The Staff of Life: Wheat and ‘Indian Bread’ in the New World

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The Staff of Life: Wheat and ‘IndianBread’ in the New WorldLuis Millones Figueroa aa Colby CollegePublished online: 16 Jul 2010.

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The Staff of Life: Wheat and ‘IndianBread’ in the New WorldLuis Millones Figueroa

Colby College

Beginning with Columbus, the image of the Americas as a paradise became

commonplace in European narratives. A key feature of this perception was the

image of a natural world filled with countless exotic species of plants and animals.

Plants in particular excited the imagination of European commentators because of

their potential as sources of medicine and food. Yet, amidst this celebration of

abundance, Europeans also noticed striking absences in the natural world of the

Americas. A crucial staple of the European diet was missing: wheat. Francisco Lopez

de Gomara, one of the most widely read chroniclers, wrote in 1553: ‘they did not have

wheat in all the Indies, which are another world, a huge lack given what we are used

to here’ ([1553] 1946, 289).1 As much as the ‘nakedness’ of the natives, the lack of

wheat signaled a crucial difference between cultures. Wheat was not just a plant; it

was a defining element of European cultural identity. In the absence of this key

European staple, historians and naturalists paid close attention to those plants they

believed played the role of wheat in native societies. By looking at European’s

perceptions and discussions of the lack of wheat in the Americas as well as their

observations regarding ‘Indian breads’ and how they used them, we can learn much

about the challenges of transplanting, preserving, and adapting the early modern

European identity in the New World.

Comments on the lack of wheat, the need to export it to the Americas, and

evaluations of native plants that were used for ‘Indian breads’ are ubiquitous in the

literature of the conquest and colonization. These documents provide evidence of the

processes by which Europeans interpreted and came to terms with the New World.

In this article I examine the Europeans’ surprise, their reactions, evaluations, and

adjustments to the absence of wheat, and their concurrent discovery of native

American staple foods. I start by identifying wheat/bread as a central material and

symbolic aspect of European life from its origins to the Early Modern period. This

background is necessary to understand the importance accorded to the lack of wheat

in the chronicles and to understand the underlying suspicion of, and lasting general

ISSN 1060-9164 (print)/ISSN 1466-1802 (online) # 2010 Taylor & Francis on behalf of CLAR

DOI: 10.1080/10609164.2010.493688

Colonial Latin American Review

Vol. 19, No. 2, August 2010, pp. 301�322

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contempt for, the American staple foods. I then proceed to present European

responses to the absence of wheat, focusing on their efforts to reproduce a culture of

wheat in the new lands. Through examples from a variety of sources (mainly Spanish,

but also English and French) I show that the fortunes of wheat in the Americas were

seen as a way to assess the possibility of success or failure of the entire European way

of life and religion in the New World. Next, I present varied and ambivalent Spanish

reactions to the plants used to make the foods they termed ‘Indian breads’ (manioc,

maize, and potatoes), including the controversy over the nutritional value of Indian

breads, given the widely held assumption that wheat was ‘the best food.’ A final

section briefly brings up questions of diet, identity, and religion by both looking at

wheat as an agent of Christianization and identifying ambiguous situations derived

from the appropriation of Old and New World staple foods by Europeans,

Amerindians and the emerging societies.

Bread Eaters

The intimate connection between Europeans and bread may date as far back as the

successful domestication of barley, oats, and wheat, and to bread’s contribution to the

development of agricultural societies.2 Ancient Greek literature includes references to

humans as sitophagos (bread eaters).3 In Works and Days, Hesiod says that Zeus

created a third generation of people (after the gold and silver races) made of bronze,

who ‘did not eat bread at all’ (1996, 69), distinguishing the bronze race from his own

generation of people, the bread eaters.4 Another clear reference comes from the

Odyssey, when Odysseus speaks about the Cyclops Polyphemos: ‘Inside/there lodged a

monster of a man, who now was herding/the flocks at a distance away, alone, for he

did not range with/others, but stayed away by himself; his mind was lawless/and in

truth he was a monstrous wonder made to behold, not/like a man, an eater of bread,

but more like a wooded/peak of the high mountains seen standing away from the

others’ (1967, 142).5 Humans are the superior generation of races, according to

Hesiod, and are not monsters, according to Odysseus, because they are bread eaters.

Bread defines both the highest degree of civilization and true human nature.

The myth of the harvest festivals at Eleusis and the myth of Demeter link wheat to

the origins of humans and civilization. The Eleusinian Games were established to

celebrate the Rharian Plain as the ‘original field’ of grains, the place where the hero

Triptolemos, under Demeter’s guidance, took the seeds from the first grain to sow

them all over the world. Before they had grain/bread to eat, humans were weak and

had to walk on four legs like animals. As Baudy explains, ‘according to the myth, the

Eleusinian Games were a commemoration not only of the first harvest, but also of the

humanization of mankind: only by eating the hitherto unknown cereals could

primeval men have become strong enough to lift the upper part of their bodies from

the ground’ (1995, 179). The myth of the goddess Demeter, who taught men to

gather, use, store and sow wild wheat, likewise reinforced this critical cultural

breakthrough for mankind. Only after Demeter shared her knowledge of cultivation

302 L. Millones Figueroa

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and initiated the agrarian cycle did men turn away from their lives as hunters and

gatherers to embrace civilization.6

In his Naturalis Historia, Pliny the Elder describes the cultivation, varieties, and

properties of wheat. According to the Roman naturalist, wheat had a special place in

the natural world because nothing was ‘more prolific than wheat,’ a quality bestowed

by nature because it was ‘her principal means of nourishing man’ (1938, 249). Pliny

continues his assessment of wheat with a long description of the varieties of wheat

and other grains used to make bread in many cultures. He concludes that the first

place ‘for whiteness and for weight’ among all varieties of wheat belonged to the

wheat of his own land. Foreign wheat could come close only to Italian wheat of lesser

quality cultivated in the mountains. When Pliny declares that wheat was the principal

nutriment of man, he places wheat ahead of all other plants in the order of nature. In

addition, by designating Italian wheat as the best kind, Pliny gives wheat a role in

determining cultural identity. Furthermore, the best wheat flour, according to him,

made ‘bread of the highest quality and the most famous pastry,’ a statement that

implies its worth and role as an indicator of social status (1938, 231, 245). Already in

Pliny’s time, cultural and social identities were shaped by the kind of bread one could

bring to the table.

Early Modern Europeans were familiar with ancient perspectives on the natural

world and they also drew on Christian ideology, in which the symbolism of bread

made from wheat had a prominent place. The ‘Lord’s Prayer’ refers to (our daily)

bread as the necessary nourishment of the body, and indeed according to the gospel

of John, Jesus declared himself to be bread: ‘I am the living bread which came down

from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever’ (John 6:51). In the

Christian tradition, bread sustains both the material and the spiritual life. Catholics

were reminded often of this connection because of the Eucharist, and the metaphor of

the Lord as bread inspired many. In Hugo van der Goes’s celebrated Portinari

altarpiece (ca. 1476), the Nativity scene in Bethlehem (which in Hebrew means

‘House of Bread’) includes a sheaf of wheat in the foreground of the central panel

alongside the nude Baby Jesus as a way of illustrating the Christ/bread connection.

