Gardens of New Spain: How Mediterranean Plants and Foods Changed America

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Summary: Where does your food come from?
Review: Ever wonder where the tomato you are eating or the lemon you are squeezing really came from? This book has the definitive answers in an easy to read and enlightening format. It is for foodies and gardeners everywhere but focuses on foods that are central to the Mediterranean diet. Cherries, peaches, squash, coffee and chocolate all feature prominently in this food guide. It is a stomach's point of view of the Spanish colonization of the Americas with plenty of information about the natives and the foods that they were meeting. Gardeners will love the detailed descriptions of native gardening and irrigation techniques from the elaborate Aztec chinampas or floating gardens to Hohokam irrigation techniques.

My favorite part is the description of Spanish and Aztec feasts during the mid-16th century. The viceroy's banquet, "Course after course featured an abundance of meats: roasted goat kids, baked hams, and chickens along with native rabbits and venison, doves, and quail (but no turkeys). Heads of hogs, calves, and deer paraded in grand presentation featuring a musical accompaniment with trumpets, wind instruments, guitars and dulcimers...Contrast this repast to the Aztec feast...That one too, highlighted meat courses, but the Aztec selection seems much lighter, almost dainty: lobsters, sardines, frogs, tadpoles, salamanders, small birds, turkeys, winged ants, and locusts (to say nothing of the sauced gophers)."

If you access history through your stomach or are interested in how native Americans in the desert Southwest managed to water their gardens; you will really enjoy this book.


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Summary: This book is so delicious - you cant' buy just one!
Review: William W. Dunmire's book just published in October of 2004, Gardens of New Spain: How Mediterranean Plants and Foods Changed America, was much anticipated in the field of public history. Dunmire worked in the field of interpretation (writing and exhibiting scholarly data in an entertaining and educational format for the public) in various park sites and administrative positions for the National Park Service for over thirty years. He now teaches at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. This stimulating work was supported and promoted by such noted historians in the specialty area of New Spain as Dr. Felix Almaraz, Dr. Rosalind Rock, and Dr. James Ivy. UTSA historian and Associate Professor, Dr. Kolleen M. Guy, used this work "hot off the press" for her fall 04 graduate seminar in Food and Drink and reported that,

"This book is generally being well received by scholars of Latin American history and borderlands studies. The book definitely opens up new areas of research. I think that we should take public historians and the work that they do quite seriously." (personal e-mail reference)

Dunmire argued that it was "one agricultural society colliding with another (Spanish and native inhabitants) over the last 350 years that forever reshaped the land and the people of America." He restated this argument in other ways: "the proliferation of Old World Foods...ushering in the grandest blending in history of international cuisines," "...the illustrious plant way from Spain had provided the grandest migration of plants, agriculture, and foodstuff in all of human history, and "the one-time clash of cultures has softened into a blend of people and ideas...."

His approach and argument was one of the so-called new methods of historiography, a different perspective, a definite departure from: the Boltonians standpoint developed in the 1915s, Carlos Castenada's Catholic view of the 1930s and 40s, and Habig's and Weddle's positive Catholic, pro-Spanish emphasis in the 1960s. Surprisingly, Dunmire blended the colorful and narrative details of Bancroft's collection and concept of destiny with a naturalist's passion for relating interactions between men, plants, and animals. His emphasis on foods crisscrossing the globe and the motives and technology associated with food's global influence and production gave this book a unique flavor (no pun intended). Weber, Chipman (who Dunmire greatly credits for his support and input on this work), and Dunmire all agree that the reader should look at New World events from all the players' points of view. Here is a yummy, 360 degree perspective that is fascinating to ingest. The tables, maps, and illustrations are one of a kind, accurate, and easy to absorb. This is a book you'll want to have in your kitchen and in your scholarly library!