Honoring cultural intelligence

Discovery and appreciation of New Mexico culture have steadily grown for me and my wife, Annette. We met while doing service work on Diné in 1968 and first encountered Taos then. Being here the past 55 years, we have some stories to tell about diverse cultural experiences. Our consciousness expanded recently by adding an horno at our Arroyo Seco retirement home. I seized the opportunity when a capable crew was building an extension to our west patio. Genaro and Pedro said, “Sí, we can build you a special horno.”

The result was larger than the typical low Pueblo or Norteño form, and the dome was fire brick, not adobe. I called its character Andalusian. We remembered baked breads and stories of roasted chicos, but found only a few recipes in local literature. We began inviting friends to contribute ideas and test them in group adventures. I also widened the literature search to historic cookbooks, international memoirs and archaeological studies. Locally-sourced ingredients and our homegrown produce provided authentic additions.

The results comprise the 88 recipes in our book, “Taos Horno Adventures: A multicultural culinary memoir informed by history and horticulture” (Nighthawk Press, 2020).

Sensitive to cultural appropriation, this old research physician looked into our own ancestors’ lives with horno-like ovens. I discovered that leavened bread was invented by the Egyptians about 7,000 years ago and baked in clay ovens. As wheat and yeast refinements developed, white bread became popular throughout the Middle East. Rich concoctions baked in clay ovens were food for the pagan gods in Sumeria and Babylonia. Through expanding trade and conquests into Greek and Roman Europe, wheat bread spread as a popular luxury. The Roman imperial armies succeeded by building roads, and remnants exist in countries known then as Gaul, Iberia and Angleterre. The soldiers in these campaigns far from home valued the bakers who carried ovens on wagons following the armies to supply the coveted bread. Local grains such as oats and barley were rejected as inferior. This is one source of how beehive ovens were introduced to regions that became Spain. Another source is Arab expansion across North Africa and eventually into southern Iberia. So now we can appreciate the origin of hornos as from the Middle East. This is credible when considered along with the inspiration for acequias, derived from the Arabic word al-saqiyah, meaning “water conduit.”

I wondered if our Pueblos had beehive ovens before the Spanish incursion. I found references to ovens of stacked stones for drying maize in Chaco and early Pueblo cultures, but no adobe hornos. Their Spanish-inspired adoption continues to our present day and provides meaningful shared cultural experiences.

I had an opportunity to dig deeper when serving on the Millicent Rogers Museum Board. As Chair of the Building and Grounds Committee, I cultivated the native plant gardens and explored the undeveloped acres around the museum building. The original Anderson family home had a garden on the south side, and I heard stories of possible buried artifacts. The garden site included an horno built from modern cement, unused for decades but adding to the cultural appeal of their home. The Andersons eventually donated the house to become the museum in 1968. Current staff and Anderson descendants shared my research curiosity. Therefore, we sponsored a professional archaeological study. Findings were limited to artifacts of recent decades, but the results now add to the museum’s own multicultural history. We value this story as an example of our Taos cultural discoveries and the intelligence they bring in our social evolution.

Here’s another example: Behind this south garden wall, I discovered an old apricot tree blocked from view by invasive junipers. I enlisted a certified arborist to core the tree for historic dating. We found an age of 75 years which coincides with planting by the Anderson family. In addition, I discovered the history of apricots in New Mexico. Originally from China, they were brought to the Middle East, then Europe, and eventually by the Franciscan settlers to New Spain. I gave the Millicent Rogers tree a restorative pruning, and the next year, staff were rewarded with a crop of the delightful small fruit well known here.

Annette and I included a recipe for apricot empanadas in the Horno Adventures book. And as a gesture of sharing cultural intelligence values, we dedicated the book’s proceeds to the Millicent Rogers Museum for ongoing cultivation of the native plant gardens after I moved on from service there.