During our work preserving the different varieties of Mexican chilis and trying to raise awareness about responsible and informed consumption, we have had the opportunity to meet all the actors that are part of the chili consumption chain in our country. Within this chain there are many people so different from each other that it would be difficult to find a common adjective for all of them, from the small chile producer in Oaxaca or Veracruz, to those in charge of the dryers in Zacatecas, to the transporters who distribute the chile throughout our country, the chili sellers in the Chiapas markets or the distributors of the Central de Abastos in Mexico City; men and women so different from each other that the only thing they share is their vocation for work and service to bring to our tables the chilies that give flavor to the food.
These people keep alive a production, distribution and marketing chain that makes it possible for end consumers, like you and me, to access and enjoy our taste for spicy flavors, and we have heard many stories about this. For example, those who for work reasons have had to leave their homes in their places of origin to come to practice their profession in Mexico City and who, when talking about the different uses of chile, explain to us how in the place where they come from When they come, chili can have other names or other uses and it is evident the emotion they emanate when talking about what makes them remember their childhood, their family and the foods that have deep emotional value in them, until they generate a tear of joy. for the past lived and the nostalgia of remembering their customs waiting for the day to return.
Or the stories of street vendors of chips and flour chicharrones, who come to assure and attribute the success of their businesses to the type of bottled sauce they use and which they proudly boast of as being their good luck charm for flavoring and enchilar. to his clients.
There is never a shortage of family anecdotes about that person who loves spicy food and that others cannot understand his intense taste for enchiladas.
We Mexicans are a very large and diverse people, there are few things that we could really use as a common denominator to describe the majority of us, however if there was something that identifies us, it is our appreciation in different measures for spicy flavors.
Listening to these stories we realized that the topic we were trying to cover and disseminate was much deeper than the use of chili in gastronomy and it was necessary to take into account its cultural roots that exist in our country, which can be expressed in different ways, since it is at the same time a language of family, of memories, emotions, places, and experiences that have marked the lives of each of us. In a few words, we can attribute to the spicy culture a part of our identity as people, who have acquired the taste or simply the habit of finding pleasure in enchilando.
That is, chili is transformed into emotions, memories, experiences, which in turn define personalities, families and societies.
We have called this phenomenon “The Chili Culture.”
We believe that there is a wide area of study regarding this new perception of spiciness, and that it can help us understand more and more our complexity as people and as a society. We want to focus our research efforts on knowing what that culture is for each of us, what memories and emotions it awakens in us in order to understand the extent to which it influences our lives.
At La Flor de Jamaica we have the mission of disseminating the knowledge that we are generating and thus becoming the reference for The Chili Culture in Mexico. We want to know more than just chili as an ingredient but as a generator of emotions and links between groups and individuals; investigate it as a living being capable of transmitting and being interpreted in different and infinite ways, we want to understand the reason for its strong and intense presence in the life of each of us and thus be able to explain it from a broad vision and with great social value. .
We invite you to stay tuned to discover with us all the implications that this new vision and approach to spicy food may produce.
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