Table 1 P’urhépechas food characteristics

Priority food

Corn, pumpkin, chili

Corn, pumpkin, chili

Corn, pumpkin, chili

Plants reported

Amaranth, tomato, maguey, beans, wild plants (quelites), cuajiniquil (Inga spp.), mamey (Pouteria sapota), cacao (Theobroma cacao), zapote (Diospyros digyna), chicozapote (Manilkara zapota), prickly pear (Opuntia spp.), capulín (Prunus salicifolia) and tejocote (Crataegus mexicana)

Conquest included to diet several foods, such as wheat, vine, barley, lentils, beans, chickpeas, cabbage, lettuce, radishes, carrots, peas, garlic, onion, and turnips; fruits such as peaches, apples, pears, quinces, and olives, rice, sugar cane, and bananas

In addition to those cultivated since colonial times, there is a great variety of vegetables such as squash, beans, wheat, potatoes, chayotes, tomatoes, onions, wheat, and potatoes

Animals

Whitefish, sardines, catfish. Honeycomb, deer, turkeys, macaws and dogs, rabbits, turkeys ducks, charales (Chirostoma attenuatum, C. estor estor, C. grandocule and C. patzcuaro) frogs (Rana dunni), achoques (Batysiredon dumerilii), water snakes (Thamnophis melanogaster), armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus), (Sciurus sp.), gophers (Zygogeomys trichopus), roasted opossums (Didelphis virginiana)

The conquest brought livestock, not just for food, but in terms of changes in land use and farming techniques, now aided by horses, mules and donkeys. The animals incorporated into the p’urhépecha landscape were pigs and sheep

There are in P'urhépecha area oxen, horses, cows, pigs, chickens, among others. In Lake Pátzcuaro, you fish approx. 14 native species and 4 introduced. P'urhépechas hunt squirrels, deer, wild birds, rodents and consume wild honeycomb worms, rabbits, armadillos, opossums, hawks

Elaborated food

Cooked corn, atoles, tortillas, tamales, corundas, quelite breads, ceremonial meals with wild animals

Inclusion of beef and pork in some local dishes

In the daily food, dishes based on corn, beans, broad beans, rice, dried meat, brown sugar, butter, among others more industrialized such as pasta, tuna, canned shrimp, bottled beers, soft drinks, tortillas, etc.

Food technology

Parángua or fire stones, firewood, tortilla

Inclusion of instruments, for example, metal and glass utensils. Addition of culinary techniques such as frying and baking. African and Asian culture also joined Michoacan cuisine

Modernization of indigenous kitchens through the increasing use of electrical appliances such as gas stoves, blenders, and refrigerators

Landscape

Semi-sedentary corn-growing populations occupied Patzcuaro Basin toward the Pre-Classic (1500 BC). Corn agriculture reached large areas of territory, shaped landscapes with terraces and irrigation systems

The high rainfall occurred during the early Hispanic period, and the total abandonment of certain agricultural areas produced erosion and deterioration of the lands

Among the forms of transformation of the landscape, the diversity of means of production stands out: horticulture, fishing, hunting, aquatic extraction, and beekeeping; and pottery, wheat, wood and palm handicrafts, bread production, among others

Social relevant aspects

During the early postclassic Xaratanga, the "mother goddess of maintenance", goddess of fertility, maintains a relationship with animals and plants

Famines, territorial conflicts, epidemics, among other phenomena that made relationships with nature more complex. At this time, people not accepted European animal fats and other foods such as cow's milk, even until the beginning of the twentieth century

The forties were crucial for the P’urhépecha in social, political, cultural, nutritional changes and relations with the environment, promoted by modernization. Since the 1940s, the migratory phenomenon brings new gastronomic preferences. In the 1990s, international agreements affected food production, preparation, and consumption practices

Relational values

Maize is a part of relation with Xaratanga and other gods. The base of food sovereignty is maize and all the relation with territory is dominated by maize

The relation between maize and people, gods territories are suffering a strong transformation. Many publications about food and transformation of territories but there is a lack of information concerning to relational values of p’urhepecha people

There are multiple values simultaneously coexisting, the modernity has a strong energy to move maize and other agricultural products as economic capitals, it coexist with the relational values such as the personality, preference of plant and also about how people is related with catholic gods