El maíz en el sistema agrario y en la alimentación en Galicia, siglos XVII-XIX

Abstract

With the introduction of maize in the seventeenth century, decisive changes occurred in the agricultural and livestock system of many Galician counties from the 1630s on. Not just one more crop alongside others, this American plant displaced millet and sometimes other winter cereals at different rates, depending on the location. It affected various aspects of the technological complex that characterized the rural economy, including the use of communal lands, herd structures and levels, the agricultural calendar and the gender division of labour. Driven by peasant initiative, maize transformed the agricultural landscape and the diet in areas where it became a common crop, despite its low social value. In fact, monastic sources and accounts reveal that maize was only consumed by families that lacked sufficient rye. This created social identities derived from the type of bread baked at home. Another interesting point to note is that maize, like the millet it had supplanted, was mainly used for bread. In counties where it became virtually the only cereal that was cultivated and eaten, it protected the population against the spread of pellagra.