Mocha and Mozart: Anchors of Familiarity

My initial experience with food studies has proved to be overwhelmingly inter-disciplinary. Presenting on John Lloyd Stephens' Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and the Yucatan allowed me to stretch my connoisseur muscles in terms of food, music and literature. Studying Stephens' work through the prism of "Producing Food, Producing Difference" has proven effective in terms of considering identity through what is consumed.

During my travelling experience in Vienna, Austria I was most interested in visiting the Vienna Opera House and sampling the legendary Sacher torte. While I was extremely excited to inhabit the Mecca of European classical music because I had studied it for years, the Sacher torte was a gastronomically new encounter with its unique flavor and texture. Similar interests are reflected in John Lloyd Stephens’ accounts of traversing the distinctive regions of Central America, Chiapas and the Yucatan. Throughout Incidents Stephens consistently skims over descriptions of indigenous peoples to focalize on religious and governmental institutions as evidenced by one of the first instances in the text: “From the negro school we went to the Grand Court…which stand in the rear of the Government House” (16-17). Stephens’ perception focalizes on the vestiges of colonization because that is where his familiarities lie. Ultimately, music and food become a mediated space where cultural values intersect and reveal the extent to which Stephens allows himself exposure to Central American culture.

While Stephens attempts to find a fellow traveler to Guatemala his anxiety is interrupted by an experience that stimulates all of his senses:

At length all was ready; a large concourse of people, roused by the requisitions of the padre, was at the door, and among them two men with violins. The padre directed his own gigantic energies particularly to the eatables; he had put up chocolate, bread, sausages and fowl; a box of cakes and confectionary (178).

In this instance, Stephens notices and actively records his recollection of two men playing violins. The genre of music is not specified; however, his other senses become intrigued particularly through taste. Chocolate is included not as a luxury but as a necessity throughout the text. In Food: The Key Concepts (2008), Warren Belasco identifies chocolate among “tomatoes, corn, and potatoes” (49) as coming to most of the world only after 1492. Indeed in this text food and music emphasize the effects of colonization. This is the first of many chocolate appearances in the text. Similarly, when he travels to the village of Masagua, Stephens immediately desires chocolate:

At the village of Masagua I rode up to a house, at which I saw a woman under the shed, and, unsaddling my mule, got her to send a man out to cut sacate, and to make me some chocolate. I was so pleased with my independence that I almost resolved to travel altogether by myself(290).

Here, chocolate becomes a signifier of Central American culture that Stephens comes to rely on in the face of the unknown. In this sense it becomes a coping mechanism that allows Stephens to find his stride and confidence as a traveler. Margaret Odrowaz- Sypniewski emphasizes the parallel between money and chocolate as a legitimate coinage: “cacao currency [was used] as late as the mid 19th century in Yucatan, Mexico… [and] The Mayans were reported to have used cacao, as money, in Guatemala too” (Indigenous Americans Their Geneology History and Heraldry, http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/Chocolate.html). Stephens constantly seeks institutional structures; in this case market value of chocolate allows him to connect with his capitalistic roots. In contrast, chocolate becomes spiritually significant as at a later time as an unnamed boy “prepared chocolate” (183) for the burial of a young man. Inevitably, chocolate becomes part of a cultural ritual that Stephens observes. While he is not intimately connected with the burial, chocolate engenders a contact zone for Stephens to identify within.

Later on in the text, music is similarly present in San José as a funeral procession “approached with the music of violins and a loud chorus of voices, and was escorting the priest to the house of the dying man” (353). Music becomes yet another facet of ritual in Central American culture. There is a distinction to be made between chocolate and music, as chocolate is indigenous to Central American agriculture, while religious authority and Christianization of the culture is affiliated with music. As chocolate becomes a comforting commodity for Stephens to identify with and consume, music becomes a vestige of American and European culture from which he hails. In this instance music is again conflated with institutional legitimacy, in this case government: “at nine o’clock, with violins playing, and a turnout that would have astonished my city friends, I made another start for the capital” (178-179).

There is a specific date, one of few in the text, which Stephens specifically cites as a particularly uplifting occurrence: January 1, 1840. A Guatemalan cathedral becomes yet another site of familiarity and institutionalization that signifies civilization for Stephens. In this case the space is permeated with Mozart’s music: “Gentlemen well dressed, and ladies in black mantas, were crossing it to attend grand mass in the Cathedral. Mozart’s music swelled through the aisles. A priest in a strange tongue proclaimed morality, religion, and love of country” (307). Just as chocolate embodies a means of communication between cultural differences in the case of mourning for a funeral procession, music remains the signifier that represents institutional authority to which Stephens repeatedly defaults.

To reaffirm the connections made between chocolate and music throughout I would like to look at one more scenario of Stephens’ Incidents:

We returned to our horses, and found Mr. Lawrence and the guide asleep. We woke them, kindled a fire, made chocolate, and descended…The streets were alike, long and straight, and there was nobody in them. We fell into one which seemed to have no end, and at some distance were intercepted by a procession coming down a cross street. It was headed by boys playing on violins; and then came a small barrow tastefully decorated, and strewed with flowers. It was a bier carrying the body of a child to the cemetery (366-367).

Once again in this situation, Stephens encounters a burial procession in which he simultaneously partakes in the consumption of chocolate and music. While music is an omnipresent facet of religious ceremonies in Christianity, chocolate is deeply engrained in the death rituals of Aztec and Mayan cultures as referenced by Odrowaz- Sypniewski: “In the tombs of the Mayans and Aztecs, there were cups that were used for the drinking of chocolate in the afterlife. In their tombs, in glyphs, was written: ‘This is the chocolate drinking cup of ..... (insert the name of the dearly departed’” (Indigenous Americans Their Geneology History and Heraldry, http://www.angelfire.com/mi4/polcrt/Chocolate.html). As we read, it is clear that both music and chocolate become ritualistic presences, offering a more nuanced experience of Central American culture. Previous to this encounter, Stephens, Mr. Lawrence and a travelling doctor were surveying the landscape, applying stagnant and encompassing numbers for exact measurements. The landscape here appears to be bare and flat, as the presence of scent and sound offer another dimension. While there is value in excavation information, the cultural experiences involving interaction offer a different kind of valuable experience. Measurements alienate Stephens from the cultural significance of “Idols” (149) and Central American culture, as the presence of food and music offers his audience more profound insight into new populations and themselves.

From the beginning of the text it is clear that Stephens knows the audience he is writing for. He wants to emphasize the stark differences in values and rituals; yet, it is clear that he consistently seeks cultural familiarities throughout the text. Both chocolate and music are apt symbols as they are consumed throughout his journeys. After tracing two recurring symbols throughout Stephens’ text, I would like everyone to identify other layers of familiarity and why they are focused on. No matter how objective he attempts to be, Stephens’ own anxieties reflect our own, no matter if one is nervous about a language barrier or being immersed in a new cultural ritual. Identifying the familiar is always the first step to understanding difference.