MASA MEMORIES: ASH CORNEJO
I feel truly lucky to share this Masa Memories interview with everyone. Ash Cornejo is a generous and abundant soul. As I was reading through her interview my heart sang out in agreement with her words and smiled with a deep admiration for each powerful step on her dedicated path. Moving further along into the interview, I deeply resonated with her stories and memories: “… the way a whiff of frying peppers transports me to my abuela’s kitchen in southern California, and suddenly I’m eight years old again, watching her with awe and mounting inspiration. Crushed sage in my pot of soup reminds me of the sage that grew in a special garden in an old home, from another time in my life, and with a taste, I’m there. Sometimes time moves the other way. I’m mixing together warm water and masa, standing barefoot in my kitchen, imagining the day when I might teach my own daughter to make tortillas. It’s the future. It’s the first time I introduce her to this ancient sister, masa.”
I mentioned in our last journal post with Ash’s Atole de Guayaba recipe, that Ash has become a dear friend of mine over the last two years. We met in Los Angeles during her time as the herbalist at Flamingo Estate, before she moved to Northern California to return to school. Ash and I first connected over identity, botany, Mexican food and now…so much more. Ash is an Ethnobotanist, herbalist, talented cook and magic potion maker. She is currently a PhD student studying medical ethnobotany. Her passions explore methods of healing outside of western biomedicine, especially plant medicine and ritual, for migrant and refugee communities on the border of the U.S. and Mexico.
Pour yourself a warm cup of tea and melt into this beautiful offering of words from our friend Ash Cornejo.
love,
April
MASA MEMORIES
WITH ASH CORNEJO
“Family Food Traditions, to me, are sacred rituals and philosophies that are constantly changing and evolving, just like us, just like our families. I am from a mixed heritage family; my dad is Indigenous Mexican (Yaqui) and my mom is mostly French Swiss. Growing up, this mixed heritage was tangibly symbolized by the food on the dinner table–no matter what we were eating, European or Mexican, nearly every meal was complemented by layers of warm, soft tortillas wrapped in linen cloth at the center of the table.”
You are an Ethnobotanist, herbalist and magic potion maker who I admire so much. Can you share more about your work as an Ethnobotanist and why this branch of Botany, connecting people and plants, is so special?
Ethnobotanists focus on the relationships between people and plants. Some ethnobotanists focus on ecology, some on foodways. While I am interested in all aspects of plant/people relationships, my areas of special interest are the ways in which people find healing outside of so-called western biomedicine through plant medicine and rituals involving plants. I’m currently a PhD student studying medical ethnobotany, and my goal is to work with migrant and refugee communities on the border of the U.S. and Mexico, exploring and advocating for methods of healing outside of western biomedicine, especially plant medicine and ritual. I started on this path of advocating for alternative forms of healing as an herbalist. I spent over a decade building an herbal medicine practice, but as time went on I found that I didn’t feel like I was bringing all I could to the table. My experiences as an immigration and language rights advocate led me to ask how I could uplift plant medicine in the lives of those I wanted to give back to most–migrants, immigrants, diaspora, and Indigenous peoples. It was through this questioning that I found ethnobotany.
Ash’s pot of prickly pear simple syrup
Our conceptions of health are cultural, and this is the reason I find ethnobotany to be so special and so important. Colonialism and capitalism try to tell us that there is only one way of being, and this extends to health and wellness. I want to decolonize and deconstruct these harmful lies, and remind people that health and wellbeing are personal, and benefit from nurturing active engagement with oneself, the land, and with one’s social communities (including our nonhuman relatives). A lot of precedent is given to so-called western scientific knowledge, and this leaves large swaths of experience out of the archives. I am interested in opening these archives up, and facilitating the recognition and support of cultural and spiritual modes outside of that small sphere that holds so much power, and holds so many down.
What do Family Food Traditions mean to you? What are some traditions that you and your family share?
Family Food Traditions, to me, are sacred rituals and philosophies that are constantly changing and evolving, just like us, just like our families. I am from a mixed heritage family; my dad is Indigenous Mexican (Yaqui) and my mom is mostly French Swiss. Growing up, this mixed heritage was tangibly symbolized by the food on the dinner table–no matter what we were eating, European or Mexican, nearly every meal was complemented by layers of warm, soft tortillas wrapped in linen cloth at the center of the table. My mom was young when she married my dad, and my abuelita took my mom under her wing and taught her to cook Mexican food. So, some of my first memories of food are steaming ollas de frijoles and giant pots of arroz español, made lovingly and skillfully by my blonde, blue-eyed Swiss mother. Her family food traditions grew and stretched with her love for my dad. In the same way, my family food traditions have grown as I have.
