Bean There, Done That

By Alli Sinclair

As a writer, I take research very seriously. I’ve invested years sampling this particular invention so I can present today’s post with good authority—chocolate.

Three thousand years ago, the people of Central and South America, and in particular, Mexico, cultivated theobroma cacao, the original cacao bean, and used it in religious ceremonies and for medicinal purposes. They found the bean could combat fatigue, not unlike the effects of coffee. For intestinal and stomach problems, a chocolate drink was mixed with the bark of the silk cotton tree. If fever and fainting were the problem, then patients consumed eight to ten cacao beans mixed with dried maize kernels.

Archaeologists in Puerto Escondido, Honduras, discovered the cacao had been cultivated as far back as 1100 to 1400 B.C. when they found a white pulp from the cacao bean in a vessel and, later, discovered the ancient Hondurans used cacao pulp as a sugar fermented to create a type of alcoholic drink. 

The Aztecs didn’t use chocolate in cooking, even though many people think they did. According to food historians, the Aztecs prepared their chocolate drink by grinding roasted cacao beans and mixing them with water and adding chili, maize, or honey. Sometimes they added flowers, and consumed the drink cool, not hot. Coriander, sage, and vanilla (extracted from the pods of orchids) were also favorite additional flavorings.

The Mayans of the Yucután drank their chocolate hot, a precursor to today’s popular drink. In 1556 A.D., a conquistador published only as the Anonymous Conqueror documented how Mayans prepared the drink. They mixed the powder with water and transferred the liquid from one basin to another so the foam rose to the top of the vessel. They stirred the drink with gold, silver, or wooden spoons and kept their mouths open wide to let as much foam as possible pass between their lips. The conquistador witnessed people drinking this concoction in the morning then walking for miles for the remainder of the day, not stopping for more food. (Probably trying to burn off those calories, methinks.)

Conquistador Francisco Hernandez sampled a variety of chocolate drinks on his travels—green cacao pods, honeyed chocolate, flowered chocolate, and a bright red chocolate made from the huitztexcolli flower. And according to accounts by the Spanish officers who dined with Montezuma in 1520 at Tenochtitlan, the king enjoyed drinking chocolate from cups made of pure gold.

After the Spanish conquistadors made their mark in the Americas, they imported chocolate to Europe. Only the wealthy could afford it, and to keep up with demand, the Spanish fleets enslaved the Mesoamericans (people of Aztec and Mayan descent) to get them to produce more cacao. Eventually, the Spanish grew their own beans and used African slaves as labor.

By 1657, a Frenchman opened London’s first chocolate house. And in 1689, Dr. Hans Sloane discovered a drink made from chocolate in Jamaica. The bitter taste didn’t appeal to him, though, so he mixed it with milk. He sold the powdered chocolate in tins to the Cadbury brothers in 1897 and, in my humble opinion, the world changed for the better. The Dutch van Houten family created what is known as “dutched chocolate”—a method that squeezes out cocoa butter, enabling the chocolate to be set hard in molds. Yes, history’s very first chocolate bars! But it wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that these little bars of joy saw mass production and became available to the general populace.

In 1899, Jean Tobler opened up a chocolate factor in Berne, Switzerland, changing the course of chocolate once again. He invented the modern Toblerone by combining almonds and a unique blend of cocoa. My mouth thanks you, Mr. Tobler, but my waistline doesn’t!

A Mr. Rudolfe Lindt thought adding cocoa butter back into the cocoa mass of crushed and ground beans might be a good idea. He did this, lengthened the kneading process, and a velvety smooth and very shiny type of chocolate was born. Mr. Lindt, you are to blame for those extra hours I should be pounding the pavement!

So next time you wander into Starbucks for a hot chocolate or a mochaccino, perhaps pause and give thanks to the clever Mesoamericans for discovering a little thing that has brought joy to many over the centuries.

It’s A Small World After All

By Alli Sinclair

As a mother of two young children, I’m always interested in how parenting styles vary from family to family, culture to culture, and country to country. I’ve been lucky enough to visit friends with kids in various parts of the world and along the way I’ve observed a myriad of parenting styles. Some methods have appealed so much I’ve adopted them into my own style of parenting and so far, the results have been pretty good!

From the moment most people announce their pregnancy, people flock to give advice—whether the pregnant woman wants it or not. The same goes when the children arrive into the big ol’ world. In-laws, old men, cousins, aunties, strangers… everyone has something to say about the way you are interacting with your child. Sometimes the advice is helpful, but most of the time, it’s just someone trying to shove their opinion down your throat (yes, yes, this is a touchy subject with me!).

For the same reason, I’m not one to run to a parenting book every time a challenging situation arises. I tend to take a more organic approach and run with intuition and assess the situation and the individual child as to what outcome I am aiming for. But I did find a very good parenting book called How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm by Mei-Ling Hopgood. I honestly had a hard time putting it down.

Mei-Ling covers many cultures and interviews anthropologists, educators, and child-care experts and even tests out some of the theories on her lively toddler, with some pretty amazing results. Her narrative is non-judgmental, something that is not always seen in parenting books.

