Santa
Fe Food Heritage: Colonial
Eating
History of Santa Fe | First
Americans | Colonial
| Territorial/Statehood
|
| Food Santa
Fe: guide to organizations promoting
food awareness |
Birdseye view of Santa Fe painted by
Wilson Hurley after a map of Joseph
de Urrutia (1776)
Settlers Monument,
Cathedral Park
The centerpiece of the park is a statue
of St. Francis surrounded by a colonial
settler family, soldier, farm animals,
fruit, vegetables and farm implements.
The monument was designed by Santa Fe
architect Bernabe Romero for the 400th
anniversary of the first European settlers.
The monument features many of the fruits,
vegetables and domestic animals
brought to New Mexico by the Spanish
colonialists.
This is one of the finest public monuments
anywhere portraying a vital turning
point in
history known as the Native American/Columbian
Exchange of Food.
Columbus' voyages to America began an
exchange of foods that continues
to have a world-wide impact today. It
is estimated that 60% of what the
world now eats originated in the Americas.
The potato, (shown above) and many other
foods was originally domesticated by
Native Americans. These foods of the
Americas were brought north from
Mexico and places to the south by the
Spanish.
Monument designer, architect and Santa
Fe native Bernabe Romero
with clay model of statue. The actual
bronze monument was sculpted by Donna
Quasthoff.
Read more about the
monument here.
Matanza Tradition,
Cathedral Park, Santa Fe
As the birdseye view
above shows, Santa Fe Plaza used to
extend to Cathedral park where livestock
was butchered and matanzas (barbecues)
were held.
"Matanza" diagram
by Louann Jordan in El Rancho de las
Golondrinas,
Colonial NM Historical Foundation, 1993.
The killing (butchering)
of an animal which frequently accompanied
a rodeo was called a "matanza."
The first recorded references to a Rodeo
in the official republic of the United
States are made in old New Mexico family
journals.
As matanza researcher
Cynthia Martin explains “A traditional
Matanza is a family and community-gathering
event, with friends and neighbors helping
in the labor-intensive job of processing
a large pig, goat or sheep”.
“Taking at least
an entire day, the process goes from
the slaughtering the animal and butchering
the meat to cooking the various meat
products and preparing what is left
for distribution and storage. Of course
all those helpers also need to be fed,
so the women in the family plan and
prepare large amounts of food for the
event.” Learn more about matanzas
and the New Mexican origin of the USA
rodeo tradition here.
Acequia Madre:
a food heritage site
"Acequia Madre" (1927) by
Will
Shuster (1893-1969)
Acequias (ditches)
played a critical role in the early
history of Santa Fe. By cutting off
the water supply from the Acequia de
la Muralla, which ran along the north
wall of the city, Pueblo Indians forced
the Spanish colonists to evacuate the
Palace of the Governors in 1680. Using
a similar strategy 13 years later, Vargas
regained control of the city. Although
little remains of that main ditch, the
Acequia Madre, on the south side of
the Rio de Santa Fe, still flows when
the irrigation gates are opened. This
site is listed on the State Register
of Cultural Properties (Source)
Learn more about the
history of Santa Fe's acequia madre
here.
Canyon Road
Food Heritage District
Detail of a 1846-47 map of Santa Fe
showing the Canyon Road area
between the canal and river.
The unique mingling
of fine art galleries with gracious
adobe homes on winding, shaded streets
is the essence of Canyon Road's charm.
Although it is just blocks from Santa
Fe's busy plaza, Canyon Road's special
quality arises from its history as a
rural neighborhood of small farms scattered
along an old Indian trail.
The oldest adobe houses
on Canyon Road date at least to the
1750s, built as modest, two or three-room
dwellings by early Spanish settlers.
Each house was the center of a family
farm that raised corn and wheat and
vegetables on the fertile patches of
land bordering the Santa Fe River. In
those days it would not have been unusual
to see a small flock of sheep being
driven up the Road on the way to green,
mountain pastures deeper in the Canyon.
Farming in this high
desert climate was always a challenge.
Shortly after founding Santa Fe in 1610,
the Spanish built an irrigation canal
above the River, parallel to Canyon
Road. Still in use, this Acequia Madre,
or "mother ditch," brought
precious water out of the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains to sustain crops, livestock,
and people in the Canyon Road neighborhood.
Present day visitors should take a stroll
down shaded Acequia Madre Street (just
one block south of Canyon Road) to enjoy
the ancient stone-lined canal and the
beautiful adobe homes which have depended
on it for centuries.
Since the earliest
days of Spanish settlement, enterprising
Santa Feans had walked their burros
up the old "Road of the Canyon"
to gather firewood in the mountain forests.
Late in the day, residents would see
the burros lumbering back down Canyon
Road, laden with impossibly large stacks
of split pinon wood that were destined
for delivery to customers in town or
for sale in Santa Fe's Burro Alley.
After the US Army arrived
in Santa Fe in 1846, soldiers built
a sawmill in the Canyon and carted the
lumber down Canyon Road to build Ft.
Marcy, northeast of the Plaza. The new
fort marked the United States' acquisition
of New Mexico (and the rest of the Southwest
and California) in the Mexican-American
War. As the capitol of New Mexico Territory,
Santa Fe would experience a new, American
government, just as the old Santa Fe
Trail would bring an ever larger influx
of Anglo-American people and goods into
this remote Spanish town.
Despite the changes
going on around it, the Canyon Road
neighborhood in the Territorial era
remained much as it had been for the
previous century: a quiet farming community
of Spanish families on the outskirts
of Santa Fe. And so it would be until
the birth of Santa Fe' famous art colony
in the early Twentieth Century.
Learn more about Canyon
Road's agricultural past and its transition
into a world renown art center here.
Continue
on to the next part of the exhibit.
Click
on the images below to visit all the
New Mexico Food Heritage Exhibits.
