B1 · Intermediate
12 min
food cultureorganized crimelatin americaagriculture
Blood on the Land: Cartels and the Food of Mexico
Sangre en la tierra: los cárteles y la cocina de México
Ten people were killed at a ranch in Tehuitzingo, Puebla, in an armed attack. Fletcher and Octavio dig into violence in Mexico's countryside and what it means for one of the world's great food cultures.
Diez personas murieron en un rancho de Tehuitzingo, Puebla, en un ataque armado. Fletcher y Octavio hablan sobre la violencia en el campo mexicano y lo que significa para una de las cocinas más ricas del mundo.
8 essential B1-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| el rancho | ranch, rural property | Hay muchos ranchos en el sur de Puebla. |
| cultivar | to cultivate, to farm (the process of working land) | Los agricultores cultivan maíz y frijoles en esa región. |
| sembrar | to sow, to plant seeds | En primavera, el agricultor siembra las semillas en la tierra. |
| el agricultor | farmer | Los agricultores trabajan muy duro para producir comida. |
| la violencia | violence | La violencia en el campo afecta a muchas comunidades rurales. |
| la semilla | seed | México tiene cientos de variedades nativas de semillas de maíz. |
| el ingrediente | ingredient | El mole poblano tiene más de treinta ingredientes diferentes. |
| el patrimonio | heritage, patrimony | La UNESCO reconoció la cocina mexicana como patrimonio cultural. |
There's a place in Mexico called Puebla, and if you know anything about Mexican food, you know that name carries weight.
Mole poblano.
Chiles en nogada.
Cemitas.
And this week, ten people were killed at a ranch there.
Sí, fue un ataque muy serio.
Yes, it was a very serious attack.
Murieron diez personas, incluyendo un niño, en un rancho cerca de Tehuitzingo, en el sur del estado de Puebla.
Ten people died, including a child, at a ranch near Tehuitzingo, in the south of Puebla state.
La policía dice que fue un grupo armado.
Police say it was an armed group.
And the word ranch, rancho, matters here, because this isn't just a crime story.
It sits right at the intersection of violence and land and food, and in Mexico that intersection has its own very dark history.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Tehuitzingo es una zona rural, con muchos ranchos y agricultores.
Tehuitzingo is a rural area, with many ranches and farmers.
No es una ciudad grande.
It's not a big city.
Pero hay mucha presencia de grupos criminales en esa parte de Puebla.
But there is a strong criminal presence in that part of Puebla.
When I reported from Mexico City in the late nineties, cartel violence and agricultural land felt like separate stories.
That's not true anymore, and it's been not true for a long time.
No, no son historias separadas.
No, they're not separate stories.
Los grupos criminales controlan mucha tierra en México.
Criminal groups control a lot of land in Mexico.
Cultivan amapola, marihuana.
They grow poppies, marijuana.
Pero también controlan productos legales, como el aguacate o el limón.
But they also control legal products, like avocado or lime.
Right, and that's the part that I think most people outside Mexico genuinely don't grasp.
When you buy a bag of avocados at a grocery store in the United States, there's a real chance that the supply chain touched cartel territory at some point.
Sí, y esto empezó especialmente en Michoacán, que es el estado más importante para la producción de aguacate en el mundo.
Yes, and this started especially in Michoacán, which is the most important state for avocado production in the world.
Los cárteles empezaron a cobrar dinero a los agricultores.
Cartels started charging money to farmers.
Si no pagaban, había violencia.
If they didn't pay, there was violence.
Extortion.
And it works precisely because agriculture is tied to land, and land doesn't move.
A farmer can't just relocate his orchard.
Claro.
Of course.
Y también en Puebla hay ese problema.
And Puebla has that problem too.
El sur del estado, donde está Tehuitzingo, es una zona con mucha pobreza y con poca presencia del gobierno.
The south of the state, where Tehuitzingo is, is an area with a lot of poverty and very little government presence.
Para los grupos criminales, eso es muy fácil.
For criminal groups, that's very easy.
Okay, but I want to pull the camera back for a second.
Because Puebla isn't just any Mexican state.
From a food perspective, it might be the most important one.
Can you give our listeners a sense of what Puebla actually represents in Mexican culinary history?
Puebla es fundamental.
Puebla is fundamental.
El mole poblano, que es una salsa muy compleja con chile, chocolate y muchos otros ingredientes, viene de ahí.
Mole poblano, which is a very complex sauce with chile, chocolate, and many other ingredients, comes from there.
Los chiles en nogada también.
Chiles en nogada too.
Es una cocina muy antigua, con influencias indígenas y españolas.
It's a very ancient cuisine, with indigenous and Spanish influences.
Mole poblano is one of those dishes I've eaten probably fifty times and I'm still not sure I fully understand it.
The complexity is almost architectural.
Sí, y hay recetas con más de treinta ingredientes.
Yes, and there are recipes with more than thirty ingredients.
Cada familia tiene su versión.
Every family has their version.
La abuela de mi amigo en Puebla decía que necesitaba tres días para prepararlo bien.