Here are some examples of what Mei-Ling discovered:

Argentina

This one I can vouch for and it amazed me even before I was a mother. In Argentina, it’s not uncommon to find young children dining with their families close to midnight, or attending a wedding and dancing until two in the morning. Seriously. I could never understand how the young ‘uns could function the next day, but they do. Toddlers tend to sleep in later than North American children, and sleep experts say that as long as children are getting the required amount of sleep for their age, late nights are not a big deal. The other bonus is children who socialize at functions from a young age adapt better to new social situations as they grow older.

France

Food… ah, one of the great joys of life but as a busy mum, it can be difficult to prepare interesting meals the kids will actually eat without a fuss. I’ve always been keen on exposing our kids to a variety of food from many cultures, and luckily, the kids have been (mostly) pretty keen to at least give it a go. We do have a rule in our house that it’s okay not to like a food, but you have to try it at least once (and the French chef in the book thinks the same way with his kids). According to Mei-Ling, it’s not unusual for French children to have duck or asparagus in their lunch box, and they tend to drink water rather than fruit juice.

Polynesian Islands 

This one takes community caring to a new level. Siblings, cousins, and family friends, form a group to take care of the younger children. We’re not talking adults here. For example, in a group of 10 people, there might be four children between the ages of eight and twelve, and they look after the other children who might range in age from two to seven. The older children prepare food, change nappies, supervise, play games… all things an adult normally does. Meanwhile, the parents are free to go and do the tasks that are needed to keep the community fed, such as fishing or farming fresh fruit or vegetables.

Japan

Duking it out doesn’t sound like an ideal way of handling a situation where two children are fighting, but in Japan teachers sometimes turn a blind eye (unless it gets really out of hand). The theory is the children learn to handle a situation without having to resort to a third party (a parent or teacher). Now this may go against the beliefs of many parents out there, but I can see how people believe this theory has value. It took me a while as a parent to work out that when two young children are fighting (arguing, not punching!) that the situation dissipates much faster than when an adult gets involved. As for the physical side of sorting something out… well… I’m not sure what to think about that, but it seems to work well in the Japanese culture.

Mexico

In small towns in the Yucatán (as with many parts of the world), young children are involved in daily chores. A child of two may help his mother with the washing or collecting fruit and this involvement helps the child build confidence and know they can contribute in a meaningful way—something that is so important for all of us to feel, including little ones. I know sometimes I tend to do chores by myself because honestly, it’s just easier, but when my kids show an interest in helping, I slow myself down and allow them to get involved, even if I’m busting to get the job done. The look of joy on their faces when they complete a task really is wonderful and reminds me this is all part of their growing and learning and sense of self-worth.

In our house, we like to embrace ways from many cultures and Mei-Ling Hopgood’s book is an excellent resource to see how it’s done elsewhere. Not all of the methods will appeal to all readers, but that’s the beauty of this world and experiencing so many cultures. We can adopt the methods that work for us and our children, and ignore the ones that don’t appeal—all the while maintaining a healthy respect that everyone is different and that’s what makes the world a pretty amazing place.

As we have such an array of readers from many cultures, it would be lovely to learn about any parenting styles you’ve grown up with or have adapted.

In With The Old – Mayan Agriculture

Photo by Hannes Grobe

I love history – learning about how things were invented, dynasties built and destroyed, how we’ve changed since the dawn of time. And now with two young kids in tow, my days are full of questions about the what, how, and why of things. As I’m a natural-born researcher, I love getting into the nitty-gritty with the kids as we go on fact-finding missions. This week was no different.

When we sat down to dinner last night, one of my cherubs asked about corn and how it is made. Of course, I know the basics, but this discussion about corn extended into the history of agriculture. Somehow we travelled from Australian suburbia into the land of the Mayans. And this is what we discovered:

One of the biggest challenges the Mayans faced was lack of land, poor soil conditions, and not enough water. As their population steadily increased, so did their need to develop sustainable farming methods.

Initially, the Mayans used a technique called milpa, a slash and burn practice that yields100% productivity in the first year but reduces to 60% in the second year and slightly less in subsequent years. In the spring, before the summer rain, the Mayans would cut down and burn all of the foliage in the area they’d selected to grow crops, then they would use sticks to poke holes in the soil and plant three or four seeds at a time. Maize, beans, avocados, and pumpkins were popular, as well as cacao, the basis for Mayan chocolate. (And who wouldn’t want that?) Their footprint on the land was very light. The Mayans had a rule of only using only 5% of their land for agriculture and allowing the rest to replenish. Crop rotations were a given.

As time wore on, the Mayans discovered the sediment from the bottom of swamps were an excellent source for fertilising the adjacent land. They dug irrigation trenches and created a way of watering their crops they could use year round, rather than rely solely on annual rainfall.

Uxmal - Photo by HJPD

As crop productivity grew, so did the population, and their newfound farming techniques meant they could feed those living close to the swamps easily.

