Cook With Us!
Planting a Path for The Water & The Wind: Highland Maya of Guatemala Foodways
Written by Guadalupe Ramirez
Did you know that Highland Support Project’s founder, Guadalupe Ramirez, has also authored a cookbook?
Beyond recipes, this cookbook offers a thoughtful glimpse into Guatemalan culture, Indigenous tradition, and Guadalupe’s own life story.
During these “virtual times", we’d still love to invite you to join our cooking community.
Grab a cookbook, or even better, join us for a donation-based cooking class hosted by Guadalupe herself!
As written in the cookbook’s introduction:
I grew up in a rural Mam community in the western highlands of Guatemala. Today I Iive between the United States and my home country, directing the NGO, Asociacion de Mujeres del Altiplano (AMA), which I founded with my husband in the early 1990s. Since its inception, AMA has supported women and families in the hills surrounding San Marcos and Quetzaltenango through grassroots programming that builds resilience and independence. Our core programs teach women about behavioral health, preparing healthy, traditional meals, and support them to relearn sustainable agricultural practices, which were once habitual in their communities. This book was born from a number of impulses. Firstly, I wanted to share a beautiful vision of the world, an ancient template for leading an ethical and happy life, in part, because many aspects of this vision have an urgent relevance for the modern world. While most of the recipes contained in this book share stitches and threads with Spanish, Catholic and broader hybrid Guatemalan traditions, I am keen to convey the local Maya beliefs and rituals that are inseparable from these dishes in my community. Traditions that are intrinsically connected to the Maya cosmovision and are still strong in the Guatemalan fields and kitchens I wish to transport you to. It is indeed a miracle that many of these dishes and rituals are still prepared the same way they were centuries, or even millenniums, ago.
