Research
Ingredients from Family Gardens
To document the diversity of local edible plants in Loma Bonita and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec
The sites of our project are embedded in diverse social and ecological contexts, and each one holds its own unique richness and diversity of edible plants. To gather information on the plant diversity that local inhabitants manage and use, we carried out inventories of edible plants in family gardens (solares) in Loma Bonita (Chiapas) and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec (Oaxaca).
We focused our inventory efforts on family gardens, as they are often the management systems with the greatest diversity of useful plants. These gardens offer a kind of micro-summary of local food plant diversity, as they contain many species also found in surrounding natural environments and agroecosystems where people cultivate or forage them. Family gardens also act as living seed banks and experimentation sites for farmers.
Local farmers in Loma Bonita and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec were glad to share their knowledge of edible plants during the inventories. The results will be used to create illustrated materials showcasing the diversity of local edible plants and to support the exchange of knowledge among community members.
The data will also serve to identify less common species and varieties that should be prioritized in future project activities (e.g., edible forest initiatives, seed exchanges, biocultural archiving), following the principle of “conservation through use.”
This research was conducted from March to April 2021 by Claudia Heindorf in collaboration with families from Loma Bonita and Santo Domingo Tomaltepec.
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Cocina Colaboratorio is a transdisciplinary collective that brings together communities of people dedicated to agriculture, cooking, art, design, architecture, and research around the kitchen table to exchange knowledge, design, and implement actions for a sustainable food future. It is a laboratory of collective creation and joint experimentation that seeks to reconcile the care of nature with food production and diverse ways of life.
In this section, you will find stories of actions in three territories through three arenas: the Kitchen, the Experimental Plot, and the Living Biocultural Archive. We also share research-action projects, public programs, and exchanges through Extended Table, as well as stories about resources for other collectives.