They needed to find another way to supply others throughout the empire so they developed another new system. The Mirador Basin in Guatemala is a perfect example of how a small, swamp-side village grew into one of the largest Mayan cities. With more than 200 pyramids (two times more than in all of Egypt), the Mirador Basin took nearly 15 million man-days of labour to construct.

Around 200 A.D., a drought hit the land. As the crops died, many Mayans perished. They fled the cities for the green forests to forage for food, recreating the lifestyle of their ancestors. Some survived and the rains arrived, but this experience taught the Mayans a valuable lesson. The needed to design new ways to ensure their people wouldn’t suffer a similar fate again.

They designed and built reservoirs in the hills above cities and ensured the irrigation channels sloped down to the population and crops below. They also built new cities such as Tikal, Copan, and Palenque closer to their water supplies. The drainage, irrigation, and reservoir systems designed by the Mayans changed the landscape forever. Instead of a footprint that washed away in the rain, the Mayan’s new agricultural methods were literally set in stone.

When the population continued to increase the civilization buckled under the pressure to feed so many mouths. Instead of the initial 5% rule for crops, they deforested more than 80% of the land, affecting the climate they lived in. The average temperature increased by 10 degrees Fahrenheit and water evaporated much faster, causing yet another water shortage – this time a man-made problem. Scientists have since discovered this was the worst drought to hit the region in 7,000 years. Yeah, that bad.

Once again, those living in cities deserted them and moved to more verdant regions. This put a larger strain on those areas and the entire civilization collapsed like a house of cards. Some Mayans relocated to cities such as Chichen Itza and Uxmal, but many perished in the forest en route. The drought eventually ended in the 9^th century but the damage to the Mayan civilization had been done. Those who did survive returned to the ways of their ancestors yet again and for 700 years they constructed towns in jungles that served them well by hiding themselves when the Spanish arrived in 1517.

Cacao - Photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture

Today, we use many of the Mayan’s farming methods. Terraced farms, reservoirs, forest gardens and managed fallows are popular ways of cultivating crops around the world, although today’s farmers have adapted most to suit modern-day needs.

So as corn juice flies across the dinner table whilst my kids crunch on tasty corn, they can thank the Mayans for finding ingenious ways to ensure this species of food didn’t disappear. Tonight I’m cooking lentils for dinner. I wonder if we’ll take that historical journey after dessert. What’s on your plate tonight?

The Symbolic World Of The Maya

As a kid, Egyptian hieroglyphics captured my imagination. I spent hours poring over books, trying to recreate the symbols and create messages only me and my friends would understand. At high school, the Mayans caught my attention for the exact same reason as the Egyptians – they had a written language that not only looked beautiful, but each symbol held a story of its own.

One of the features that distinguishes the Maya from other cultures in Mesoamerica is their development of a written language, often called Maya Hieroglyphic Writing, or Glyphs. This complex system of symbols has baffled scientists for years, and it wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century when Mayanist, Tatiani Proskouriakoff, had a major breakthrough that finally had people agreeing that the glyphs were a fully functional system based on phonetic signs.

While English is simple and comprised of only 26 letters (signs), the Maya symbols are made from various combinations of nearly 800 signs. Each one represents a full syllable, and so the system is called a syllabary, not an alphabet like we use.

Mayan writers had a vast selection when it came to choosing a symbol to represent one sound. For example, there might be five different signs that all sound the same. Sounds confusing? Yes. Fascinating? Absolutely, yes! Imagine having artistic licence to create your own writing style. No wonder the experts have had so much trouble deciphering the meaning behind each of the Mayan symbols.

Scientists believe the codices and other important texts of the Mayans were written by scribes who were usually members of the Mayan priesthood. The glyphs themselves were painted on ceramics and walls, carved in wood, and moulded in stucco or on bark-paper codices.

With all the advances in technology and the countless hours scientists have put into studying the Maya Glyphs, 90% of Mayan writing can now be read with accuracy. The glyphs are written in blocks that consist of two columns and are read from left to right, top to bottom.

In Mexico, during the era of the Spanish Conquistadors, the Bishop Diego de Landa ordered the collection and destruction of all written Maya works, including codices. His bright idea came back and bit him in the butt later when he tried to convert the Mayans from their own religion to Christianity. Because he’d destroyed most of their written works, he had to develop a new way of communicating with them. The de Landa Alphabet was invented to help with his “teachings.” Although it wasn’t a true representation of the Mayan’s written language, it became an important key for scientists years later when they started to decipher the Maya script. The biggest problem was there wasn’t a direct relation between de Landa’s Alphabet and the Mayan Glyphs. No doubt, the Mayan scientists probably invented a few choice words of their own during the process.

Unfortunately, only four Maya codices survived the destruction of the conquistadors but other text has been found on pottery found in Mayan tombs or on monuments that had been buried long before the Spanish arrived.

These days, Mayan writing is taught in public schools and universities in the Mayan speaking regions in Mexico and is supported and promoted by the Mexican government. It’s encouraging to see that we have finally realised how precious our history, and culture, is and how important it is to preserve it not only for now, but for future generations. Mistakes are only worthwhile if we learn from them.

