Brucas and bombiles. I love this topic, I think, I mean, maybe all Latinos do. But I love scary stories.
Yeah, me too. I love like legends like Lord Go Go. I forgot about that at all. I don't know about that one. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I like.
I do like legends. I'm not like a scary movie person. Neither of my like gory stuff. Now that freaks me out. Yeah, but I do like like bru cousin like I love. I love folk tales, but specifically Latino folk tales. I feel like they're deeper.
They're terrifying.
Did your mom, you're gonna go out at me? Go ahead and stay out after men, I might go on, I might get you. And then I was like, and I was such a good kid because I'm scared of Oh my gosh.
I remember when we were kids. I must have been like maybe ten years old. We went to one on a trip, on a family trip, and we took a tour of the cobblestone street and they it wasn't in my head. It was at nighttime and they told the story of La and I don't.
I still don't sleep because of her. I still don't. My dad swears she she's appeared to him, my dad swears, my mom swears, my grandma swear like, oh I saw law you don't know. I was like, oh my god. It's fun that this episode's all about embracing the spooky. I do too.
I'm very excited and we're going to talk about stories but also how some of these stories connect to food and drink.
Yeah, it's Halloween. My name is Eva.
Longoria and I am Myra and welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our past and present through food. On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our.
Culture, So make yourself at home. When I feel like there's so much we know about the Salem Witch Trials, but not a lot about Latin America, and I think women had to have been persecuted as which is in Latin America and Mexico too, because we're definitely healers and healers of the land and that was looked you know, that was frowned upon.
And food centric magic features prominently in the Lores of Witches in the sixteen hundred, So like the Sale and Witch Trials, which you just mentioned. So if the butter didn't churn or if the bread had mold, the only logical explanation was black magic.
Yeah, because the women were responsible for all of this. So the women were responsible mostly for food production. So if anything went wrong with that or good, yes, they could be considered a witch exactly.
A witch and a threat to social you know, hierarchy. We talked about this a little bit during our beer episode last season.
Yes, remind people of that. So it was where the witches hat comes from.
Yeah, so the witches had it with women were brewers, and they were set up in the markets and they would wear a pointy hat so that people could see that I.
Could see where the beer was being sold. Yeah, exactly, and only women brewed the beer. And so that's why they had the pointy hat. And that's where a witch's brew came from and a witch's hat. So I always thought that that was interesting. But you know, I'm going you should come. I'm going to Galicia in my Searching for Spain series, and that's another origin country of witches. Really, Yeah, Bligedaleic Celtic. Is that why it's called Anisia because of
the Gaelic influence. Yeah, I had no idea how Celtic influence, very Irish influenced. Fascinating. Yeah, And they'd have the biggest witch festival in summer Solstice June twenty fifth this year and they do this huge bonfires on the beach and
all these rituals and how cool. My point is it must have come from Latin America because of colonization, Like the Spanish Inquisition was like established what in the late fourteen hundred, yes, for the eighteen hundreds, so between then, not only thousands of Muslims and Jews were killed for their religious beliefs, but there must have been like women that were associated with sorcery or witchcraft during that time that were targets of Spain and the Inquisition.
Absolutely, and the Inquisition actually came to Mexico and it was actually instituted in Mexico in fifteen seventy one, in Mexico and in Guatemala as well, and it took different targets from the Spain. So it was Jews and Muslims in Spain, and here it was also witchcraft, sexual activities, drug abuse. And this is where the food comes in chocolate.
Oh my god, that's right, because in last season's Hungry First three, in the Chocolate episode, we talked about chocolate being this like plant based food, which the seed of the cucaas is dried, it's toasted, then it's like ground with spices and and then it changes into something new. And the drink, because it was mostly a drink and it was pretty bitter. It was reserved for priests and aristocrats, and the cacao seeds were used as currency, and chocolate
was really special. It was also used medicinally, and so people thought it was magical and it was sacred. And so a common spice used in chocolate by the mines was achiote, which turned the drinker's mouth red because achiota is that red seeds now like that, yeah, ano, it's also called a nato. And it looked like they were drinking blood when they would drink this hot chocolate. Yeahpa thought it was like bad, bad influence chocolate drinkers.
Sad influence with the red chocolate, and it was an aphrodisiac.
Yeah, it's amazing. So and that's witchcraft right there, exactly.
Well, this is where we start seeing you know, if you even if you think about it, it's the myth that they're with the chocolate and the all of these spices in there, and they're just grinding it so east and then it's a liquid, and then it's it's magic.