In a sermon of Saint Peter Chrysologus (406�450), Christ was described as ‘planted in

the Virgin, fermented in the flesh, kneaded in the Passion, baked in the oven of the

sepulcher, and seasoned in the churches where every day the holy Host is served to

the faithful’ (Montanari 1994, 17).

The interplay between the holy and earthly aspects of this sacrament was further

established in medieval times by the authoritative words of Thomas Aquinas: ‘Of all

kinds of bread, men most commonly use wheaten bread; other breads seem to be only

a substitute for it. Hence we believe that Christ used this bread when he instituted

this sacrament. This bread is also the more strengthening, and for this reason it more

suitably signifies the effect of this sacrament. Therefore, its proper matter is wheaten

bread’ (1964, 33).7

Our contemporary diet no longer depends on a single staple, unlike the European

diets of the sixteenth century. From the eleventh century on, bread came to symbolize

Colonial Latin American Review 303

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food itself and became prevalent on the tables of all social classes; it became, in fact, a

defining feature of European identity. Arable plots came to be referred to as ‘bread

lands,’ agricultural production became known as ‘bread harvest,’ and a household

which ate and slept under the same roof was described as one whose members lived

ad unum pane, that is from the same bread (Montanari 1994, 48).

Wheat in the New World

The absence of wheat in the Americas was duly noticed by most chroniclers because it

was the epitome of the biological divide between Europe and the New World. If bread

eaters were to settle in the Americas, wheat had to accompany them. Seeds of wheat

arrived in the New World as early as 1493 with Columbus’s second voyage, and,

according to Super, from then on ‘[w]here wheat was planted and survived, Spanish

society took root and grew’ (1988, 32). But early trials were disappointing. Despite

much effort, the attempts to produce wheat locally in the hot and humid

environment of the Caribbean were not successful. But its importance was such

that even though wheat had already failed miserably when first introduced, the

Spanish Crown ordered Columbus to renew attempts to grow it, and sent 6,000

fanegas of grain on his third voyage. Wheat still did not flourish. Not even the know-

how of farmers brought expressly from Spain could help the crop. The wheat either

did not generate grain or the grain was of poor and uneven quality (Acosta [1590]

2002, 201; Cobo [1653] 1964, 160).

The Spanish were not alone in this struggle. In 1607, The Virginia Company

instructed the first group of settlers to cultivate English plants. The first crop of wheat

was successful and the following spring the colonists proceeded to clear forest to sow

more. Lord Delaware and Thomas Dale, who succeeded John Smith as the men in

charge of the colony, also promoted the cultivation of wheat. Dale even offered some

men cleared fields in exchange for part of their crop. Even though the cultivation of

wheat in the Chesapeake was not as easy as promotional literature announced, the

Virginia Company regularly sent seeds, and both the Company in London and

colonists in America tried to establish wheat in the region throughout the proprietary

period (Eden 1999, 137�40).8 English colonists in Carolina’s subtropical climate

experienced a more difficult situation. Even though promotional literature from

colonial officials such as Joseph Dalton stated that the new land was ‘excellent for

English grain, and will afford us the convenient husbandry of wheat,’ the reality was

failed crops. Much to colonist John Steward’s despair, bread had to be made instead

from ‘that savage graine maize’ (Edelson 2006, 69).

In New France the Jesuits expressed their Christian determination by maintaining

the Huron mission for sixteen years, despite the mission’s extreme isolation, and their

being deprived of the wheat needed to support their material and spiritual life. The

missionary Francesco Bressani wrote: ‘[W]e have passed whole years without

receiving so much as one letter, either from Europe or from Kebek, and in total

deprivation of every human assistance, even that most necessary for our mysteries


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and sacraments themselves, the country having neither wheat nor wine, which are

absolutely indispensable for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass’ (Thwaites 1896�1901,

39:48).

When conquering and evangelizing the wheat-less lands of the New World,

Catholics brought not only their weapons and crosses, but also wheat. During

Hernando De Soto’s expedition into Florida*as recounted by El Inca Garcilaso de la

Vega*Spanish conquistadors lost the wheat flour and wine they had brought along

for mass, even though these precious items had been carried with the Governor’s

provisions, and every precaution had been taken for their safety. The wheat and wine

that burned during battle, along with the chalices and vestments, were considered a

‘loss’ that was ‘even more serious than that of the destruction of their companions

and horses whom the Indians had killed.’ Faced with the impossibility of conducting

their religious services, the clergy and laymen had disputes ‘as to whether or not they

would be able to consecrate bread made of corn.’ The consensus was that ‘the most

certain thing that the Holy Roman Church, Our Mother and Lady, commands and

teaches us in her sacred decrees and canons is that bread must be of wheat and the

wine of grapes’ ([1605] 1951, 382).

Bread was well established as the ‘staff of life,’ and neither expense nor any other

obstacle prevented Europeans from planting wheat in the new lands.9 In a letter

written in 1612 at Port Royal, New France, the Jesuit missionary Pierre Biard made a

point of remembering the occasion when ‘having had very successful crops from the

little that was tilled, we made from the harvest some hosts and offered them to God.

These are, as we believe, the first hosts which have been made from the wheat of these

lands’ (Thwaites 1896�1901, 2:24�25). El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega carefully records

the name of the person responsible for the arrival of wheat (as well as those who

brought the grapevine and the olive) to Peru in the sixteenth century, and recalls that

‘the anxiety of the Spaniards to have the things of their own country transplanted to

the Indies was so strong that no danger or trouble seemed great enough to prevent

them from trying to realize their desires’ ([1609] 1966, 595).

By 1590, Father Jose de Acosta, author of the most influential natural history of the

early colonial period, reports that wheat came to the Caribbean from New Spain or

was shipped from Spain or the Canary Islands. He also explains that it was so humid

in the Caribbean that bread produced with local or imported wheat had hardly any

taste and little or no nutritional value. Even worse, the poor quality of the wheat was

creating obstacles for the Christian faith. Acosta writes that due to the faulty

consistency of wheat, ‘communion wafers, when we said mass, would bend as if made

of wet paper’ ([1590] 2002, 201). Acosta wondered whether the Caribbean was a place

suited for Spaniards to live and concluded that it was a hostile environment for both

wheat and Christianity. Bartolome de Las Casas, a friar of the Dominican order best

known for denouncing the abuses of the Spanish conquistadors, earnestly reported

the opposite experience. Wheat was flourishing in Hispaniola, and Las Casas

considered the Caribbean a favorable place for Christianity ([ca. 1559] 1992, 293, 296,

336). The success or failure of wheat in Hispaniola became a metaphor for the


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viability of Christian life in the Americas. These contradictory appraisals of the

chances of producing the European staple food in the island illustrate how crucial

wheat was to the Spaniards’ assessments of the new lands.

New World Breads

The same reasoning that led Europeans to plant wheat everywhere it would grow

made them curious about all aspects of wheat’s American equivalents. Comparisons

between the European and New World staple foods were impossible to avoid. In the

words of Father Acosta, ‘And because plants were grown chiefly to sustain man’s life,

and the chief food that sustains him is bread, we need to show what sort of bread

there is in the Indies and what they use in place of bread. . . . But the quality and

substance of the bread that the Indians possess and use is very different from ours, for

it has not been discovered that they had any sort of wheat or barley or millet or any of

the other grains used for bread in Europe. Instead of this they used other grains and

roots’ ([1590] 2002, 197).

