Four years in the making, we are proud to launch our team effort, MILPA: From Seed to Salsa. We explore through timely essays on food issues, mouth-watering recipes, and stunning documentary photography how the ancient agricultural knowledge and the wealth of 1000 year-old seeds and planting practices being revived in the environmentally devastated Mixtec region can help us meet the ecological, h
ealth and food crises of today. The area is located in southern Mexico, just an hour north of the tourist mecca of Oaxaca City. The bilingual book is written in conjunction with and the help of the member campesino families of CEDICAM (Center for Integral Small Farmer Development in the Mixteca) whose director, Jesus León Santos, received the prestigious Goldman Environmental Award in 2008. We discuss simple enduring indigenous alternatives for farmers and cooks around the world who care about the quality of their food and the rights of all to a healthy, simple and tasty nutritious diet. The book supports recent studies by UN investigators that show how small plots of land, heritage non-GMO (genetically modified organisms) seeds and sustainable practices can in fact feed the world while enriching the soils on which we all depend for life. The milpa system stands as a microcosm for global food issues and offers solutions to help us all move towards a sustainable global human family. The many traditional recipes lovingly shared by local indigenous Mixtec women allow readers to re-create the culinary magic that flows from this simple ancient agricultural system. Recipes are painstakingly documented and photographed inside traditional Mixtec indigenous kitchens, and then tested, retested, and photographed in brilliant color in Ms. Mann described milpa agriculture as follows: "A milpa is a field, usually but not always recently cleared, in which farmers plant a dozen crops at once including maize, avocados, multiple varieties of squash and bean, melon, tomatoes, chilies, sweet potato, jícama, amaranth, and mucana.... Milpa crops are nutritionally and environmentally complementary. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make proteins and niacin; Beans have both lysine and tryptophan.... Squashes, for their part, provide an array of vitamins; and avocados, fats.1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, New York: Knopf, 2005, pp. 197-198.) Early review from Deborah Madison, Chef and Author:
" Milpa: From Seed to Salsa is an extraordinary book in many ways. It is a hopeful book that shows in careful detail how extremely well the old ways of farming and living in community can not only feed rural populations but also provide them with medicine and fodder for animals. This is a viable alternative to big agriculture and so-called improvements from elsewhere; this is a fine example. Milpa is also a remarkable book because, like the community of families that tends the milpa fields, this book is product of cooperation among some very extraordinary people—two activists, a chef, and a photographer, who all found a way to bring to light a story of hope with great wisdom and beauty with the cooperation of the Mixtec community who live the life this book allows us to witness. I am so grateful for this book. It is a treasure."
