This UC Davis student promotes diversity and food justice by cultivating Latin American crops and hosting cooking workshops
By LILA MAGBILANG—science@theaggie.org
Standing behind the stove of the Davis Food Co-Op Teaching Kitchen, Itzel Villagran looked like the star of her own cooking show. And to some extent, she was — this was the first of many cooking workshops Villagran will host as part of her project with the Student Farm, “Comida y Comunidad.”
Disheartened by the lack of Latin American crops and ingredients in Davis, Villagran, a fourth-year student majoring in sustainable agriculture and food systems, decided to take matters into her own hands.
A recipient of the Green Fellowship (an award that funds student-run projects in sustainability and social justice), she designed a project that gave traditional Latin American crops a space on the Student Farm, as well as an opportunity to educate the public about their preparation methods and cultural significance.
Villagran’s first workshop focused on masa, a corn-based dough used in tortillas, tamales and a never-ending list of other Latin American dishes. Despite its prevalence as a staple ingredient, preparing masa is no small feat. Corn has to be dried out, soaked in an alkaline solution (a process called nixtamalization) and then ground twice over to yield the end product: in this case, a coarse yellow-blue dough used to make quesadillas.
Beneath the surface of this project, there is a foundation of science and research. The intricacies of growing new crops had to be learned — this was the first time the Student Farm had grown flour corn — and chemistry can be found running through the veins of any cooking class.
Take nixtamalization, for example. By adding food-grade lime (calcium hydroxide) to water and soaking the corn for several hours, its chemical composition is changed.
Forrest Li, a Ph.D. candidate in the Ross-Ibarra Lab, which focuses on research involving maize and teosinte, commented on this process.
“This solution allows for the outer pericarp layer of the kernels to be removed easily, making niacin, a nutrient important for preventing pellagra, more available to humans,” Li said via email. Pellagra is a disease that causes symptoms like dermatitis and dementia.
Nixtamalization allows the full nutrient availability of corn to be accessible, an important practice when considering its ancient origins. Today, it continues to be an essential part of Latin American food preparation.
In this case, there’s only so much to learn from the classroom. Despite her background in soil science and her experience at the Student Farm, Villagran owes a lot of her understanding to generational knowledge.
“I feel like the majority of my teachings that I’m going to bring to this workshop are knowledge that has been passed down from my grandparents [….] Let me call up my grandma,” Villagran said, laughing as she described how another intern asked her how to propagate nopales (a type of cactus).
Villagran aims to address the intersection between food justice and environmental justice through “Comida y Comunidad.”
“When I think about food justice, I think about making sure that everyone has what they want to eat available to them,” Villagran said. “And environmental justice wraps into that — the Student Farm naturally is such a good place to learn about that. We try our best to farm with the land and nurture the land.”
“Comida y Comunidad” is one of the numerous student-run projects at the Student Farm, many of which have similar goals of making culturally-significant crops more accessible to students and the greater Davis community. Student Farm Market Garden Coordinator Janvier Velilla notes how the legacy of past projects continues to influence the farm.
“[Past projects] get carried on, not only through the actual project, but just the inspiration that comes and hits other students,” Velilla said.
From volunteering to internships, there are a number of ways to get involved at the Student Farm.
“There are some community members who have brought in seeds of their own that they wanted to grow here, like kadu squash, fenugreek and moringa,” Velilla said. “If we can grow it, we’ll try.”
Villagran’s masa workshop is just the first of many she has planned for the school year. They are open to the public and are free of charge — visit the Student Farm website or their page on Instagram to sign up for future events.
Written by: Lila Magbilang—science@theaggie.org
