Food Globalization and Local Diversity : The Case of Tejate

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 difficult 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 "tejate's" 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 time-its origins in indigenous America made possible by interregional migration and trade, its persistence and change through European colonization and independence, its decline during late-twentieth-century economic globalization, and its current change and expansion in an era of intensified globalization.