Pepitas, Las Semillas Que Nos Unen (The Seeds That Unite Us)

In a small town in the middle of the Yucatan Peninsula the locals grow three crops together. They are the corn, beans and squash. This is the story of the seeds of the local squash and how they unite people. Take a journey from the milpa (farmland) to the table and see how these seeds influence the traditions, recipes, and is even mixed in with religion. Note: The short film is in Spanish, but it is possible to turn on subtitles in English. We start the story in a milpa (farming field) in Kunche, Yucatan. Two brothers are collecting the squash that was planted beneath the corn plants. This harvest takes place from fall to late winter as the squash dry in the field. In another milpa another farmer is cutting open the squash to remove the seeds for drying. The seeds are sundried and then ready for sale or grinding them to make ground pepitas (the name of the seeds of the squash). After many people dry their seeds, they often sell them at a collection point in Espita. In a sewing workshop, a man collects the pepitas to sell over the next year. He has been working with pepitas for 3 years and knows the trade well. We next visit a woman who is toasting the seeds a little more before grinding them. She has been working all her life with pepitas. She keeps what she needs to cook with and then sells small bags of ground pepitas in the market. Just around the corner from the women selling the ground pepitas are two women who cook in the market. These women present two recipes that use pepitas. The first is called pipian. The second dish they make is called braza de reyna. It is a corn-based dough with chaya. It has ground pepitas, hard boiled eggs and a tomato sauce. It is similar to what most people is a tamale. We move from the market to a home where we are going to start the process of making papazules. This is another dish with ground pepitas. The first day consist of using scissors to cut open the pepitas and take out the green center. It is a very slow process, and it gave us lots of time to talk about how the meat free dishes are eaten during the holy days of the Catholic church. The second day we start toasting the pepitas. You can hear the snap and pop of the pepitas when they reach the perfect temperature. After toasting the pepitas, we take them to be ground by hand. We grind them three time to get them to a fine consistency. The third day we take the ground pepitas and add it to a sauce. This is the base of the papazules. On this day more women from the neighborhood come to help prepare the papazules. Then after three days we sit down to enjoy our work. Papazules is a dish that is often only prepared a few times a year, mainly because it can be a lot of work. In the end of the video the realization that pepitas are not just squash seeds. It is history and a living tradition that is passed down over generations. It is a celebration of the work of those that keep growing, harvesting, toasting, and cooking the pepitas. If you go to the town of Espita, Yucatan you can experience the taste and see the living tradition of pepitas.