Don’t Say It, Paint It – Mexico’s Muralist Movement

Painted by Diego Rivera -- Palacio de Gobierno

I’ve always been a fan of art, and even though I can’t use a paint brush to save myself, I can appreciate the talent and patience it takes to create a masterpiece. What intrigues me more, though, are the stories behind the work, and some of the most fascinating I’ve discovered are from Mexico, especially the work of the Mexican muralists.

In 1910, two-thirds of Mexicans lived in abject poverty and slavery had grown to incredible proportions. On Mexico’s Independence Day, President Porfirio Diaz, ordered indigenous people off the street so they wouldn’t mar the joyous festivities. On that same day the writers and philosophers Antionios Curo, Alfonso Reyes, and Jose Vasconcelos banded together to establish The Athenaeum. Highly educated and well-versed in culture, these men issued a manifesto on the day of Mexico’s 100^th anniversary of independence from Spain. “The community that terrorizes over man forgets that men are persons, not biological units.”

The words scribed by the men of The Athenaeum inspired an entire generation of painters who changed the face of Mexican art forever. Three artists who were at the forefront of that change were David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and Jose Clemente Orozco. However, the political revolution had only just begun and Mexico wasn’t ready for a cultural revolution – not yet, anyway.

Painted by Diego Rivera

Diego Rivera left Mexico for Italy and discovered fresco painting (watercolour on damp plaster), which later influenced his work when he returned to Mexico in 1921. David Alfaro Siqueiros left his art studies to fight in the revolution as a teenager, and later travelled to Paris on an art scholarship. This is where he met Rivera, who encouraged him to get in touch with his country’s rich cultural past. Siqueiros returned to Mexico in 1922. Prior to the revolution, Jose Clemente Orozco studied art at Mexico’s San Carlos Academy, just like Rivera and Siqueiros had in their early years, but Orozco gained his reputation through drawing unflattering portraits of the teaching staff who told him he couldn’t draw. He left the school to work as a political cartoonist and draftsman, and afterwards, participated in the revolution, but couldn’t fight because of a missing left hand. Orozco never left Mexico.

In 1920, the incoming president, General Obregon, asked the Secretary of Education and founding member of The Athenaeum, Jose Vasconcelos, to unite the illiterate country of Mexico. Vasconcelos suggested painting murals as a way to reach the masses as it had worked well for the Mayans and Aztecs. Vasconcelos commissioned Mexico’s best artists to paint murals throughout the country, but it was Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco who became most renowned for this type of work.

The artists from this time period believed art educated and bettered people, it wasn’t some vehicle for exploring fantasies and indulgences. Their paintings had a purpose. Rivera introduced the fresco painting technique, and everyone adopted it in their work but as time wore on, styles and ideas chopped and changed. All the while, the artists worked collaboratively, but despite their close teamwork, each artist had his own style, techniques and views. Without looking at the signatures on the work, most people who have studied the mural artists of Mexico can recognise who painted what. 

Painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros

Rivera used his knowledge of modernism from his time in Europe and combined this with the art of ancient Mexico. Initially using bright colours, Rivera captured hectic market scenes, but eventually he took to using greens, reds, browns, and oranges to make the murals look more like the authentic indigenous murals. Through Rivera’s themes of celebrating Mexico’s culture, he encouraged the indigenous people to embrace their heritage. Even today, Rivera’s work has a lasting effect on people, especially Mexicans, who like to see their country through Rivera’s eyes.

Siqueiros soon abandoned traditional fresco work, and experimented with enamel and duco. He painted with bold lines, exaggerated perspectives and integrated traditional Mexican art with his new techniques. His splattered, poured, and sprayed paint on his murals and became the first of the muralists to experiment with acrylics, resins, and airbrushing. He based his subject matter on socialist ideals and modernist forms, and incorporated science, machinery, and technology into his art. 

Orozco’s work was a stark contrast to Siqueiros. Where Siqueiros believed in a science fiction future, Orozco concentrated on depicting man’s growing dependency on technology and his fear for the future. Human suffering, and, the bloodiness of the Mexican Revolution, including firing squads and pillaging, were the subjects of Orozco’s murals. In Orozco’s eyes, Mexico was a country full of savages and as a result, people, more than likely from the government, vandalised and white-washed his work. In the late 1920’s Orozco travelled to California to paint a fresco mural at Pomona College in Claremont, California. These days, art experts consider it to be as important as Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel in Rome. 

It would take an impossibly long time to visit every mural painted by these unique artists with strong messages. During my time in Mexico I managed to see a handful of these murals, but if you only ever get to see one in your life, you are more than likely going to be in awe from the power behind this magnificent artwork that tells the story of a significant time in Mexico’s history.

Around the World in About Six Hours

In between a few short but fun holidays and catching up on the season's latest mystery novels, I went on a foreign-film binge this summer, watching all the highly acclaimed cinema I’d missed over the past few years. Here’s a quick rundown of my favorites.

