We're probably more surprised than anyone that it's taken us four rounds of HHM to finally create a product for Cesar Chavez. But this year truly feels like the right year.
Known for his work with the Farm Labor Rights movement and steeped in a family legacy of Catholic Social Teaching, Chavez helped to lead nonviolent campaigns to improve working conditions for migrant farm workers, including major boycotts of the table grape, lettuce, and strawberry industries.
The trail mix we've designed in his honor contains grapes (both freeze dried and golden raisins) and freeze dried strawberries (we thought you might scoff at lettuce). We also added toasted walnuts and almonds, major California based crops.
To round out the blend we added a wink to Chavez's ancestral home, Mexico, via amaranth candy. Known as alegrÃa (which means joy in Spanish) the candy is made from a popped version of the ancient grain amaranth, a crop once banned from cultivation by the Spanish. We candied it using a syrup made from organic blue agave and raw sugar cane juice, a tribute to two crops made profitable by the skilled (and for centuries forced) labor of Latino and African people.Â
Did you know: Cesar Chavez was of Indigenous, Spanish, and African ancestry? Read more about his ethnic heritage here.
Ingredients: Golden Raisins, Toasted Walnuts, Roasted Almonds (Almonds, Vegetable Oil (Almond, Canola, Safflower and/or Sunflower), Sea Salt), Unrefined Cane Sugar Juice, Popped Organic Amaranth, Organic Cane Sugar, Organic Blue Agave Syrup, Organic Freeze Dried Grapes, Freeze Dried Strawberries, Lemon Juice, Lemon Oil, Lemon Zest, Sea Salt, Water. Contains Almonds and WalnutsÂ