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Sabores Sin Fronteras Food Alliance launches with a series of events on Food and foodways.

By Rebecca Ruiz-McGill, University Communications
November 19, 2008

The University of Arizona's Southwest Center celebrates a new alliance to promote the farming, ranching and food folkways of the borderlands region with a series of events in Arizona and Sonora that began Nov. 16.

Sabores Sin Fronteras (Flavors Without Borders) is an alliance forged by the folklore program of the UA's Southwest Center that will bring together farmers, ranchers, cooks, chefs, folklorists, artists and food advocates in a culinary tour of the Rio Sonora.

"Southwestern cuisine is world-renown. But until recently, it has lacked any gathering of practitioners and community-based scholars to elucidate the multi-cultural traditions from which it has emerged, and to promote or explore on-going innovations to keep it dynamic and delicious," said Gary Paul Nabhan, a food scholar and field researcher with the UA's Southwest Center.

Nabhan along with his colleagues at the Southwest Center, folklorist Maribel Alvarez and writer/choreographer Kimi Eisele, co-founded the Flavors Without Borders foodways alliance.

Events include panel discussions, lectures and cooking demonstrations by several award-winning chefs, culinary historians and food writers, including Betty Fussell, Janos Wilder, John Sharpe, Juan Estevan Arellano, Lois Ellen Frank, Carolyn Niethammer and Cheryl and Bill Jamison. In addition, film, poetry, dance and tastings of place-based heritage foods will be featured.       

A founders' retreat will be held on Thursday, Nov. 20 from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Rex Ranch in Amado, Ariz., which will feature a founders' feast with local heritage foods, dinner and campfire music. Cost is $50 for founding members but new founding members are welcome to join and enjoy the festivities.

On Nov. 21, a Borderlands Foodways Symposium will be held at Rex Ranch from 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. The symposium features lectures, panel discussions, workshops, a dance performance, a film premiere, two meals and tastings of locally-grown heritage foods. Cost is $75 for general admission and $25 for students. Admission includes lunch, dinner and special tastings of local heritage foods prepared by Chef Stephanie Leonard of Rex Ranch. Space is limited to first 100 registrants. The Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance is the symposium co-sponsor.

On Nov. 22 at 9:30 a.m. the Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance and the Tubac Visitor Center host the Santa Cruz Valley Foodways Festival at La Entrada de Tubac. The free event features cooking demos, music and food folkways, as well as sales of place-based heritage foods by more than two dozen vendors.

"For the first time, we're bringing together the chefs, cooks, farmers, ranchers, writers and historians who have been essential to its development, to celebrate the cultural and culinary expressions which span the desert borderlands, from Texas to Baja California," Nabhan said.

Hosted by the Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance and Tubac Visitor's Center, this community festival of regional foodways and folk practices features educational materials from food-related nonprofits, and food samples and sales from farmers, ranchers, restaurants, artists and other producers of heritage foods and crafts.