Of all the new plants observed by the Europeans, three*maize, potatoes, and

manioc*were clearly identified as playing the maintenance food role that wheat and

other cereals played in the Old World. Of the three, maize was the most widespread in

the New World and, despite the obvious differences, it was the plant that most

reminded Europeans of wheat because it resembled a grain-producing grass.10 This

explains why maize was often called ‘Indian Wheat.’ Because it seemed somewhat

familiar to Europeans, and because it flourished in a variety of climates and gave a

tremendous yield, maize became well known in the Old World from an early date.11

Potatoes and manioc were less widespread, although they were heavily utilized in the

regions where they grew well. The potato was the last staple to be encountered

because it was a product of the Andean region, reached by Europeans only after 1530.

Manioc, in contrast, was the first staple identified in the New World because of its

importance in the Caribbean where the Europeans first landed.12

Fray Ramon Pane, who arrived in Hispaniola in 1494, was the author of the first

European-language account of the Americas written in the New World, and the first

European to describe the manioc in detail and establish its cultural significance. Pane

thought the manioc’s root (yuca) was similar to the radish, but conceded that he had

‘not seen anything like it in Spain or any other country.’ It certainly did not escape his

notice that manioc and cazabe were mentioned in the Indian myths he recorded.

Pane’s narrative started the metaphorical language of designating certain New World

plants as ‘breads,’ when he referred to cazabe as ‘the kind of bread they eat’ ([ca. 1498]

1999, 26�27, 15).

Knowledge of manioc had increased by the 1520s, when Gonzalo Fernandez de

Oviedo confidently named both maize and manioc as the basis of ‘breads’ for the

Indians of the Caribbean. Writing about manioc, he explained to his European

readers that it was not a grain, a remark that made sense since no root crops played a

similar role in Old World diets. Fernandez de Oviedo then provided a detailed


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account of how manioc was planted and how cazabe was made. In fact, the ‘Pliny of

the New World’ ends his description of manioc by listing all of the benefits that can

be obtained from the plant: bread for the sustenance of life, sweet and sour syrups for

honey and vinegar, stew for nourishment, firewood when all other types of fuel were

missing, poison, and wine ([1535] 1959, 230�33). Appreciation for the uses of the

vegetable did not mean Spaniards liked to eat it. Although the quality of cazabe, like

that of wheat bread, could vary, Father Acosta said that even if offered the best kind of

cazabe (called jaujau) he ‘would much prefer a piece of bread no matter how hard or

black it was’ ([1590] 2002, 200).13

As it turned out, it was not the uses listed by Fernandez de Oviedo (nor its

deterrence of gluttony because of its lack of taste, according to Acosta) that made

cazabe important; rather, it was its capacity*once baked and dried*to last for

months and even years in perfectly edible condition. Fernandez de Oviedo took

advantage of this quality to take cazabe back to Spain and to share this American food

with family and friends. He also wanted to prove what a good food it was to take

along during long ocean voyages. Dried cazabe simply had to be soaked in any kind of

liquid or sauce to became soft and palatable again.14 Spaniards soon realized that

cazabe was the perfect food to take along both on journeys of exploration and during

military actions in the New World. Not only was manioc easy to grow, but cazabe was

also easy to prepare in large quantities, and it was less of a burden to transport than

other provisions. This ‘Indian bread’ became instrumental to the success of the

Spaniards in conquering many regions, particularly in the Tropics, during the early

period of colonization.15

According to Bartolome de Las Casas, there was another practical reason why the

Spaniards who conquered Hispaniola kept planting manioc and producing cazabe.

This bread sustained the Indian laborers who were forced to mine gold and perform

other difficult jobs that generated quick profits. The Dominican priest thought that

the island was well suited to produce more and better wheat than anywhere else, but

in Hispaniola the economy of exploitation favored the easy planting of manioc and

the tremendous yield of cazabe ([ca. 1559] 1992, 336�37).16 If manioc contributed to

the exploitation of the Amerindians, it also may have provided them a means of

resistance to the Spaniards, if only as a measure of last resort. Fernandez de Oviedo

reports*although it may be an apocryphal statement*that masses of Native people

who did not want ‘to work or to serve’ committed suicide by drinking poisonous

juice made from manioc ([1535] 1959, 233).17

Among the grains and roots of the New World, ‘the chief place . . . is rightly held by

maize,’ wrote Acosta. He followed with the unavoidable comparison: ‘Just as wheat

has been the ordinary grain in the ancient parts of the globe, which are Europe, Asia,

and Africa, so in the regions of the New World it has been, and is, maize, which has

been found in almost all the realms of the West Indies, in Peru, New Spain, the New

Kingdom of Granada, Guatemala, Chile, and everywhere on the continent’ ([1590]

2002, 197). This division of the world into territories of wheat and territories of maize


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underlines the importance Europeans attached to wheat. It also explains the careful

observations recorded about all things related to maize.

Maize was a crucial crop throughout the Americas and in particular among the

Maya, the Nahua, the Inca, and the people of the Southwest and the Eastern

Woodlands of North America.18 And, just as manioc played an important role in

many local myths in the Caribbean, so maize had a prominent place in the historical

and religious traditions of many Amerindian peoples, as shown in the presence in

these cultures of maize-gods, maize-rituals, maize-iconography, and maize-stories.

The Maya oral tradition compiled in the Popol Vuh tells of gods experimenting with

different materials to create human beings, until they finally created people out of

maize dough, leaving no doubt about the central place of maize in Maya culture.

Nahua babies were not given a name until they had eaten their first maize-based food,

thereby receiving an individual and cultural identity. Inca people saw a direct

relationship between maize and their life-giving god, the Sun. The Incas served maize

and maize beer to the Sun, and the Coricancha (the most sacred building complex in

Cuzco) included a cornfield made of gold.19 Maize is also the key element in several

origin myth and folk tales among Native Americans*for instance, the Pueblo

Indians in the Southwest (Gutierrez 1991, 3�36).

Early modern literature of the conquest and colonization includes countless

comparisons between maize and wheat precisely because these two plants played vital

roles in their respective cultures.20 When it became known that both maize and wheat

grew well in the same agricultural space, the battle for one plant’s dominance over the

other mirrored the political wars between the Europeans and the Amerindians.21

Once the Spanish colonization process moved from the Caribbean to the mainland,

and particularly to Central Mexico, the possibility of growing wheat in large

quantities, and indeed of reproducing the agricultural economy of the Iberian

Peninsula, made the imposition of European foodstuffs more viable. In fact, one way

of replacing maize with wheat production was to require the natives to grow and pay

tribute in wheat (as well as in other European products). Already in the 1530s, New

Spain was exporting wheat to the Caribbean and Central America. Within a few years

of their arrival, Spaniards were producing wheat nearly everywhere in their American

possessions. By 1553, Pedro de Cieza de Leon was reporting from the plains and

valleys of Peru that wheat was growing beautifully and producing large yields ([1553]

1986, 297). Later, wheat was grown extensively in places such as Chile and Rıo de la

Plata. English colonists also cultivated wheat as soon as possible everywhere they

landed. The presence of wheat fields comforted Europeans across the Americas.