It's magic.
It's basically literally, it's literally magic.
And women always prepared the chocolate.
Yes, that is key. Women always prepare the chocolate. By the time we get to the seventeenth and eighteenth century, chocolate was available to everybody. So pre conquest it was only reserved for nobility, the aristocracy, and it was had all of these spices cut to Post conquest, it was available for everybody.
Every social class, every ethnic group, indigenous, Baniard, African, mixed, it was everybody.
And it was still consumed with water, but it was available for everybody, still made by hand in a meta day. But it's dark and grainy, and so it provides this ideal environment to hide potions in it.
Oh, you could like poison somebody.
And this is what a lot of the Inquisition in Mexico were targeting women who were making potions.
Because they thought they were Brujas, the Bruhaus through chocolate specifically, and I think that is so fascinating, fascinating.
So there are a few stories of so called brujas. My favorite is the one of Juan de Fuent then Cecilia the Ariola. So in most cases women made the chocolate, but in this story, it involves a man on August eighteen, sixteen ninety five, Juan de fund that complained to the
inquisition authorities that his wife bewitched him with sorcery. So he was a thirty three year old Mulatto construction worker denouncing his Mulata wife, Cecilia, and he charged her by casting spells and curses so quote unquote, so that he could not be a man on all the occasions that he desired to have intercourse with his weight.
So he was suffering from a rectile dysfunction, and he blamed that his wife was using sorcery on him to keep his his wee wee limb exactly exactly.
Of course, that's the only explaination, the only explanation. And also he would prepare the chocolate when women would prepare the chocolate, so he was accusing her of poisoning him and shifting the gender roles because it was unnatural that he was preparing the morning chocolate while his wife slept, So he was accusing her of everything. Cecilo was interrogated, she was convicted by the Inquisition and then she denounced dozens of women practicing witchcraft and was sent to Central
Jail in Mexico City. And according to this really great article called Chocolate, Sex and Disorderly Women in the late seventeenth and eighteen entry, this happened to my La. Even though she went to jail in Mexico City. She says that she took a few personal items with her, including chocolate, and everything about the case and everything that she did that they did. Everything is recorded how from the court from the court and it's digitized, and all of the
documentation was online. That so crazy, it's crazy of her and other women.
So we know.
Oh, on August eighteenth, sixteen ninety five, he complained to his wife.
There's so many stories, but it's always like it's all of these stories are basically men ratting on their wives because they don't want to be married anymore. So they're like, oh, you're a witch, and then the inquisition would come and take them away.
Yes.
No, that same guy that I just mentioned fun three days before married somebody else. Yeah, because her wife was out of the way. Of course, he did. But the crazy thing to me is the association between chocolate and disorderly behavior, Like that's just crazy to me. But it also extended to the elite Spanish women as well, and so there it wasn't just like the mulatos and the
indigenous people. There was also it was it an englishman, yeah, who wrote about his travels, and he described a public confrontation between a bishop and an elite woman who insisted on drinking hot chocolate in church, which disrupted mass, and they boycotted cathedral services and protested the bishop's prohibition of chocolate. And then he became ill during the protests and died
a week later. He was poisoned. And all these women were either killed or certain time in prison because they were like, for sure they did it, they did it. I don't know. This one sounds like they did. They probably didn't. I don't blame them.
They wanted to drink our chocolate. Hey, But it's so interesting because it was the elite women and they were they're the ones whose stories are documented because we don't see the mixed race, the indigenous swimmen, the African women. They were probably also using chocolate, but we don't have. We don't have records of them.
So the other thing I remember growing up, did you ever get the O hole? Yes? Yes? And what is with the egg?
The oh my god, the egg the egg like So.
To this day, when I get sick, I'm like mom and my mom will do Does she do it? Yes? Yes, my mom does the egg and she doesn't our father and hail Mary and all my body and then I sleep it off. And then we cracked the egg in the water. And if it's cloudy in the morning, yeah, then it was an evil spirit inside of you. And if it's clear, then it wasn't illoho. Wasn't somebody who gave you the os? So interesting?
When I was in China, did your.
Mom do No?
My mom was like, never mind, I don't wigs.
When I was in high school in Moreedo, during lunch, we used to go across to normal rada, know and with my friends and we would often go toha. One time when we went and one of my friends went in and she did the webbo and then they cracked it and.
