Within the thick walls of the monastery of San Jerónimo, sonnets were written and stews and delicacies were prepared. The kitchens of the monasteries of New Spain were veritable laboratories, where monastic nuns experimented with ingredients and culinary techniques to create delicacies that shaped Mexican cuisine. It was in that convent in the heart of Mexico City that one of them, Juana de Asbaje y Ramírez, cut himself off from the demands placed on women—loyal wife, devoted mother, tireless homemaker—to find refuge that would enable him , writing, painting and poetry to cultivate. But also the kitchen. “There is evidence in Sor Juana’s writings that suggests that she cooked even though she had a service,” explains Marcela Bolaños Dávila of Sor Juana Cloister University’s College of Gastronomy. “In response to Sor Filotea de la Cruz, Sor Juana talks about cooking in the first person. The kitchen was present in letters, essays and poems that she wrote. She sent letters to the viceroys accompanied by sweet and culinary preparations. He produced his literature and his private kitchen in the cell,” explains the academic. Write and cook without worldly hassles.
This story begins in 1540. That year the first female religious order landed in New Spain. The city grew although it still lacked many services to make life more or less bearable, and these first nuns needed certain conditions for confinement. They were in seclusion in the first monasteries and did not even leave them dead, so life passed between contemplation, observance of vows and cooking. The capital of the Viceroyalty already had the monasteries of La Concepción, Santo Domingo and San Francisco when in 1626 the Convent of San Jerónimo was built, a vast and labyrinthine building with a large number of cells, orchards, pens and chapels.
Sor Juana is imprisoned in this building, but with many privileges. “It doesn’t look like a cell. Instead of cold white walls, shelves full of books; inkwells and quills instead of cilices; instead of kneelers and crosses, mathematical and musical instruments. No, this isn’t a cell, it’s a study. Not the bare apartment of a mystic, but the cozy study of a writer, a private academy,” writes Anita Arroyo in Razón y pasión de Sor Juana (Editorial Porrúa). The two-story cell also had a kitchen. Alejandro Soriano Vallès explains in Maiden of the Verb (Jus) that every nun who entered this convent had to pay three to four thousand pesos of the time, which was used to support the convent and support the nun. These were women who were part of the wealthy elite and entitled to have up to five maids locked up with them, in addition to whatever was necessary to live comfortably despite the vow of poverty.
Fragment of the portrait of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Miguel Cabrera, ca. 1750.
Together with Julián Santoyo García Galiano, professor at Anahuac University, Marcela Bolaños Dávila studied what Sor Juana’s cell looked like, turning her interest to the kitchen. The results of their research were presented this week at a forum on Mexican cuisine held as part of the 30th anniversary of the University of the Cloister of Sor Juana’s College of Gastronomy. Both academics explain that the so-called tenth muse had a large room equipped with everything necessary for cooking. There was a brick brazier where the charcoal that was lit outside the premises was placed to keep the cell from smoking. Also a Doodle, which was a structure hanging from the ceiling in which pots were placed, but also animals such as rabbits or chickens, chili peppers or garlic. A tub 90 centimeters long and 60 centimeters wide was always filled with water and was used to clean fruit and vegetables and to wash utensils. There was also a pantry where the nun kept spices, dried produce and meat that the maids bought that day. There were also a variety of pots, copper pots and cauldrons; knives, spoons and shovels; Tables, metata, molcajetes, anafres, jars… “It was mestizo cuisine with a pre-Hispanic presence,” explains Bolaños.
Out of this cuisine came Mexican delicacies such as boca pills (sweets), bobo fish (“they were called that because they were easy to catch,” Boñalos explains), the coveted chocolate, nut desserts, donuts, egg desserts, caramels, alfajores, and of course moles. “According to legend, a mole known as Mole Poblano was first made for the Marqués de Mancera in Puebla. And the first moles appeared in Sor Juana’s kitchen,” confirms the scientist.
Confined in their kitchens, these women used centuries-old techniques introduced by the Spanish to prepare the ingredients that the new lands gave to the world. In the kitchens of the monasteries, the forms of cooking created by the Arabs were combined with alchemy, which these women inherited from the alembic used to distil brandy, but also from techniques such as salting, roasting, the art of candying, marzipan, etc. the use of citrus fruits or lamb and goat, explains Ingrid Millán Núñez, culinary researcher and professor at the Gastronomic Institute for Advanced Studies of Querétaro. Olive oil, the preparation of sweets and the various preparations of pork came from the Spaniards, among other things. And the African slaves also did their part by marinating the entrails, which they consumed because of their low social status, with spices and thus improving their taste. Adding to all this magic is the pre-Hispanic tradition.
“The kitchen of that time is baroque because many ingredients are integrated and it is becoming more and more complex. The mole reappears at this time and many things are added to it. If you count the number of ingredients a mole has, you realize that he is baroque par excellence. A black mole from Oaxaca has 31 ingredients and six types of dried chillies,” explains Millán. Besides stews, he adds, the nuns specialized in making sweets that drove the inhabitants of the colonial cities insane. As the success of these delicacies rapidly increased, the nuns saw an opportunity to sell their products, leading to an elevated specialization in baking techniques. This is how eggnog was born in the monasteries of Puebla, a drink made with many egg yolks, which requires a lot of work so that it does not “cut”, and is sweetened with sugar and cinnamon. The Clarisas yolk, sweets also made from egg yolk, is another of these delicacies, as is the yolk bread.
The variety of culinary offerings that the nuns have created or perfected in the kitchens of the convents is so great that it exceeds the menu of any trendy restaurant in La Condesa, Rome or Polanco: Bocado Real, Cafiroleta, Sweet Potato and Pineapple, Alfeñiques, Cinnamon, almond quesillos, alfajores, marquesote, nut cakes, donuts, meringues, mole, quesadillas, crowns of Christ with pulled caramel, chongos zamoranos, pressed peaches, orchard chicken, saffron chicken, drunk chickens, michi broth or fish, Sor Perpetua shrimp, mourning doves in Mole Ranchero, Pickled White Fish from Pátzcuaro, Rich Student Chilaquiles Monjiles, Mixed Bean Soup, Chickpea Broth for the Community, Poblano Green Pipián, Chilis en Nogada, Sweet Potatoes, Chicken Granada, Sweet Potato Soup… And the list goes on with names that make your mouth water.
“That’s where the magic happened,” says Millán. “Detention gave way to creativity because somehow the nuns had to learn to live in peace, harmoniously and in the best possible way. With the Arab, with Spain, with the African, they worked on a very rich cuisine,” he adds. An example is the sweet potato, he explains: “This is where misgeneration becomes noticeable. We know that the technique comes from Spain, the utensils for preparation are Arabic and the use of essences, but the use of local products such as sweet potatoes or mamey, the tubs, make it a mixed-race cuisine”. This is how a Sor Juana might be pictured, perhaps after she has written a few lovely sonnets, locking herself in the kitchen with her maids and preparing a rabbit for supper. “Perhaps that is why I was born / where the sun’s rays / gazed at me,” wrote the tenth muse.
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