- Title: MEXICO: Residents carve figures from radishes in Oaxaca Christmas celebration
- Date: 25th December 2010
- Summary: PEOPLE AT FAIR
- Embargoed: 9th January 2011 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Mexico, Mexico
- Country: Mexico
- Topics: Quirky,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA1RBQ48A5AUUV0MGA1U9SQAIW2
- Story Text: For Oaxacans a radish is not seen as a simple vegetable gracing the occasional mixed salad, but a food that can be sculpted into complex figures that compete for prizes during a unique festival held in Oaxaca City during the Christmas season.
The annual festival, which combines traditional folk art and agriculture, this year features some 100 farmers and florists.
Oaxacan radish carver Nicolasa Teresa Cordoba explained how the festival came into being.
"This began because years ago people used to come to sell all the vegetables they had sowed. They came to sell their radishes, their lettuce, their cauliflower, their onions; all the ingredients that were going to be used for Christmas dinner," she said.
At the event on Thursday night (December 23), spectators were able to admire great, detailed and complex efforts where radishes were transformed into entire nativity scenes, dancers, the countryside, and some of Mexico's best known artists and personalities such as Frida Kahlo.
The figures are decorated and made by dozens of farmers who are not allowed to use ink to paint figures or metal articles to hold up the figures. They must keep it simple using only wooden sticks and a Christmas plant known as "pasle," which grows in Oaxacan forests at Christmas time.
"It has to be made using little wood sticks, you can not use artificial materials because that's not within Oaxaca tradition, it has to be made using only natural things," explained Hermenegildo Contreras Cruz.
The top prize for best carved radish is approximately 1,000 U.S. dollars.
"It's fascinating, I am so glad we became part of it. I think you have to keep this tradition. Looking at all these happy faces and people who come from probably all over the world, I think is fantastic," said Tatiana, a tourist from North Carolina.
The Spanish first brought radishes to Mexico in the 16th century and historians mention gardening contests during Colonial times. Legend has it that two Spanish friars encouraged local indigenous workers to grow and carve vegetable figures to boost sales. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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