It was black. Another thing I remember when my sister and I were riding her riding our bikes and she fell off and broke her arm, and I got so scared. I had to carry her back to the house, like down the block, and I was carrying her because she fainted. She passed out. So I get back to my house and they're like, oh my god, and they just like
grab her and they take her to the hospital. And and I was just at home and I was so scared, like I had a susto and my grandma was like, give her sugar, give her sugar, and they made me take spoonfuls of sugar for the shock.
Oh wow, and you just kind of yeah, I was just there going like whenever she going to die?
She broke her arm. I thought you were I thought she died. Yeah, I mean literally was, because you know, they like rushed out of the house and you know, is she gonna die? Mom and my grandma. I remember her shoving a spoonful of sugar in my mouth and I was like, what the hell. But I did read later, like recently, like why that it does, like that adrenaline of sugar changes your synapses. It has something to do. But I thought it was a folkgo and then I
was like, oh, there's actually science behind that one. I can prove it, all right, so because it's Halloween, we felt it appropriate to start out by making vombiles. I don't even know what a vampido is. Yes, you've never had it. It's like a Mexican bloody mary. Okay, then I'm in. Yeah, it's amazing. The vampido. It is the national cultail of Mexico. Why it's not the margarita, it's the vampido is the national drink of medes. It says who who created it?
Well, a man named Oscarednandez. He was a fruit vender in Jalisco, in a town called San Luiso. Yet lan he's selling from plastic bags with a strong size.
I still do that, Yeah, sosas with in a plastic maggie.
But it's red. So it's like your sucking blood, like a vampire. So we're going to start making a vampiedo. It has tequila, It has tomato juice, freshly squeezed, lime juice, fresh be squeezed orange juice, and grinity. Basco and grinity. So it's basically the tomato juice grenadine and the two juices is a sanity bat. So it's the bases, the sugity bat.
Oh is it so?
We're just gonna and make our vampiros because we have to drink vampios.
If we're talking about of course.
In folklore in various countries over the centuries, so not just in Mexico, but Persians, Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Mayans all had their own tails of thirsty beings with the taste for thick, warm blood. So some of these vampire like creatures in Latin America, there are a few of them. One of them is called Gamasots camas Gamasots. Well, he's sort of the most vampire like creature conjured up by the Mayans.
It's a half fat, half human.
With a blood thirsty temper, and he's known for tear the heads off of other gods and ferociously draining the blood from its victims. And in the Mayans Sacred Book, he is a bat like figure that acts as the guardian of the underworld and kills victims by decapitation.
For real or for fake is the question? Scary stories are so scary? It comes from the Mayan, it comes from the mine.
Well, the imagery of the Kamasots is actually based on a little vampire bats that are native to southern and Central America, and these vampire bats have large fangs that don't feed on insects or fruit like most bats feed on fruit. They only feed on blood, and so they use their fangs to slice into the skin of an animal and they lick the blood as it oozes out.
Okay, you know what that sounds like. That sounds like sweet potato.
It's not, sir, it's not.
Let's see.
Okay, Halloween, Happy Halloween.
That's delicious. That's good. So that was from the Mayans, that is from the mind. But the Aztecs have something similar, right, have.
Something similar and scary. So among the Aztects, a woman in labor was said to capture the spirit of her newborn child, much like a warrior captures his opponent in battle. But if a woman died while giving birth, her own soul was transformed into a terrifying demon known as a sea.
So she's kind of ala, kind of a Laurdana.
Actually, some people say that the legend of the of the Yourana is based on a sea oh to have descended to Earth on five days during the Aztec calendar, and during these times they haunted crossroads in the hopes of snatching young children, the young children that they were never privileged to meet. So in order to keep their children safe, people would create shrines full of food at crossroads and the hope that these demons would be too busy eating to notice the sun because the seattle helped
guide the sun. So she had a favorite food, uh huh, cakes in the shape of a butterfly. Okay, little tamales and toasted corn, so she.
Would be too busy eating now, and then the sun would come up and she would ye. Basically basically, well, when we come back, we're still telling scary stories.
Our spooky episode continues with a special guest, a fellow Texan and host of the podcast Whole This is a great title, I'd wait for history.
He sat down with Aiden Castillano's host of Still, a podcast based on South Texas, lay in Banks and Spooky.
Stories, Enjoy This Halloween Inspire to interview Aiden. I'm so excited to meet you. Hi.
Likewise, both Eva.
And I are from South Texas and you're from South Texas. I came across your podcast and I was like, oh my god, I've been listening to it every morning when I walk my dog. I introduced your podcast to Eva and so it's just very, very exciting. How did you get interested in spooky stories?