Storm (2009) is a stellar political thriller and courtroom drama that is so realistic, you will feel like an insider to some of recent history’s most shocking crimes, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and the mass rape of Bosnian women.  You'll also feel privy to how the Hague International Criminal Tribunal really works. (Not very well, if the filmmaker got his details right.)

A German-made film that’s mostly in English with smatterings of regional Slavic languages, Storm is the story of two women battling impossible odds. Hannah Maynard (played by New Zealander Kerry Fox) is a female prosecutor at the Hague, whose key witness commits suicide before she can finish building her case against Serbian war criminal, Goran Duric. The deceased man had been one of the few victims, the only one in fact, willing to testify against Duric. The man's death threatens to derail Hannah’s entire case. When she finds out the witness’s sister had also been a victim of Duric’s brutality, Hannah tries to persuade the woman, Mira (played by Romanian actress, Anamaria Marinca), to testify against Duric instead.

But Mira is reluctant to revisit the past, not only because of her deep emotional scars but her fear of speaking up and against criminals who mostly walk free. In the midst of this, Hannah travels to post-war Bosnia to research Duric’s crimes, where she is met with stone-faced resistance and in some cases direct threats. Before long, the lives of both women are in danger, and the case threatened further by bureaucracy, corruption, and politics, the office variety as well as international. The women have to decide whether ultimately the price of justice is worth it.

The film is a first-class thriller, both gripping and startling, with the realistic feel of a documentary, covering an important but tragic chapter of our modern history.

The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos), a noirish psychological suspense from Argentina is also a kind of love story. The winner of both the prestigious Goya award in 2009 and the Oscar in 2010, the film tells the story of recently retired criminal investigator Benjamin Esposito (played by Ricardo Darin) who’s writing a novel based on one of his unsolved cases, the rape and murder of a young newlywed woman, in the 1970s. For about as long as he’s obsessed over this case, Benjamin has held a torch for his old boss, Irene Menendez Hastings, now married and a federal judge. 

At the start of the film, Benjamin visits Irene at work to let her know that he’s writing about the old unsolved case and asks her to read some pages of his early draft. He also convinces her to reopen the case. At times, the two story lines overlap, both unresolved issues from the past that continue to haunt Benjamin today. After reading pages from his novel, Irene disputes part of his theory about the identity of the real killer. You can’t read a person’s secrets through their eyes, she tells  him early on, ostensibly speaking about the killer. Benjamin disagrees. Much of what they want to say to each other, too, is conveyed through their eyes. 

The title of this quiet, haunting movie, alternating between past and present, is apt: The history of the case becomes a sort of metaphor for Irene and Benjamin’s own personal history. The film is finely written and directed, and the acting is achingly beautiful. Often, I’m left scratching my head with hyped-up award winners, but in this case, the judges got it just right. So too, it seems, the public: The Secret in Their Eyes is the second top grossing film in Argentina.

The movie I least expected to enjoy was 2009’s Sin Nombre (Without Name). Most of the story takes place on a train moving north through Central America on its way to the United States (though the film was shot in Spain). On this train are a motley group of refugees fleeing their difficult lives in their homelands in the hopes of a fresh start across the border. The storyline sounds familiar, right? Remember the landmark El Norte (1983)? Yep, I wasn’t sure this movie was for me—we all know how difficult it is to get across this border, how hard their lives really are when they finally reach – if they reach at all. But Sin Nombre is a stunning surprise. In part, because it’s director, Cary Fukunaga, is a native Californian, born to a Japanese father and a Swedish mother. And yet he traveled the very trains he brings to life in the film, took scrupulous notes as he did so, and risked his life to learn the hardships encountered by those attempting this daunting journey. The result is breathtaking and brutally real.

The story tracks Willy, a Mexican gang member (played by Edgar Flores), whose violent and unpredictable gang leader, instructs him and his cronies to help rob stowaways on the train for cash and jewelry, and Sayra, a Honduran teenager (played by Paulina Gaitan), whose family hope to reach New Jersey. When Willy’s and Sayra’s paths cross, the story takes a new trajectory, one I don’t want to spoil as the film’s journey is as adventurous and surprising as the one it conveys. Another deserving award winner, Sin Nombre won prizes for directing and cinematography at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Here are links to the trailers for all three movies:

 Enjoy!

An Irishman Named Zorro

Antonio Banderas as Zorro

When I think Mexico, I picture women in beautiful white outfits wrapped in colourful shawls, men in boots and hats, white sandy beaches with turquoise waters, and ruins as far as the eye can see. I don’t imagine pints of Guinness, four-leaf clovers, or green rolling fields. Yet Mexico boasts a community of Irish immigrants who have shaped their country in many ways.