My friend's grandmother in Puebla said she needed three days to prepare it properly.
Tres días.
Three days.
Three days.
And that's the thing, the knowledge that goes into something like mole, that's generations of accumulated culture.
It lives in the countryside.
It lives in the places where this violence is happening.
Tienes razón.
You're right.
Y la violencia afecta eso directamente.
And the violence directly affects that.
Cuando la gente abandona sus pueblos por el peligro, también pierde la conexión con su tierra y con su comida tradicional.
When people abandon their towns because of danger, they also lose their connection to their land and their traditional food.
There's a displacement dimension here that almost never makes the news.
It's not just people leaving, it's knowledge leaving.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y volvamos al aguacate, porque es un ejemplo muy claro.
And let's go back to avocado, because it's a very clear example.
México produce más del cincuenta por ciento del aguacate que consume el mundo.
Mexico produces more than fifty percent of the avocado the world consumes.
Pero el precio que pagan los agricultores no es siempre justo, porque los cárteles toman su parte.
But the price that farmers receive isn't always fair, because cartels take their share.
The USDA actually suspended inspections in Michoacán for a while in 2022 after inspectors were threatened.
That's how deep it goes.
American food safety officials couldn't safely do their jobs.
Sí, lo recuerdo.
Yes, I remember that.
Y hay que entender que cuando los cárteles controlan la tierra, también controlan quién puede cultivar, qué puede cultivar y a quién puede vender.
And you have to understand that when cartels control the land, they also control who can farm, what can be farmed, and who it can be sold to.
No es solo violencia.
It's not just violence.
Es poder económico total.
It's total economic power.
Which brings us back to this ranch in Puebla.
We don't know yet exactly why ten people were killed.
But ranches in that region often sit right in the middle of these territorial disputes, whether it's over land, crops, or transit routes.
Sí.
Yes.
Y también hay que decir que el sur de Puebla es una zona de tráfico de personas y drogas hacia los Estados Unidos.
And you also have to say that the south of Puebla is a zone of human trafficking and drug transit toward the United States.
Los ranchos son lugares perfectos para eso.
Ranches are perfect places for that.
Espacios privados, lejos de la ciudad.
Private spaces, far from the city.
Something that struck me reading about Tehuitzingo: it's a municipality of maybe twelve, fifteen thousand people.
It has its own local food traditions, corn, beans, local chiles.
And this kind of violence hollows those communities out from the inside.
Y el maíz es muy importante aquí.
And corn is very important here.
México es el origen del maíz.
Mexico is the origin of corn.
Hay cientos de variedades nativas en el país.
There are hundreds of native varieties in the country.
Muchas están en el sur de México, en estados como Puebla, Oaxaca, Guerrero.
Many are in the south of Mexico, in states like Puebla, Oaxaca, Guerrero.
La violencia en esas zonas pone en peligro también esa biodiversidad.
Violence in those areas also endangers that biodiversity.
I did not know that about the corn diversity.
Hundreds of native varieties.
That's staggering, actually, from an agricultural and a cultural standpoint.
Sí, y muchas de esas variedades solo las conocen los agricultores locales.
Yes, and many of those varieties are only known by local farmers.
No existen en los supermercados.
They don't exist in supermarkets.
Si ese agricultor abandona su tierra, la variedad puede desaparecer.
If that farmer abandons their land, the variety can disappear.
Es así de simple y así de grave.
It's that simple and that serious.
There's a parallel here with what happened in parts of Colombia in the nineties and two thousands.
When FARC or paramilitaries controlled territory, farmers planted whatever the armed group wanted, not what the land was traditionally good for.
Food culture got warped.
Es exactamente igual.
It's exactly the same.
En algunas zonas de México, los agricultores abandonaron el maíz o el frijol para cultivar amapola, porque era más dinero.
In some areas of Mexico, farmers abandoned corn or beans to grow poppies, because there was more money.
Pero después del dinero, ¿qué queda?
But after the money, what's left?
Menos comida local, más dependencia del mercado.
Less local food, more dependence on the market.
Octavio, here's something I keep circling back to.
Mexico has this extraordinary culinary heritage, UNESCO recognized it in 2010 as intangible cultural heritage.
And yet the structural conditions that make that heritage possible, small farmers, rural communities, traditional land use, are under sustained, serious pressure.
Sí, y ese reconocimiento de la UNESCO fue muy importante para México.
Yes, and that UNESCO recognition was very important for Mexico.
Fue un orgullo nacional.
It was a source of national pride.
Pero tienes razón, la realidad en el campo es muy difícil.
But you're right, the reality in the countryside is very hard.
No puedes separar la cocina de la tierra, y no puedes separar la tierra de la política y la violencia.
You cannot separate the cuisine from the land, and you cannot separate the land from politics and violence.
What's the mood in Mexico right now around this?
When something like Tehuitzingo happens, does it register nationally, or has there been so much violence that it's absorbed into the news cycle and gone in a day?
La verdad es que depende.
The truth is it depends.
Si murió mucha gente, hay atención por un día o dos.
If many people died, there's attention for a day or two.
