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The art of making mate:my experience

Monzón Sol Milena

Instituto Superior Josefina Contte

Estudios interculturales

Mariana Sottile

May 22nd, 2022

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As Argentinians, most of us have some experience associated with making mate, but in this

opportunity, I would like to talk about mine.

Description

I should start explaining what a mate is. According to Melissa Petruzzello is a ´´tealike

beverage, popular in many South American countries, brewed from the dried leaves of an

evergreen shrub or tree´´(Petruzzello, n.d.). Petruzzello(n.d.) further explains that the drink is

chart-topping in countries such as Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Southern Brazil, Syria, and

parts of Lebanon.

Participation

When I turned 12 my mom decided it was my time to learn how to do certain things related to

the kitchen, among them how to do mate. So she taught me some steps:

● First, you put the kettle with water on a stove, and wait until you start seeing little

bubbles, which is when you have to get the water out of the fire.

● Put the yerba in the container and then cover the aperture with your hand so you can

shake the container and get rid of the powder.

● Tilt the mate making the yerba rest on the side, then pour a little bit of room

temperature water into the hollow.

● After that, you can place the bombilla and pour the hot water.

● Have a few sips until you can only feel the hot water which is when you can start

serving.

Explanations

Learning this practice could be seen as, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica (1994),

formal education since it was made by transmitting elements of culture to me, in this case,

knowledge.
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When talking about the form of socialization I see this training as informal socialization since

I was, as Crisogen(2015) would say, learning behavior patterns in my personal life with my

mom as an instructor, however, I think that anticipatory socialization was also taking place

since Crisogen(2015) explains that it has to do with a process in which the individual is

prepared for future statuses and roles for which the person goes through a training period

where they learn the behaviors, in my case I had to learn how to do things related to the

kitchen, such as mate because my mom started to prepare me to be a self-sufficient adult or

she just prepared me to do the things that are expected for women since my brother was never

demanded to do any of this, for which the Encyclopedia Britannica(1994) explains that there

are corresponding minimal specializations to divide functions or employment between sex

lines as well as children and adults, in this case being class. And it also points out the fact that

sociocultural systems differentiate a series of stages in the education and development of men

and women.

Even so, I believe my mother made this differentiation between us because that is what she

was taught, as I always hear my grandpa comically saying that he married my grandma

because he wanted someone who served him mate and my grandma saying how a woman

must be calm, look well put together, and have a tidy house.

As Mahamuda Rahman(2021) said in her blog: WE ARE ALL VICTIMS OF A

PATRIARCHAL SOCIETY: SOME JUST SUFFER MORE THAN OTHERS ‘’We are

continuously exposed to uncountable numbers of normalized sexism.’’.

Regarding the steps and products, later I learned that pouring the cold water before the hot,

prevented the yerba make from burning. Along with this, if I didn't shake the powder out, it

would plug the bombilla.

Furthermore, I saw that people would share how they prepared their mate in other regions on

social media like sweetening it with honey or using a container made out of Palo Santo or
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calabash gourd, contrasting with Corrientes where is more usual to drink it using big

containers called porongos in which the base is narrower than the opening.

I had to make a series of steps and use certain products yet this practice is not the same for

every community. This is a matter of diffusion, considering how the Encyclopedia Britannica

(1994) explains that tools, techniques as in this case, and other elements such as customs,

beliefs, etc may diffuse from one person or region to another.

Response

I did mate many times, but each time there was a step missing, like not shaking the mate or

using too much yerba. Worst-case scenarios were forgetting to pour room temperature water

before the hot one or not getting the kettle out of the stove on time. Luckily, now we have an

electric kettle, therefore, I don't have to worry about that anymore.

As for if I still use this knowledge to this day, I can say that I only do it if I want to impress

older people since I noticed that my friends and I do not care about how the mate is

assembled as much as sharing a good moment.

Overall I believe mate to be a good representation of our culture as it presents the five

interrelated dimensions Moran(2001) talks about, due to the fact that we have a practice for

which we use the products produced by the members of our culture, plus it involves different

communities and persons so there will be different perspectives. As for the last item, my

perception of a mate is that it is a way to show affection and fellowship.

Works cited
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-Crisogen, D. T. (2015, December 30). Types of Socialization and Their Importance in

Understanding the Phenomena of Socialization. PDF. Retrieved May 22, 2022, from

https://revistia.com/files/articles/ejser_v2_i4_15/Disca.pdf

-Petruzzello, M. (n.d.). mate | Description, History, & Preparation | Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved May 22, 2022, from

https://www.britannica.com/topic/mate-beverage

-Moran, P. (3 august 2001).Teaching Culture:Perspectives in Practice. Chapter 3. Defining

Culture file:///C:/Users/usuario/Downloads/Moran%20Chapter%203.pdf

Encyclopaedia Britannica. Macropaedia Vol. 16 (874 – 881). Chicago: Encyclopaedia

Britannica, Inc. 1994

Rahman, M. (2021, March 8). We are all victims of a patriarchal society: some just suffer

more than others. Cordaid. Retrieved July 11, 2022, from

https://www.cordaid.org/en/news/we-are-all-victims-of-a-patriarchal-society/