Back in the 1600s, Irishman William Lamport joined one of three Spanish-sponsored Irish regiments and eventually attracted the attention of the Duke of Olivares, the Prime Minister of Spain. Lamport allegedly had a scandalous affair with a noblewoman, so to get the trouble-maker out of the way, he was sent to Mexico to spy for the duke. There, Lamport met the local Indians and Africans, and began sympathising with their plight. Already known as a lady’s man, good Samaritan, and swashbuckler (he was a pirate for two years before living in Mexico), the tale of William Lamport and his adventurous life spread throughout the Spanish colonies. Although it all caught up with him after he wrote the first proclamation of independence in the New World. He was arrested and sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition, his life and escapades catapulting him into the status of a martyr. While it’s disputed by some historians, many people still believe William Lamport was the inspiration for Johnston McCulley’s Zorro. 

Between 1846 to 1848, another Irishman, Jon Riley, led a group of several hundred immigrants during the Mexican-American War. Riley and his men fought alongside the Mexicans against the Americans, and his group became known as San Patricios, or Saint Patrick’s Battalion. Made up of deserters and defectors from the American Army, this band of soldiers were primarily Irish and German Catholic immigrants, along with Canadians, English, French, Italians, Poles, Scots, Spaniards, Swiss and native Mexicans, most of whom were Roman Catholics. Supported by the Mexican government, these soldiers were paid them to enlist in the Mexican army and received citizenship, generous land rights, and paid higher wages than the U.S. Army. North Americans who’d lived through this war viewed the San Patricios as traitors. But the Mexicans of that generation saw these men as heroes who helped fellow Catholics at a time when they needed it most. A hundred and fifty years after the war, the Mexicans paid tribute to the San Patricios with full military honours. Both the Mexican and Irish national anthems were played, and in 1993 the Irish started their own ceremony across the Atlantic in Galway. 

In 1995, Carlos Monsivai, spokesman for the struggling people of Chiapas, held a political gathering and he spoke about the San Patricios and how they influenced Mexico’s history:

"When Mexico was fighting, in the last century, against the empire of the bars and crooked stars, there was a group of soldiers who fought on the side of the Mexicans, and this group was called 'St. Patrick's Battalion'. And so I am writing you in the name of all of my compañeros and compañeras, because just as with the 'Saint Patrick's Battalion', we now see clearly that there are foreigners who love Mexico more than some natives who are now in the government do. And we hear that there were marches and songs and movies and other events so that there would not be war in Chiapas, which is the part of Mexico where we live and die.

We like the Irish around here!"

In more modern times, evidence of Irish ancestry can be seen in leaders such as Vicente Fox, president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. Born to parents of Irish and Spanish descent, Fox’s term in office marked the end of 71 years of uninterrupted rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Anthony Quinn

 And without a doubt, one of the most famous Mexican Irish descendants is the actor, writer and painter, Anthony Quinn. Born as Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca, his mother was of Aztec Indian ancestry and his father was born to an Irish immigrant from the County Cork. Well-known and loved for his movies such as Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Guns of Navarone, Quinn branched out into painting and writing. With both Irish and Mexican blood running through his veins, it’s no surprise that Quinn found a passion for storytelling.  

So next time you’re in Mexico, have a good look around. Just about every city in Mexico has a street named O’Brian, and there’s even Ciudad Obregón (O’Brian City) as well as O’Brian City Airport. To be sure, the Irish have a long history with Mexico and without the men and women with the funny (but adorable!) accents, Mexico would most likely be a very different country. 

Bean There, Done That

As a writer, I take research very seriously. I’ve invested years sampling this particular invention so I can present today’s post with good authority—chocolate.

Three thousand years ago, the people of Central and South America, and in particular, Mexico, cultivated theobroma cacao, the original cacao bean, and used it in religious ceremonies and for medicinal purposes. They found the bean could combat fatigue, not unlike the effects of coffee. For intestinal and stomach problems, a chocolate drink was mixed with the bark of the silk cotton tree. If fever and fainting were the problem, then patients consumed eight to ten cacao beans mixed with dried maize kernels.

Archaeologists in Puerto Escondido, Honduras, discovered the cacao had been cultivated as far back as 1100 to 1400 B.C. when they found a white pulp from the cacao bean in a vessel and, later, discovered the ancient Hondurans used cacao pulp as a sugar fermented to create a type of alcoholic drink. 

The Aztecs didn’t use chocolate in cooking, even though many people think they did. According to food historians, the Aztecs prepared their chocolate drink by grinding roasted cacao beans and mixing them with water and adding chili, maize, or honey. Sometimes they added flowers, and consumed the drink cool, not hot. Coriander, sage, and vanilla (extracted from the pods of orchids) were also favorite additional flavorings.

The Mayans of the Yucután drank their chocolate hot, a precursor to today’s popular drink. In 1556 A.D., a conquistador published only as the Anonymous Conqueror documented how Mayans prepared the drink. They mixed the powder with water and transferred the liquid from one basin to another so the foam rose to the top of the vessel. They stirred the drink with gold, silver, or wooden spoons and kept their mouths open wide to let as much foam as possible pass between their lips. The conquistador witnessed people drinking this concoction in the morning then walking for miles for the remainder of the day, not stopping for more food. (Probably trying to burn off those calories, methinks.)

