Papitas

Mexico – MX002A
Composition: Other
Colour: Orange
Shape: Shaped

Crunchy, little gritty but melts afterwards, earthy terra cotta taste.

Papitas were purchased online from a webshop TierraCravings.com in November
2020. This sample was bought for the price of $5 per 100 grams. TierraCravings.com is
a webshop located in Texas, United States. Their selection is rather wide, with many samples originating in Central and South America, as well as African countries, Russia, and India.
Papitas flat red ceramics chips are created by the webshop TierraCravings. They are prepared out of a mixture of Mexican terracotta and Mexican barro. They also remain ceramics waste.

In general, in South-America, earth eating traditions are old, pre-Columbian. Some
traditions are still alive, such as cooking vegetables dipped in a clay sauce. The type of
clay that has been eaten in Mexico is sometimes known as chaco in Quechua or pasa in Aymara, two native Andean languages. Edible clay is collected from several main deposits in the altiplano. While the exact composition varies depending on where the clay was unearthed, it is normally rich in certain minerals called smectites.

Sources:
● ‘Mexican Papitas (broken)’, TierraCravings (English), accessed on 15/06/2022 tierracravings.com/
● ‘Broken Mexi ClayPots, clay, natural clays, clays, clay chips, mexican clay, edible clay, clay-pots’, Etsy (Dutch), accessed on 15/06/2022 www.etsy.com
● ‘The Ancient Andean Tradition of Eating Clay May Have Helped To Protect Health’, NPR, by
Megan Jula (English), accessed on 15/06/2022 www.npr.org