In Yaqui cosmology plants, animals, and features of the land are considered relatives one can enter into agreements with. Not resources, but relatives. I stopped consuming animal products almost twenty years ago, as a part of a personal agreement I chose to enter into with my plant and animal relatives. Since then my family food traditions have stretched and grown, with new life breathed into generations old rituals. I still make the arroz español that my abuela taught my mom to make and my mom taught me, but with a plant-based twist. To me, this is the essence of family food traditions: rituals anchored in sweet memories and stories, but not static–a living archive, forever growing and changing.
What is your favorite part of the cooking process? Do you often cook with herbs and plants from your own garden?
Tamal de calabaza made by Ash
I do often cook with herbs and plants from my own garden, and this is one of my favorite parts of the cooking process. It’s so intimate and special to pull from the earth something you planted there, with all of your hopes and dreams for what it will become. And then it does become; it becomes a delicious pot of beans, or a hearty stew. You remember the early summer day you spent planting those beans, the way the sunlight felt on your bare shoulders. You remember the scent of the soil and the blue of the sky. That day is with you, in those beans, and, while we’re at it, every other day too, all the days of watering, weeding, tending. To lovingly engage in these reciprocal relationships is the heart of my cooking practice. It grounds me and reminds me of who I am, the land I am on, and the relationships I nurture, which are, I believe, my essence.
I also love the way time seems to flatten in the kitchen, in many ways–yes, time flies when you’re having fun, but I also mean the way a whiff of frying peppers transports me to my abuela’s kitchen in southern California, and suddenly I’m eight years old again, watching her with awe and mounting inspiration. Crushed sage in my pot of soup reminds me of the sage that grew in a special garden in an old home, from another time in my life, and with a taste, I’m there. Sometimes time moves the other way. I’m mixing together warm water and masa, standing barefoot in my kitchen, imagining the day when I might teach my own daughter to make tortillas. It’s the future. It’s the first time I introduce her to this ancient sister, masa. I’m anxious–will she understand? Will she like it? Time jumps again. A future kitchen, unknown but familiar. My daughter’s daughter hand mixes masa and stares out the window, barefoot, wondering anxiously–will her daughter like masa? Will she understand? Cooking has the power to stand time still, to lovingly return me to the past, and to allow me to ask deep questions of and paint wondrous hopes upon the future.
“It’s so intimate and special to pull from the earth something you planted there, with all of your hopes and dreams for what it will become. And then it does become; it becomes a delicious pot of beans, or a hearty stew. You remember the early summer day you spent planting those beans, the way the sunlight felt on your bare shoulders. You remember the scent of the soil and the blue of the sky.'“
Who had largest impact on the fundamentals of cooking that you use to this day?
Ash and her mother on the coast
My mother absolutely has had the largest impact on my cooking fundamentals, and, by extension, my abuela, my dad’s mother. I still send my mom frantic texts from the kitchen, asking for reminders on how much tomato sauce to add to my rice and how to save over-salted pozole. Her recipes are my recipes, and while mine have taken on new life as plant-based dishes, those dishes she served to me and my dad and my brothers in my childhood are the foundation of nearly all of my recipes and cooking fundamentals. Also, she has reworked many of her classic recipes to be plant-based, so I can enjoy her apple crumble, flaky, hot biscuits, and even her classic pozole. That’s unconditional love! We inspire each other, and when we’re in the kitchen together she is always so excited to experiment with me as I show her my working tamal recipe or something else I have “vegan-ized” as she calls it. When we are not together, we text each other dinner updates nearly daily. In this way, she continues to inspire my kitchen fundamentals.
Ash’s Abuela
I also can’t talk about kitchen fundamentals without mentioning my abuela again. As I said, she taught my mom a lot of the basics she learned to build upon. When I think of the memories I have of my abuela’s house when I was a kid, it is almost all food-centric. Nearly every memory is of the kitchen and the outdoor brick barbeque that my abuelo built. The kitchen and the barbeque patio were like the beating heart of the house–the kitchen had a giant window that looked out over the barbeque patio, so when the window was flung open tias and cousins and my grandma would be holding the tamal line while shouting and laughing with my abuelo and tios as they tended the barbeque outside. Drinking Nestle Abuelita Hot Chocolate with our tortillas fresh off the comal, slathered in butter, steaming pots of pozole nearly as tall as me, what seemed like thousands of tamales streaming endlessly from the kitchen to the patio: these are my memories of my grandparent’s house. This house taught me that cooking is a party, it takes all day and all night, and it includes the whole family (and maybe a few beers).
What has your intimate connection to nature, plants and herbal medicine taught you?
So much! I don’t even know where to begin. I think what I’d like to say about these connections is that they have their own lives. They’re constantly growing and changing, like me. I’m learning so much every day about nature, plants, healing, and myself. I suppose I could say my deep relationships with those things has taught me that these relationships are infinite, so vast and so full, and I am so grateful for this lifetime of exploring and engaging with them.