Even as they took over Amerindian land for their own wheat production,

Europeans recognized the many interesting features and advantages of ‘Indian

Wheat.’ Fernandez de Oviedo described in detail how maize was planted and grown,

as well as the different shapes and colors of its varieties. He was proud both of his

extensive knowledge of this native plant and of his own maize crop ([1535] 1959,

226�29). Father Bernabe Cobo, a Jesuit who spent most of his life in the New World,

wrote around 1650 about the many forms in which maize was prepared and eaten (as


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grain or flour, toasted, baked, or boiled), pointing out the differences between its use

in Peru and in New Spain as well as giving his opinion about the respective qualities

of their breads ([1653] 1964, 160�61). Doctor Juan de Cardenas, whose comments on

maize represent the most positive known assessment of maize in the period, said:

‘maize alone has all the qualities one can wish for in a staple’ ([1591] 1988, 172).22

Virtually every account that discussed maize praised the plant, particularly for its

capacity to grow in many climates, its wonderful yield, and its ability to feed people

and animals alike.23 That fact that maize was used to make honey and Indian wine

(known as chicha) was also mentioned. Acosta noted that ‘Pigs fattened on maize are

very fat, and they are used for lard to replace oil; so that for livestock and for people,

for bread and wine and oil, they use maize in the Indies’ (Coe 1994, 13).24 In other

words, maize fulfilled the role not only of wheat but also of grapes and olives. This

remark is very relevant since wheat, grapes and olives were the three key elements of

the Mediterranean European diet. Beyond food and drink, maize stalks were used as

firewood and split into narrow strips for weaving baskets by Indian women in New

England (Mood 1937, 129). Speaking of the riches of the colonies, the viceroy

Francisco de Toledo said, according to Acosta, that Peru had ‘two things of substance

and wealth, which were maize and the flocks of that land’ ([1590] 2002, 200).

In the view of Francisco Hernandez, the leader of the first official botanical

expedition to the New World, maize deserved much more attention than it was

getting from the newcomers. In the 1570s, he said: ‘I do not understand how the

Spaniards, most diligent imitators of what is foreign and who also know so well how

to make use of alien inventions, have not as yet adapted to their uses nor have taken

to their own country and cultivated this kind of grain’ (C. Sauer, 1975, 152).

Cardenas expressed a similar opinion in 1591: ‘Corn deserves to be esteemed among

the most valuable seeds in the world’ ([1591] 1988, 171). By this time maize had

already been planted in Spain, but was mostly grown for display, as an exotic product,

or as feed for animals. Clearly, as physicians, Hernandez and Cardenas thought maize

should be incorporated into the everyday European diet. But before this could

happen, maize, like many other edible and medicinal plants, had to overcome the

negative impressions which resulted from its foreign origin and from European eating

habits.

About the same time that Cardenas and Hernandez were praising the virtues of

maize, John Gerard wrote in his Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597) that

maize ‘doth nourish far lesse than either Wheate, Rie, Barly or Oates . . . . The

barbarous Indians which know no better, are constrained to make a vertue of

necessitie, and think it a good food; whereas we may easily judge that it nourisheth

but little, and is of hard and evil digestion, a more convenient foode for swine than

for man’ (Fussell 1992, 19).25 An even stronger condemnation was expressed by the

Jesuit Jerome Lalemant in New France, who wrote about the ‘bread of the land, *if,

however, that be bread; a mass of Indian corn meal soaked in water without leaven,

which is not worth the bread which in France they make for the dogs . . .’ (Thwaites

1896�1901, 20:53).


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Gerard’s dismissal of maize as inadequate food for man because of its poor

nutritional value and its being difficult to digest points to the fact that the Indian

breads were also evaluated in medical-nutritional language. Of course, opinions

varied on the matter. Pedro Martir de Anglerıa wrote in his reports about the New

World (1493�1525) that cazabe was a healthier bread than wheat bread because it was

easier to digest (1989, 231). Acosta believed that ‘maize is not inferior to wheat in its

strength and power of sustenance, but is heavier and gives more heat and engenders

blood; hence those who first eat it, if they overindulge, often suffer from bloating and

the itch’ ([1590] 2002, 198). Doctor Nicolas Monardes, whose books spread the news

about the medicinal values of many American plants in Early Modern Europe,

thought that maize and wheat provided equal sustenance and did not note any

digestive problems.26 Monardes had less confidence in manioc and wrote that with

the abundance of maize in many parts of the Indies he would go with corn-bread and

not eat cazabe (Lopez Pinero 1990, 42). Yet corn-bread, unlike cazabe, had a very

short shelf life; it had to be eaten fresh and warm. Otherwise, everyone agreed, it

became stale and hard to eat.

It took Doctor Juan de Cardenas, who was born in New Spain, to put forth the

bold proposition that maize was in fact the best maintenance food, dethroning wheat.

Cardenas made a more compelling case than anyone else because he discussed the

properties of maize in contemporary medical language. He first responded to the

criticisms of the famous botanist Andreas Mathiolo, who had argued that maize’s

‘complexion’ was hot and humid. Developing his point at length, Cardenas

characterized maize as having neutral properties: neither hot nor cold, humid nor

dry, but perfectly ‘tempered.’ He further underscored the desirable qualities of maize

by stating that its ‘substance’ was neither too light nor too heavy; rather, it was

endowed with perfect balance.

In Cardenas’ opinion, neither wheat nor barley came close to being as well

‘tempered’ as maize. Wheat, he argued, was hot and humid in excess, with a thick,

heavy and sticky ‘substance’ that was hard to digest. Cardenas saw atole (maize

cooked with lime, then ground, mixed with water and baked) as the ideal food from a

physician’s point of view. Because of its ‘tempered’ nature, atole could be mixed with

many things to develop food that would carry properties that physicians could use to

treat illnesses. For instance, atole could be mixed with chilies or honey to make ‘hot’

food or mixed with chia (another native grain) to make ‘cold’ food ([1591] 1988,

172�74).27

There was no doubt in Cardenas’s mind about the privileged position of maize in

the hierarchy of plants in the natural world: ‘I say that if God created in the world a

food that can be truly called tempered in complexion, in substance, in providing

nourishment, and in having other qualities that derive from the ones already

mentioned, it is maize’ ([1591] 1988, 173). Cardenas’s statement may be seen as a

challenge to the traditional European sense of hierarchy in the natural world.

Declaring maize as having been created by God as the ultimate ‘tempered’ product

implied that American plants could not simply be added to the existing catalogue of


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nature, but that a whole revision of the current knowledge of nature might be needed,

a process similar to the revolution under way in geographical matters. However,

Cardenas’s view was not the predominant one. Although they praised the Indian

breads, Las Casas and Acosta made clear that they supported wheat over any

American staple food. For the Dominican priest, cazabe was ‘the best bread that I

believe there is in the world after that of wheat’ ([1591] 1988, 330). For the Jesuit

Acosta, the ‘Creator scattered his largesse everywhere; to this hemisphere he gave

wheat, which is the chief nourishment of man, and to the hemisphere of the Indies he

gave maize, which holds second place after wheat for the sustenance of men and

animals’ ([1590] 2002, 200).28

In the English colonies, resistance to maize lasted a long time, although it was often

consumed, either by choice or necessity, as part of the settlers’ diet (Eden 1999, 137�61). About forty years after Gerard’s harsh statement, John Parkinson confronted the

famous herbalist in Theatricum Botanicum, writing that many people ‘doe condemne

this Maiz to be as dry and of as little nourishment as Millet or Panicke, but they doe

not as I thinke rightly consider the thing, for although the graine be dry, yet the meale

thereof is nothing so dry as of the Turkie Millet, but hath in it some clamminesse,

which bindeth the bread close and giveth good nourishment to the body, for we finde

both the Indians and the Christians of all Nations that feede thereon, are nourished

thereby in as good manner no doubt, as if they fed on Wheate in the same manner’

(Mood 1937, 124). But Parkinson, like Acosta, also warned against consuming too

much maize because it could cause itching and scabs in those who were not used to

eating it.

