Food and nurturing on Taos Pueblo: A photo diary

Hornos, mica bean pots and names that speak to a rich heritage

All photos: Rashmee Roshan Lall

Just as for any community, feasting is a serious business for the Taos Pueblo people, who have lived in this part of New Mexico in traditional adobe houses for a thousand years.

Their food preparation also features adobe structures. The horno is a large domed adobe oven. As a travel company offering Pueblo tours and an “immersive insider (baking) experience” (complete with lunch and a loaf) puts it, hornos are “heated arched doorways to yeasty goodness and while they can be used to roast meats or cook stews, they are often used to make baked goods including bread”.

Ariana, the Red Willow Creek woman who gave us a tour of Taos Pueblo, said each of these hornos holds an armload and a half of cedar wood. On community feast days, she recalled, the two hornos together turn out 30 loaves of bread and 15lbs of pies and cookies.

The micaceous pot thrown by a local potter on Taos Pueblo is pricey at several hundred dollars but they are meant to be a lifelong purchas…