Conquistador Francisco Hernandez sampled a variety of chocolate drinks on his travels—green cacao pods, honeyed chocolate, flowered chocolate, and a bright red chocolate made from the huitztexcolli flower. And according to accounts by the Spanish officers who dined with Montezuma in 1520 at Tenochtitlan, the king enjoyed drinking chocolate from cups made of pure gold.

After the Spanish conquistadors made their mark in the Americas, they imported chocolate to Europe. Only the wealthy could afford it, and to keep up with demand, the Spanish fleets enslaved the Mesoamericans (people of Aztec and Mayan descent) to get them to produce more cacao. Eventually, the Spanish grew their own beans and used African slaves as labor.

By 1657, a Frenchman opened London’s first chocolate house. And in 1689, Dr. Hans Sloane discovered a drink made from chocolate in Jamaica. The bitter taste didn’t appeal to him, though, so he mixed it with milk. He sold the powdered chocolate in tins to the Cadbury brothers in 1897 and, in my humble opinion, the world changed for the better. The Dutch van Houten family created what is known as “dutched chocolate”—a method that squeezes out cocoa butter, enabling the chocolate to be set hard in molds. Yes, history’s very first chocolate bars! But it wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that these little bars of joy saw mass production and became available to the general populace.

In 1899, Jean Tobler opened up a chocolate factor in Berne, Switzerland, changing the course of chocolate once again. He invented the modern Toblerone by combining almonds and a unique blend of cocoa. My mouth thanks you, Mr. Tobler, but my waistline doesn’t!

A Mr. Rudolfe Lindt thought adding cocoa butter back into the cocoa mass of crushed and ground beans might be a good idea. He did this, lengthened the kneading process, and a velvety smooth and very shiny type of chocolate was born. Mr. Lindt, you are to blame for those extra hours I should be pounding the pavement!

So next time you wander into Starbucks for a hot chocolate or a mochaccino, perhaps pause and give thanks to the clever Mesoamericans for discovering a little thing that has brought joy to many over the centuries.

Castles in the Clouds

I’ll admit, it feels kind of weird writing about the spring equinox when I’m about to head into a different season in my part of the world. Outside my window the leaves are turning from green to shades of gold, orange and red and the air has a distinct chill, despite the blue skies and sunny days. My little office in Australia seems so distant from Mexico where people from all around the world are about to celebrate a centuries old tradition—the vernal equinox.

Located on the Yucután Peninsula in Mexico, Chichén Itzá is surrounded by lush landscapes and azure waters. It was built by the Maya civilization (around 600 A.D.) and was a sophisticated urban centre of their empire from A.D. 750 to 1200. The Toltecs invaded the Mayas around A.D. 1000 and this led to a merger of the two cultures, as evidenced by the array of wonderful architectural styles at this UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

One of the best known structures is the Temple of Kukulcan (Maya for Quetzalcoatl, check this post here for more on this). Often referred to as El Castillo (the castle), this step pyramid has stairways leading up each of the four sides, meeting at the temple on the top. During the spring and fall (or autumn, depending on where you’re from) equinoxes, the rising and setting sun casts a shadow in the shape of the plumed serpent, Kukulcan, along the west side of the north staircase. The shadow slithers down the northern side of the pyramid until it reaches the serpent’s head at the base.

The pyramid itself is 79 feet (24 meters) high and the base square measure 181 feet (53.3 meters) across. Add another 20 feet (6 meters) for the temple on top of El Castillo and you’ve got one impressive example of ancient architecture. The stairs leading up to the temple have 91 steps on each side and, when added together with the temple platform as the final step, totals 365 steps—the number of days for the Haab year according to the Mayas. The Haab was the solar year calculated by the Mayas and is the basis for our modern calendar.

Photo by Bruno Girin

By using the sun, moon and astronomy, the Mayas could work out the seasons and know exactly when they would change. Their skills in astronomy were so advanced they could predict solar eclipses as evidenced by el caracol, the observatory at Chichén Itzá. There’s no doubt in my mind the world would be a different place had it not been for the skilled builders and mathematicians of this era. Fortunately, we’re able to witness the spring equinox like the Maya did thousands of years ago.

So as I glance at my desk calendar and watch the days roll into months, I reflect on the Mayas and how their knowledge and inventions affect us today. I wonder what they’d think about me typing on my laptop, sitting on my chair with wheels and drinking hot chocolate (the Mayas were fond of this delectable delight). And what would they think about the hordes of tourists that flock to Chichén Itzá to watch the serpent snake its way down the Temple of Kukulcan? I guess we’ll never know, but as a writer, these are questions that fuel the creative fire. Hmmm…. perhaps the next book should be set in Mexico.

Mayan Doomsday With Jessica Andersen

Today's guest is Jessica Andersen, bestselling RITA and RT nominated author of more than twenty Harlequin Intrigues and the Nightkeeper Novels, a hot paranormal series that sexes up the 2012 doomsday. For more information about the books and Jessica, please visit www.JessicaAndersen.com.