Around 1662 John Winthrop Jr. produced a short essay on ‘Indian Corne’ in which

he carefully described the cultivation practices and uses of maize in New England.

Winthrop still thought it necessary to argue against Gerard’s opinion, and he

supported his own views with his colonial expertise. Winthrop said, ‘it is now found

by much Experience, that [Maize] is wholesome and pleasant for Food of which great

Variety may be made out of it’ (Mood 1937, 125). Winthrop wrote his report on

maize at the request of Robert Boyle of the Royal Society in London, who was

interested in developing English agriculture. Winthrop’s ‘Indian Corne’ essay may be

seen as a sign of maize’s official adoption as a viable new crop in England itself after a

long period of little interest. This newfound confidence was made possible by the

colonial experience with maize as well as by the established success of another New

World crop, the potato in neighboring Ireland.

The Spaniards completed their knowledge of the plants that produced Indian

breads when they reached the Andes. According to Bernabe Cobo, in the cold

highlands of Peru, where neither maize nor other seeds and plants of temperate and

warmer climates grew, the main product was a plant with edible roots called potatoes

(papas).29 Cobo goes on to describe the plant and its flower, and notes that potatoes

grow in a variety of sizes and colors (white, yellow, purple, and red). Potatoes, he

writes, are so much the ‘general maintenance food in Peru that half of its Indians do

not have any other bread’ ([1653] 1964, 168).30 Acosta saw the same dependency on


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potatoes in the highlands: ‘In short, these roots are the only bread of the land, and

when there is a good year for them the people are happy, for there are many years

when they mildew and freeze in the ground, such is the cold and inclemency of that

region’ ([1590] 2002, 201�2). Starting with the very first conquistadors who entered

the region, potatoes were noted and described as a particular kind of truffle that was

eaten boiled, grilled, or in stews.31

Before potatoes made the trip across the ocean and became a staple in the

European diet, Spaniards were most interested in a byproduct of potatoes: chuno (or

ch’unu in Quechua), the first freeze-dried food. Chuno was the response of Andean

people to the fact that the moisture in potatoes caused them to rot when they were

stored for later use. In his 1609 history, chronicler El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega

explains it this way:

To preserve it from corruption it is spread on the ground on straw, of which there is

a good supply in the fields. It is left out for many nights exposed to the frost, which

is severe in that province throughout the year. After it has been repeatedly frozen it

is as though cooked, and is then covered with straw and gently and skillfully

trampled on so as to squeeze out the natural moisture of the papa and thedampness of the frost. When it has been well pressed, it is exposed to the sun and

protected from the dew until it is thoroughly dry. Prepared in this way, the papa

can be kept for a long time, and the name given to it in this form is chunu. ([1609]

1966, 250)

Acosta claims that chuno took ‘the place of bread,’ and notes that in Peru there was

‘a great deal of commerce in chuno for the mines of Potosı’ ([1590] 2002, 201).32

The case of the commerce in chuno at Potosı points to another important issue in

the relationship between Europeans and ‘Indian Breads.’ Indeed, although Europeans

only ate cazabe, maize, or chuno if they had to, those with entrepreneurial skills

quickly realized the potential of these products as commodities in local markets.

Fernandez de Oviedo catalogued the variable prices of cazabe, depending on

availability and demand, in the city of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola,

and noted that cazabe trading made good business for many people because it was in

such heavy demand on the island ([1535] 1959, 232). Cieza, who was an earlier

admirer of the great market in Potosı, said that the chuno trade made some Spaniards

so rich that they were able to return to Spain as prosperous merchants ([1553] 1986,

272). Similarly, in New England Europeans seized the opportunity to trade in native

staples by taking ‘hold of the traditional maize-fur trade network and transformed it

from a system of binary village exchange to a link in the new Atlantic economy’

(Cronon 1983, 94).

Potatoes also had to get past the negative first impressions they made on Europeans

as an ‘alien’ food. Salaman’s history of the potato reminds us that it ‘was the first

edible plant in Europe to be grown from tubers and not from seed, and till then, no

similar plant in north-western Europe was grown which bore on its underground

stems numerous white or flesh-coloured nodules; both the cultivation, the behaviour


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and the habits of the plant were unusual’ (1985, 112). Something about this strange

and foreign plant aroused suspicion, and at times even hostility or fear. Indeed,

because of the similarities of the potato and poisonous nightshade, some thought

potatoes were poisonous. Others viewed potatoes as a cause of leprosy and scrofula.33

On the positive side, potatoes sometimes shared the reputation of the sweet potato

as an aphrodisiac, and no doubt this feature led the herbalist Gerard to depict himself

holding a leaf and the flowers of the potato as part of the frontispiece of his famous

Herball.34 Antonio Vazquez de Espinosa, a Spanish official who surveyed territories of

the New World for his Compendium and description of the West Indies, said in his

assessment of supplies in Santa Fe de Bogota that ‘they have potatoes that are better

than truffles’ ([ca. 1629] 1942, 317).

The Breads of a Shared Culture

Taylor*following Ashis Nandy*has used the concept of ‘colonialism as a shared

culture,’ to highlight the ambiguities of domination and resistance in colonial

situations. Taylor adopted this concept because it helps us to understand colonial

history as more than a confrontation between agents of colonization and agents of

resistance. The concept takes into account ‘the accommodations and acceptances,

balkings and refusals on all sides’ that generated complex situations, and the

negotiations of meanings that took place during the colonial period (Taylor 1994,

33). The history of the encounter between wheat and New World staple foods ends

with breads meeting in a ‘shared culture,’ with people*to borrow Taylor’s terms*still refusing and balking but also accommodating and accepting each other’s bread.

Depending when, where, and on the specific circumstances, the interplay between

wheat and ‘Indian breads’ can illustrate actions of dominance or actions of resistance

but can also reveal more ambiguous situations.

In general, the process of adopting New World foods was slow, and, as new waves

of immigrants arrived, newcomers seemed to experience the same longing for wheat

and rejection of ‘Indian Breads’ as had their predecessors. Writing in the eighteenth

century, Father Junipero Serra noted: ‘At midday they brought us a meal of stewed

and roast fowl. They brought arepas [thick maize tortilla], roast plantains, sweet

manioc, sweet potatoes, etc. But we did not know how to eat without bread. Then I

realized that bread was sustenance to someone who was brought up like me, and I

remembered that when I was in Cadiz about to leave, a brother said to me, ‘‘Brother

John, you are going to the Indies: God keep you from losing sight of bread’’’ (Coe

1994, 27�28).