Susto itself for people who don't know, but I feel like if they're listening to Hunger for History, they shouldn't know, right. Is it's a cultural illness where after a big scare or something traumatic, the soul separates itself from the body, and if it's a severe enough scare or trauma, the soul can even fragment, and there's different remedies for it based on who you're talking to. For me, growing up, it was sugar, a spoonful of sugar in a glass of water, and if we had susto, we had to
mix it up and then chug that. Growing up, you know, I'm also from South Texas like both of you, and I just heard all of these stories growing up. They were always being told to us, whether it was at you know, family barbecues late at night when people were starting to leave and it was dark and okay, it suddenly it turned into okay, who saw the devil last? And so I just kept hearing these stories growing up, and even in the schools. There's a book that I think a lot of us in South Texas know of
it's the stories that must not die. And this book had all these stories. It had stories of Lichusa's Layoora, the girl who danced with the Devil, all of these spooky stories that were collected in South Texas and they were reading them to us in elementary But it wasn't purely to scare the life out of us. They were teaching us reading comprehension because these stories were in English and Spanish.
So what is the story. I don't know the story of a girl that danced with the devil?
In nineteen eighty nine, I believe it was in McAllen, Texas. There was a young woman who was from a very pious family. They're very religious, and she was kind of sheltered and she was never allowed to go out, definitely not alone, but especially to I guess places of ill repute,
we'll say. And she decided one night to sneak out with her friends and to go to a dance, to go to Bocachio two thousand and she was out and from one moment to the next, this stranger appeared out of nowhere and approached her, and she was completely taken by him. He was handsome, nobody in her group knew who he was. He was very suave and mysterious, and he approached her and he asked her to dance, and she said yes. So they're dancing and dancing, and you know,
she's having a great time. She says, this is what my family kept me from. I'm having a good time. I'm not doing anything bad. I'm just dancing right. And before she realizes it, she can start to hear the crowd freaking out. People are screaming, they're terrified, and so she's looking around and she noticed, say, is that they're all looking at her. They're all pointing at her partner, her dance partner. She looks closely and she sees that
they're screaming and they're pointing at his feet. Look at his feet, Look at his feet. And she looks down and she sees that he has one goat's tough and one chickens talan. She'd been dancing with the devil.
Oh my gosh.
So in a cloud of smoke, he disappears. All that's left on her burn marks from where he held her, and the smarrill sulfur, and nobody saw him leaves.
Are there any folk tales specific, Are there any foods that you see in these stories?
Not really a story, but a piece of advice that I heard growing up from one of my uncles. He lives on a ranch land, and he said that he would get visited by the tusas sometimes as owls or in their human forms, and that he would offer he would offer them chilas if they showed up. Was an owl, and he thought this owl might be able to choicell er, I don't know, if he wanted to test it out.
He would offer them chilas, the chili pickings from the bush, and that he would throw it out so the owl would eat it, and that if the owl ate it and it did not react, then it was simply just an owl. It was just a bird. But if it did react, if it had a reaction to the spiciness of the chila, then it was actually a human. It was a brucha. And I never understood that white he told me this. I was like, what is the reason
for that white chilas? And then I learned a few years ago that birds don't react to capsaicin, which is the enzymer or the chemical or whatever that makes chila spicy to humans and so I don't know if my uncle knew this or maybe he did, but yeah, that's why people will put chilas in their bird seed so that the squirrels won't get to it, because birds aren't affected by that chemical. And so that was his way of testing out is this really just an owl litusa
or is it ausa? So everybody key some chila's in your pockets just in case you come across a litusa that might.
Be a brou so interesting.
You can listen to Sustal anywhere podcasts are available. You can also visit sustalpodcast dot com and if you would like to follow me online, my handle is at sustal podcast across every single platform.
And so is s u s t Oh.
Thank you so much.
Aiden. Well, I could talk about scary stories beforeever, but I will. We will end it here and I encourage you to have a lot of Mexican candy this Halloween, and if you can't find it, there's some great recipes on how to make some some spooky Mexican candy. So I'm gonna be doing that. Likes yeah, like with an eyeball. Oh, I love those yeah, yeah, scary molds and brains, brains and things like that about that stuff. It's gonna be fun.
Happy Halloween, everybody, Thanks for listening. Be safe out there. Happy Halloween. Hungry for History is a Hyphenite media production in partnership with Iheart's Michael Fura podcast network.
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