You have a doctorate and have done some interesting work in genetic changes responsible for certain types of glaucoma. What made you swap your lab coat for a pair of tracksuit pants (the generic uniform of a writer)?

Well, I write in pretty much the same clothes I wore to the lab (jeans and a comfy shirt), but I get your drift. I’d say it was a case of finding my passion, really. I was around all these people who would willingly stay late at the lab or come in on weekends, and who wanted to go out to lunch and talk about their experiments because they thought science was just that cool. So when I realized I didn’t want to continue down that road for the rest of my life I asked myself what I’ve always loved, and what I would want to talk about at meals, at night and on the weekends … and the answer was “stories with happily ever after endings.” So I set out to see if I could learn to write them, and maybe make a living at it.

The Mayans are at the centre of your Nightkeeper Final Prophecy series. What inspired you to write about the Mayans, and specifically, the Mayan doomsday prophecy?

When I was a kid, my parents used to take me down to Southern Mexico just about every spring. This was back when Cancun was just being developed as a tourist destination, so the ruins weren’t nearly as regulated and restricted as they are now. Getting to climb on, in and around them made a huge impression on me, as did the stories our hired guides would tell. So when I was looking for a new story idea and came across a reference to the Mayan Long Count calendar ending on 12/21/2012, I was like “wow, cool!” So I started researching the calendar and the so-called doomsday, and the more I read about it, the more I wanted to write a contemporary urban fantasy series about the people destined to save mankind when the doomsday arrives.

Your books are full of rich details, including settings and mythology. How do you go about your research?

I use internet searches, books and interviews, and research my stories extensively. But this is a place where I’ll give credit to my science background, not so much in teaching me how to do research, but in teaching me when to stop. When I edit a scientific journal article (which I still do as a freelancer), one of my jobs is to make sure that the authors give the reader enough information to understand the experiments they’re talking about in the paper, but only that much information. There just isn’t room in the average journal article to go off on tangents that might be cool but aren’t central to the study in question. Similarly, one of my big challenges as a writer is to give the reader enough information that the cool factor of the Mayan mythology comes across, but the story doesn’t get bogged down. When that happens, I remind myself: “It’s about the romance, stupid!” (Snickers.)

You have a wonderful knack for weaving romance, suspense, adventure and magic into one. The multi-layered stories span across the entire series. How do you keep track of everything so all the questions will be answered by the end of the series? Or are you planning on keeping us dangling?

Aw, thanks for the compliment! I do try, as I love to read multilayered stories and can’t find nearly enough of them on the shelves. However, it can get complicated! For the most part, the story threads are in my head, largely because they come from characters who have come alive for me. I do plan to answer all of the questions by the end of the series, but probably shouldn’t make any guarantees. The stories are evolving as I write them, so it’s entirely possible that there are threads here and there that I won’t come back to, mostly because the world took me in a different direction. But I think that’s realistic, too, as there are parts of my life that I’ve thought would go one way, but then took a left-hand turn and wound up someplace else entirely!

The relationships of the Nightkeepers are complicated, to say the least. You write from the point of view of so many characters with different backgrounds and talents. How do you get into their heads and make each one unique?

Hm. I guess I don’t really have a problem with it because they’re all so different, you know? When I was writing the first book (Nightkeepers) and it came time to introduce most of the characters, I really made an effort to give each of them a distinct voice and backstory, including lots of details that just kind of came to me without any real plan. That gave me a jumping off point for the later books, which was helpful even if it meant that sometimes I had to account for earlier details that might not seem to jibe with who that character turned out to be. But I think that, too, is realistic, because people aren’t one-dimensional, and sometimes have parts that don’t seem to go together on the surface, but go into making the inner person.

What has been your most memorable research moment in writing the Final Prophecy series?

Actually, it was a memorable post-research moment. I was at a booksigning and a couple of ladies came up to me and introduced themselves as being students of an author I had cited as a major research source on Mayan antiquities and culture. They said that although they didn’t usually read Mayan-set stories because the inaccuracies were so annoying, someone had recommended Nightkeepers to them and they had picked it up and loved it, and passed it around to their coworkers. That was a nice, nice moment for me J.

Quick question (no deliberating!)—who is your favorite Nightkeeper and why?

Lucius. I love me a sexy nerd.

How many books will there be by the time the series is finished? And the inevitable question--what will you do next?

There will be nine books and one novella in the finished series, with the novella in stores soon (Feb ’11) as part of an anthology with the awesome Gena Showalter, Shannon K. Butcher and Deidre Knight. As for what’s next … that’s classified!

The countdown is on to end time. Picture yourself on 21 December, 2012. What will you be doing?

I’m feeling a party. You coming? If yes, what (or who) are you bringing? LOL!

(Alli’s note: I’ll bring along chocolate, wine and Lucius for you and Strike, the Nightkeeper King for me. Deal?)

Jessica, thank you so much for hanging with us at Novel Adventurers and we look forward to the next instalment of the Nightkeepers.