Early modern European culture recognized a strong link between food and

identity. Did Christians believe that they would put themselves at risk if they

suddenly changed their diet to New World breads and vegetables instead of European

foodstuffs? Specific questions in the Relaciones geograficas (questionnaires sent to the

colonies to gather information) clearly show how concerned Spanish officials were

about ensuring the availability of European foods in Spanish American towns


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(Alvarez Pelaez 1993, 398). Europeans feared not only a temporary imbalance in their

bodies, but also a more drastic transformation into Indians. Such a change would

occur, some believed, because of the different nature of Indian food, which when

assimilated by European bodies would lead to physical and moral changes. To avoid

the need to adopt a diet based on native products, concerned officials established

policies that promoted European crops in the New World. El Inca Garcilaso de la

Vega tells the story of a man named Pedro Lopez de Cacalla who hurried to produce

the first generation of wine in Cusco because he ‘wanted to win the prize that the

Catholic monarchs and Emperor Charles V had offered as a reward from the royal

treasury to the first person who newly introduced into any Spanish colony a Spanish

crop such as wheat, barley, wine, or olive oil, and produced a specific quantity of it’

([1609] 1966, 596�97). The reward was no small thing (two bars of silver worth three

hundred ducats apiece), but, as Garcilaso recalls, Pedro Lopez de Cacalla was more

interested in the honor and fame that came along with it, an honor that would have

been perceived as a personal contribution to the Christianization of the land.

Although records of the Amerindian reaction to wheat are not easy to come by, it is

not difficult to imagine the resistance it generated. The reasons for the Indian

preference for maize over wheat were clear to Francisco Lopez de Gomara, who wrote

in his history of the Indies: ‘Maize is, to conclude, a very good thing, and the Indians

will not leave it for wheat, from all I know. The reasons given are important, and they

are: they are used to this bread, they feel well with it; maize serves them as bread and

wine; maize multiplies more than wheat and grows with fewer problems than wheat,

not only from water and sun but also from birds and beasts. Maize requires less work:

one man alone sews and harvests more maize than one man and two beasts sew and

harvest wheat’ ([1553] 1946, 289). Lopez de Gomara alludes to habit, culture, and

advantages in planting and yield. But a whole other set of economic and social factors

was also at play in the production of wheat and maize breads. In his classic study of

the Valley of Mexico, Gibson noted that ‘Indian traditions, the reluctance to adopt

new processes, the relative smaller yield and higher price of wheat, and the fact that

Indian wheat production was subject to tithe whereas maize production was not’ were

all reasons for the Indian resistance to wheat (1964, 322). Gibson explained that

sometimes Indians communities were required to pay tribute in wheat, and

sometimes Indians decided to cultivate and mill wheat for the Spanish bread market,

but ‘for most Indians wheat appears to have been associated directly with Spanish

intrusion and domination.’ In turn, the Indian rejection of wheat provided

justification for the establishment of Spanish farms (1964, 323).

The fact that the best fields were taken over for European wheat cultivation did not

help the cause of bread among the Amerindian populations. For the native

population, wheat bread must have seemed like many of the other impositions of

the Europeans who were attempting to convert them into ‘civilized Christians.’ In his

sermons, Fray Bernardino de Sahagun admonished natives to imitate the Castilian

people’s diet, one which made them ‘strong and pure and wise,’ and promised the

natives that ‘you will become the same way if you eat their food.’35 Colonization


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meant not only taking over the land, but also shaping the spiritual and material life of

the Amerindians. In that sense, it is possible to speak of wheat as an agent of

Christianization.

At the same time, colonial societies were developing their distinctive ways of life,

including their own food cultures, that highlighted the preference for and symbolic

value of wheat bread over ‘Indian breads’. For instance, Lovera has pointed out that

the racial and class structure of colonial society was reflected in a hierarchy of breads.

At the top was wheat bread, which had the prestige of the dominant class and

religion. Maize bread, in a variety of forms according to regional preferences, came in

second place and was adopted by a large number of the Spanish and English

Americans, but it could not rise to the level of wheat. Then came cazabe, whose area

of influence was smaller and suffered extensively from ecological changes brought

about by colonization, particularly the introduction of domestic animals and sugar

cane. In areas where bananas became so abundant that many believed they were

native to the New World, they also became a staple food, mainly for the slaves (Lovera

2000, 431).

Even though wheat was indispensable for those who wanted to reproduce

European lifestyles, ‘Indian breads’ were necessary to support the labor force and

respond to uncertainties of food production. In the end, a combination of culture,

taste, availability, price, and medical concerns determined the diet of the majority. In

periods of abundance, ordinary wheat bread was not good enough and the whitest of

breads was demanded. When they could be disdained, potatoes were left for the slaves

and the poor, but in times of need they were eaten gladly and appreciated by

Europeans, both in the New World and later in Europe.36 As Sancho Panza is

reminded by his wife Teresa: ‘the best spice on earth is hunger.’37

Life in colonial societies not only meant adaptation to new natural and cultural

environments but also transformation of old and new elements into something

different. The Spaniards actually incorporated many of the new foods into their own

food culture (as doctor Hernandez recommended they do). Lopez Medel reports that,

although maize was still regarded in Spain as barbarous and tasteless, in tropical

lands, where wheat was for the most part unavailable, Spaniards used maize-flour to

make all kinds of delicate pastries. Among several treats, Lopez Medel praises small

doughnuts (‘rosquillas’) that when made ‘of good maize, well ground, seasoned, and

warm were far more tasty than those made of wheat’ ([ca. 1570] 1990, 153).38 Cobo

mentions a similar situation in the Andes, where Spanish women were able to

produce potato flour (toasting and grinding the best chuno), which was ‘whiter and

subtler than that of wheat.’ With this flour the women made pastries, ‘the kind with

sugar and almonds,’ and cakes that were a delicious treat ([1653] 1964, 168).

According to John Winthrop, Jr., colonists in Connecticut added a third part of

wheat or rye flour and yeast to their maize bread. Winthrop even provided a full

recipe for ‘the best sort of Food which the English make of this Corne,’ which was

known as ‘sampe.’ ‘Sampe’ required a careful processing of grains of maize, then

boiling, and then adding butter or milk with or without sugar (Mood 1937, 130). In


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the Chesapeake, a similar food was consumed under the name of ‘hominy,’ and in

South Carolina, where rice plantations were successful, colonists mixed the flours of

wheat, maize, and rice. In John Norris’s pamphlet, Profitable Advice for Rich and Poor,

an English farmer interested in emigrating to Carolina asks a planter about bread in

the colonies. The planter replies that when wheat is not available planters use maize

and rice, ‘of which is made very good Bread, not much Inferior to your fine Wheaten

Bread’ (Edelson 2006, 71). Across the Americas, the fact that colonial societies were

producing new cuisines by adapting New World staples contributed to the

differentiation of Old World and New World European identities.

The native peoples of the Americas were also doing some mixing of foods and

culture of their own, sometimes with the encouragement of their new political

masters and spiritual guides. Two folk art traditions that date back to the colonial

period, one from Patzcuaro (Mexico) and the other from Ayacucho (Peru), illustrate

this point well. In Patzcuaro, local artisans made dough from stalks of maize to create

religious sculptures and became famous for their life-size sculptures of Christ on the

Cross (Cristos de cana). Likewise, artisans in Ayacucho used potato dough to make

the small figurines that recreated Nativity scenes, Catholic saints, and other religious

images included in their famous retablos (portable altarpieces).

