Translocal Intersections
Yucatecan gastronomy emerged during the second half of the twentieth century as an outcome of long historical local-global and translocal processes. A strong cultural opposition to Mexican national cuisine supports this culturally specific gastronomy, and the ingredients, recipes and culinary techniques used in Yucatán connect it to other Caribbean culinary forms. This paper argues that the emergence of a distinguishable Yucatecan gastronomy is dependent on the cosmopolitan disposition of local people who were willing to appropriate and adapt the culinary contributions of immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, North America, and from countries in the Caribbean region. This situation stimulated lateral, minor, translocal connections that contributed to produce Yucatecan food as a culinary hybrid that merged local, translocal and global practices and ingredients. I argue that contemporary global-local integrations reshape the part and importance of Yucatecan cuisine at the regional, national and international market of cultural foods.