Pero después el ciclo de noticias sigue.
But then the news cycle moves on.
México tiene mucha violencia y la gente está un poco acostumbrada, aunque es horrible decirlo.
Mexico has a lot of violence and people are somewhat accustomed to it, even though it's horrible to say.
That normalization is its own kind of damage.
I saw something similar in Beirut in the nineties, a city that had lived through a civil war and learned to absorb shock after shock.
The tragedy isn't just the violence, it's the adaptation to violence.
Y lo que me parece más triste es que los agricultores mexicanos trabajan muy duro.
And what I find saddest is that Mexican farmers work very hard.
La cocina mexicana es famosa en el mundo, los chefs internacionales la adoran.
Mexican cuisine is famous around the world, international chefs love it.
Pero los agricultores que producen esos ingredientes a veces viven con miedo.
But the farmers who produce those ingredients sometimes live in fear.
Eso es una injusticia muy grande.
That is a very great injustice.
The global appetite for Mexican food, and I mean that literally, people everywhere eating tacos, guacamole, mole, that appetite doesn't flow backward to protect the people who make it possible.
There's a profound disconnection there.
Completamente.
Completely.
Y es el mismo problema con el café de Colombia, el cacao de Costa de Marfil, el arroz de Asia.
And it's the same problem with Colombian coffee, Ivory Coast cacao, Asian rice.
El consumidor compra barato y no piensa en el origen.
The consumer buys cheap and doesn't think about the origin.
La cadena de producción es invisible.
The production chain is invisible.
Alright, I want to ask you something more personal.
You've spent time in Mexico City and you know Mexican food well.
What's a dish from Puebla specifically that you think the world outside Spain has completely missed?
Los chiles en nogada.
Chiles en nogada.
Absolutamente.
Absolutely.
Es un plato de otoño, con chile poblano relleno de carne, fruta y especias, cubierto con una salsa de nuez y granada.
It's an autumn dish, with poblano chile stuffed with meat, fruit, and spices, covered in a walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds.
Los colores son los de la bandera mexicana.
The colors are those of the Mexican flag.
Es arte y comida al mismo tiempo.
It's art and food at the same time.
No entiendo por qué no es más famoso.
I don't understand why it isn't more famous.
I had chiles en nogada once at a small restaurant just off the zócalo in Puebla city and I genuinely didn't know what I was eating for the first two bites.
The sweet and savory combination was unlike anything in my frame of reference.
Oye, y hablando de marcos de referencia, antes dijiste que la cocina mexicana es una mezcla de influencias indígenas y españolas.
Hey, and speaking of frames of reference, you said earlier that Mexican cuisine is a mix of indigenous and Spanish influences.
Quiero añadir algo: a veces los españoles olvidamos que mucho de lo que consideramos nuestra cocina tiene origen en México.
I want to add something: sometimes we Spanish people forget that a lot of what we consider our cuisine has its origins in Mexico.
El tomate, el chile, el chocolate.
Tomato, chile, chocolate.
That's a fair correction.
The Columbian Exchange ran both directions.
Spain didn't give Mexico everything.
Mexico gave Europe its tomatoes, and honestly that might be the more consequential gift.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Sin México, no hay pizza italiana, no hay gazpacho español.
Without Mexico, there's no Italian pizza, no Spanish gazpacho.
Piénsalo.
Think about it.
Todo eso viene del tomate, y el tomate viene de América.
All of that comes from the tomato, and the tomato comes from America.
La deuda cultural es enorme.
The cultural debt is enormous.
You used a word earlier that I keep turning over.
You said los agricultores 'cultivan' the land.
And earlier you also said 'producen.' I've been trying to figure out when you use one versus the other.
Buena pregunta.
Good question.
'Cultivar' es el proceso, la acción de trabajar la tierra para que crezca algo.
'Cultivar' is the process, the action of working the land so that something grows.
'Producir' es el resultado.
'Producir' is the result.
El agricultor cultiva el maíz, y produce maíz.
The farmer cultivates corn, and produces corn.
Una es el camino y la otra es el destino.
One is the journey and the other is the destination.
That's actually a cleaner distinction than English makes.
We use 'grow' for both the process and the result.
You grow corn.
The corn grows.
The verb does too much work.
Claro, y en español también existe 'sembrar', que es el momento específico de poner la semilla en la tierra.
Of course, and in Spanish 'sembrar' also exists, which is the specific moment of putting the seed in the earth.
Entonces tenemos tres palabras: sembrar, cultivar, producir.
So we have three words: to sow, to cultivate, to produce.
Es como seguir toda la vida de una planta con el vocabulario.
It's like following the entire life of a plant through vocabulary.
Sembrar, cultivar, producir.
From seed to table, basically.
I'll try to use all three correctly and I'll report back on how badly it goes.
Por favor.
Please.
La última vez que intentaste usar vocabulario nuevo, le dijiste a mi madre que estabas muy embarazado.
The last time you tried to use new vocabulary, you told my mother you were very pregnant.
Espero que con las plantas sea más fácil.
I hope it goes easier with plants.