There is no doubt that these folk art traditions were allowed to develop because the

authorities believed they would promote evangelization. However, colonial situations

were laden with ambiguous messages and a constant negotiation of meanings.39

Apparently easy decisions about whether or not to teach the Christian religion in

native languages, for example, caused much discussion and several changes in policy

during the Colonial period. Although some Europeans saw no harm and even

thought it a good idea to use local cultures to indoctrinate the natives, others feared

confusion would result and idolatry would be fostered under the guise of a false

Christianity. Was a Christ made of maize or potatoes the same Christ who told his

followers that he was their living bread and whose wheaten body was eaten at

communion? Writing on the ‘Cristos de cana’, Taylor warns us against seeing a pagan

secret hiding in these light crucifixes; rather, he points to how they ‘assert a close

association between the divine and the fruits of the land, between Christ and

maize . . . and a fascination with ritual sacrifice.’ Becoming Christian this way ‘was

not so much disrespectful of official Catholic tradition as it was a way of enlarging

upon that tradition, and perhaps surmounting it’ (Taylor 1994, 47).

Even if we assume a mostly Christian colonial society by the beginning of the

eighteenth century, it is clear that the native people of the Americas continued to

revere their own native bread. Accordingly, indigenous artists responsible for

paintings of the Last Supper that decorated churches in the Andes took some

liberties when it came to representing the food at the table. Instead of the customary

lamb, they painted a guinea pig (cuy) accompanied by chilies. Instead of the typical

loaf of wheat bread they painted small cornbreads that are shared by Christ and the

Apostles. And, although we cannot see inside the pitcher, we can imagine that the

painters envisioned it filled with chicha instead of wine.40 Was this an act of defiance


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against the religion of the colonizers? Maybe not. As a proud Christian, what better

way to honor your God than to make sure that his last supper consisted of what you

knew was best?

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to James Barrett, Justin Dubois, George and Marilyn Majeska, David

Nugent, Jorge Olivares and Marc Stein, and CLAR reviewers for their help bringing

this essay to its final version.

Notes

1 All translations of Lopez de Gomara are my own. Similar expressions of surprise were recorded

in relation to the absence of the domestic animals that were common in Europe. On the

significance of domestic animals for Early America, see Anderson (2004).2 The cultivation of wheat and barley dates back to the eighth millennium BC.3 The Greek word sitos meant bread or grain. In ancient Greece the staple cereal was barley, and it

was eaten in a variety of forms such as roasted grain, barley-cakes, barley porridge, and barley-

gruel. Wheat and wheat bread were foods that indicated prestige because the plant was more

difficult to grow than barley, and the bread was more time-consuming and complicated to

prepare. In Roman times, emmer wheat (a husked wheat) was the staple cereal. Barley became

animal food or was given as punishment to troops. Emmer was used to make puls, a porridge

that was the Romans’ most common food. Emmer was stronger than the naked varieties of

wheat that were favored later for making bread. The history of preferred cereals for bread is

summarized by Garnsey: ‘Finally, cereals held their place at the centre of diets over a long period

of time in which kinds of cereal, methods of food processing, and patterns of consumption

changed. Barley lost ground to wheat, husked grains to naked grains, porridge to bread, and

other forms of wheat to that which made the best bread, Triticum aestivum’ (Garnsey 1999, 19).

For more on this subject, see Braun (1995) and Garnsey (1999, 118�22).4 In another passage Hesiod calls Pandora ‘a disaster for bread-eating men’ (1996, 65).5 Also in the Odyssey: ‘and there were twelve women in all had been bending / to grind the wheat

and the barley flour, men’s marrow’ (Homer 1967, 301).6 For an extended treatment of this point see Baudy (1995).7 The issue may have lingered until the Council of Florence (1439), from which, according to the

Spanish Jesuit Cardinal Juan de Lugo, a decree was emitted stating that the matter of the

sacrament was wheaten bread (see Ashley 1928, 72). Also discussed and approved at the Council

of Florence was the use of either leavened or unleavened wheat hosts to allow for both Latin and

Greek Church practices.8 John Smith tried to encourage the cultivation of maize but the settlers resisted and, once he left,

maize cultivation was put aside.9 John Penkethman’s The Artachthos, or, new booke declaring the assise or weight of bread . . .

(1638) ends the explanation of its frontispiece with these verses: ‘Thus bakers make, and to

perfection bring, / No lesse to serve the begger than the king, / All sorts of bread, which being

handled well, / All other food and cates doth farre excell; / Let butchers, poultrers, fishmongers

contend, / Each his own trade in what he can defend; / Though flesh, fish, white meats, all, in

fitting season, /Nourish the body, being used with reason, / Yet no man can deny (to end the

strife) / Bread is worth all, being the staffe of life.’10 According to Bernabe Cobo ([1653] 1964, 159), there were only three grains in the New World

comparable to wheat and other European cereals: maize, quinoa, and chia. Maize became a


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staple around the world. Quinoa has been gaining popularity outside the Andes, where it has

always been an important food. I have had it served to me on airplanes and it is grown in several

states of the USA. Chia remains less known (but see Ayerza & Coates 2005). It is widely used in

Mexico to prepare a drink similar to lemonade.11 For instance, Cobo ([1653] 1964, 159) wrote in the mid-seventeenth century: ‘The plant of

maize is already very well known in Spain with the name of wheat of the Indies.’ All translations

of Cobo are my own. For the presence of maize in early modern herbals, see Finan (1948).12 The history of the introduction of these plants to Europe has been studied by Alvarez Lopez

(1945) and C. Sauer (1975). For maize, see Fussell (1992) and Warman (2003). For potato, see

Salaman (1985). In general, see Crosby (1972 and 1994), and J. Sauer (1976).13 By using hard and black as qualifiers, Acosta describes cazabe as worse than the stalest and least

valuable of the wheat breads. In the same chapter, Acosta finds cazabe to be ‘perfectly insipid’

but also ‘wholesome and nourishing’; he recalls that while in Hispaniola the Spaniards used to

say that ‘it was an appropriate food to discourage gluttony because it could be eaten without the

slightest concern that desire for it would cause excess’ ([1590] 2002, 200).14 More details on the planting and growing of manioc, as well as the preparation and qualities of

cazabe, can be found in Fernandez de Oviedo ([1535] 1959, 230�33); Cobo ([1653] 1964, 164�65); and Coe (1994, 16�18).

15 See Pardo Tomas and Lopez Terrada (1993, 152); Coe (1994, 18); and Lovera (2000, 428).16 The yields of wheat and its Indian substitutes were always compared because wheat was seen as a

low-yield plant. Braudel (1981, 104�72) offers statistical data for wheat yields in relation to other

cereal grains, rice and maize.17 Manioc has toxic and nontoxic varieties and was not the only plant that could provide a means

of resisting a colonial regime. According to Dutch naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian, Indian

populations and African slaves used the seeds of the native flos pavonis ‘peacock flower’ as an

abortifacient. See Schiebinger (2004, 1).18 The consensus among scholars is that maize was first domesticated in Mesoamerica (the earliest

evidence coming from the Rıo Balsas region in southwestern Mexico). From Mesoamerica maize

spread to others parts of Mexico and into Central and South America, and later to the American

Southwest and last to Eastern North America. For the latest scientific studies on various aspects

of the pre-Columbian history of maize see Staller, Tykot, and Benz (2006).19 Recent studies of plant microfossils reveal that the domestication of maize in the southern Andes

of Peru dates back 3,600 to 4,000 years, at least a thousand years earlier than previously thought.

