather in constant evolution which doesn’t override principles, philosophy or the way in which life itself is lived and dreamed.
In Quinua y Amaranto, the variety is not in a menu full of different dishes, but rather in the particularity of the ingredients which are used and the way in which they are prepared. Vegetables, empanadas, condiments, biscuits, cereals, fruits, infusions, artisanal cheeses, products as far as possible organic. The importance of knowing the value of what’s on offer and that every project, whether it’s commercial or not, has a direction and clear guidelines so as not to sacrifice, in the name of progress, what they believe.
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Of grandmothers and guatilas

by Crista Castellanos
written by Crista Castellanos

Guatila cortada

Once upon a time, and several times, the guatila was in grandmother’s hands. All green, deformed, smooth, and cold. I look at it in the photo, plunged in its silence in this white background, and silent is the guatila now on the kitchen counter. My grandmother used to make a stew with guatila in, maybe I ate it as a child and if I did I didn’t even notice. In my short childhood memory, memory full of the present, there was only space for onion and tomato, the unforgettable mix which turned my palate.

So, when did the guatila reappear? Or rather, when did it disappear? Why did nobody name it at home, why isn’t it routine for us? And worse still, generalizing: who had the idea of calling it the “poor person’s potato,” when not even poor people eat it, despite its being cheap and growing by itself and without being noticed in gardens, yards and paddocks?

That it is rich in vitamin C, low in cholesterol, helps you lose weight, and has other nutritional attractions isn’t keeping me up at night… imagining its story. The story of the guatila, another example of underestimation and forgetfulness of what grows in Colombia. I don’t know much about the guatila. I only know that it was once, and many times, in my grandmother’s hands, on my parents’, aunts, and uncles plates. It was on my grandfather’s plate, and on other plates and kitchens further afield, further back in time

Sometimes I think that in this city we – the majority of us – are recent beings. It’s barely two generations since we stopped being farmers. I’m referring to the family from which I come and several others I know, whose grandparents were born in some forgotten corner of Cundinamarca, Boyacá, or other department. Whose grandparents, many of whom are still alive, were born in the countryside. How are we so disconnected from nature, to the point of not being able to recognize a chicalá? About to forget the flavor of the guatila, or even its name? I’m speaking for myself, and possibly for a few people I don’t know, potential visitors to this website and to these words.

With grandparents who were born in the countryside and the hands of a midwife. With grandparents who migrated to the capital as part of the great rural exodus, forced or not, but in any case under circumstances of hunger, poverty, and destitution. An exodus which never ends. We are so recent in this city, so recent is our passing from adobe and mud rooves to industrial bricks and asbestos tiles, that it’s surprising how we lost the trace of so many various and unique fruits and vegetables, to the point of only remembering and re-evaluating them when they are served in an expensive restaurant.

>And over there is the guatila, still silent, beside the three red onions, guavas for juicing, and other things on the counter. My grandmother’s weak hands don’t cook any more. How far, back in time, would you have to go to find the first memory of the guatila in her stories? Is there a better story than that told in her words, even if it is an invented memory?

History, or at least a story about the guatila. Hopefully your grandmother, and not some gastronomy magazine, will tell you it. Hopefully she tells you a story that has never been told before, blended with vegetables and children’s shouts. I hope she tells you what isn’t told in the corner shop, that which nobody whispered in the open streets. Stories that travelled invisible across the years, without the commotion of the big changes, without leaving statues or dates which you have to remember in some exam. Without fuss because the children are sleeping… and there are a lot of them.

Just because we can’t love these stories without knowing them, or value the guatila without trying it. For now, we leave you the image under Creative Commons licensing. Copy it, use it, share it around. Speak about the guatila because what isn’t named is forgotten. Look for it in a shop. Maybe when you try it, it will taste like some story that you didn’t live but which is a part of you. Maybe the flavour will bring you some memory you won’t know if you dreamt or invented, but which is yours. It belongs to you

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