See Perry et al. (2006).20 But there were important differences in the agricultural practices and cultural uses of maize

among the peoples of the Americas. For instance, whereas in Mesoamerica the predominant use

of maize was as a grain, ground into flour to make tortillas, in the Andes, maize was consumed

as a dish in itself (boiled, roasted, or popped) and had a crucial ceremonial value as a fermented

drink (aqha in Quechua and chicha in Spanish). In North America, and particularly among the

people of the Eastern Woodlands, the Three Sisters Mound System was the key agricultural

practice. ‘Corn, beans, and squash reinforced one another in the cooking pot as well as in the

field. Beans are an excellent source of the essential amino acids lysine and tryptophan, both of

which are present in maize in such small quantities as to make that grain’s nutritional value on

its own very low. But lysine and tryptophan combine with the principal amino acid in maize,

zein, to produce highly nutritious protein, allowing the two foods together to accomplish what

neither could do alone. Moreover, maize contains a higher proportion of carbohydrates and

sugars than other cereals grains; when processed with lime or roasted over an open fire, it also

releases substantial niacin. Squashes, baked or boiled, are an excellent source of C and other

vitamins. Supplemented with game and fish and wild berries, the resulting diet was far superior


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to anything crooked-boned, bad-teethed Europeans*who worked so hard for their daily bread,

and little else*could imagine’ (Richter 2001, 55�56).21 The exceptions to this rule (as reported by Cobo [1653] 1964, 159�60) were agricultural spaces

in more extreme climates: wheat could tolerate somewhat colder weather than maize, which

could tolerate warmer temperatures.22 All translations from Cardenas are my own. Juan de Cardenas’s book, published in 1591, was

titled Problemas y secretos maravillosos de las Indias. On Cardenas and the literary tradition he

follows in his book, see Millones Figueroa (2002). Warman (2003) also quotes Cardenas’s

appreciation of maize.23 Maize’s adaptation and yield were two of the several reason for Juan de Cardenas’s praise of the

plant in 1591: ‘First, corn is cultivated, harvested, and thrives in all conditions: in cold, hot, dry

or wet climates; in mountainous terrain or plains; as a winter or summer crop; in lands that are

irrigated or lands that depend on rain . . . . Second, corn is abundant, producing about one

hundred to two hundred measures of grain per measure of seed sown, and without much work

but easily and leisurely. With corn one does not need to wait for almost one year, like one waits

for wheat in Spain, which is sown in October and harvested in June or July, because within three

months and at most four, and in some regions within fifty days, corn is harvested and stored’

([1591] 1988, 171).24 Here I quote the translation by Coe (1994, 13) because I agree with her that the English

translations did not understand this passage correctly. The 2002 translation that I otherwise use

has not corrected this misreading.25 Gerard was a well-known botanist in sixteenth-century England. He was in charge of the gardens

of William Cecil (advisor to Queen Elizabeth). His herbal is a translation of Rembert Dodoen’s

herbal of 1554 with additions of new plants, including some which seem to be from the New

World. The herbal was republished in 1633 and 1636.26 Monardes’s most complete work on New World plants used for medicine was published in 1574

in Seville (Primera, segunda y tercera partes de la historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de

nuestras Indias Occidentales que sirven en medicina).27 For Renaissance theory on combining foods see Albala (2002, 88�91).28 It may be argued therefore that maize stole the second place traditionally held by barley. Braun

(1995, 29, 34) cites an ancient proverb recorded by Zenobius: ‘next to bread, barley-cake is good

too.’ Moreover, polenta, the Latin word for barley groats, has survived but now it refers to a food

made from maize.29 Although they shared some of the same agricultural space, maize and potatoes had their specific

cultural spheres among the Incas. For how these plants competed and complemented each other

in Inca times, see Millones (2001).30 Cobo states that papas is the Quechua name and that the Aymara name is amea.31 In most English translations of the time the potato is referred to as ‘truffle’; in the original

Spanish texts potatoes were compared with ‘turmas’ or ‘criadillas de tierra,’ by which they meant

the species Terfezia arenaria, which is different from truffles eaten today as a culinary delicacy.32 The mines of Potosı (located in today’s Bolivia) were among the richest mines in Spanish

America during the colonial period. A huge market for various products was located next to the

mines.33 For more on this subject, see Salaman (1985, 101�25). The link between potatoes and leprosy

seems to be based on the influence of the so-called Doctrine of Signatures, which saw a

resemblance between the forms of the tubers and the limbs of people affected by the disease.

Scrofula is a disease which causes glandular swellings (particularly on the neck). In Medieval and

Early Modern times it was also known as the ‘King’s evil’ because it was believed that it could be

cured by the touching of royalty.


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34 Falstaff indeed refers to sweet potatoes in a passage from Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of

Windsor: ‘Let the sky rain potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green Sleeves; hail kissing-

comfits and snow eringoes; let there come a tempest of provocation’ (Act V, Sc. IV). In this

passage potatoes, kissing-comfits, and eringoes all alluded to food that aroused sexual desire.35 From ‘Siguense vnos sermones de dominicas y de sanctos en lengua mexicana: no traduzidos de

sermonario alguno sino compuestos nuevamente a la medida de la capacidad de los indios.’ Ayer

MS, The Newberry Library, Chicago. Quoted by Burkhart (1998, 166).36 With regard to the Diocese of Quito, Vazquez de Espinosa ([ca. 1629] 1942, 370) wrote: ‘They

raise potatoes also on grand scale; these are a great resource and support for both Indians and

Spaniards.’37 ‘La mejor salsa del mundo es la hambre.’ Cervantes (Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter V) used this

proverb originally from Cicero ‘Optimum cibi condimentum fames’ who claimed he heard the

phrase from Socrates.38 All translations of Lopez Medel are my own.39 The play El Dios Pan (1617) by Diego Mexıa de Fernangil presents a dialogue between a Spaniard

and a peasant observing a Corpus Christi celebration in Potosı. As the story unfolds, and with

the religious festival taking place in the background, the Spaniard quickly persuades the peasant

to abandon his following of the pagan deity Pan for the ‘Dios Pan’ (The God of Bread) Jesus.

The play is an exercise in reworking the meaning of the word ‘Pan’ from its designation of the

pagan deity to designate Christ, and his body present in the Eucharist. It is an interesting

example of colonial theater presenting Jesus as bread in a language crafted for evangelization.

The play is published in Ruben Vargas Ugarte, ed. De nuestro antiguo teatro (Lima, 1943).40 The best known example of this kind of painting is located inside the cathedral in Cusco.

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The Staff of Life: Wheat and ‘Indian Bread’ in the New World

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Transcript of The Staff of Life: Wheat and ‘Indian Bread’ in the New World