Mexico Soul and Essence
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Back to the Future with Enrique Olvera
Leading Mexico City chef and restaurateur Enrique Olvera of Restaurante Pujol, has a rare talent for re-imagining traditional Mexican food, including delights mostly seen alongside streets and roadsides. His guides: the elements of flavor, texture, temperature, aroma, and color.
Together with Mexico's country coordinator Ruth Alegria, Olvera, 31, will show how to marry classic technique with an understanding of characteristic Mexican ingredientes to yield new and sublime results. His stunning re-interpretations -- drawing on his intimate knowledge of regional diversity -- are infusing new life to Mexico's cuisines.
Olvera graduated with honors from the Culinary Institue of America, Hyde Park in 1999, where he was awarded the Gold medal of the Societe Philantropique of New York; the M.K. Fisher Award for the best thesis of his generation and the Jacob Rosenthal Leadership Award.
Enrique Olvera and Ruth Alegria will present a cooking class entitled: "Mexican Cooking: Back to the Future", on Saturday April 15 at Kendall College in Chicago, IL, during our 29th IACP Annual Conference. The workshop has been sold out for a few weeks now.
The Global News blog was lucky to get a peek into the menu that will be presented. Those who signed up, are in for what looks like an exquisite selection of Mexican dishes, the 21st century style. Some of them are:
- Squash Blossom Capuccino- Coconut Milk foam and Nutmeg
- Esquites with Mayonnaise gelatine
- Striped Bass Ceviche, roasted Tomatoes
- Rack of Lamb with Chocolate crust, Black Beans and Mole sauce
In December of 2005 Enrique founded TEO (Taller Enrique Olvera), a creative workshop to promote gastronomical culture.
What is it? Slow Food laboratorio del gusto "La gloria de los tamales"
On Wednesday January 31 Slow Food held its 54th Laboratorio del Gusto and the question on everyones lips was "What is it?". The 4 foot package, tied with heavy twine and marked with orange "FRAGILE" labels left us wondering if our colleagues had finally gone off the deep end. There it sat as the centerpiece of the banquet table with chefs hovering protectively over it. But of course this was the mythical and colossal Zacahuil tamale, known in the Huasteca region but little seen or tasted outside of this area.
Our Zacahuil weighed in at a puny 60 kilos, with a masa whose corn kernels were still discernible, colored deep red with chiles chino and cascabel, and stuffed with large pieces of pork and chicken. Que delicia! The cooking method was roasting in a wood fired oven for about 12 hours.
THE ZACAHUIL UNWRAPPED
But this was to be a tasting of other equally esoteric and unique tamales. They were from different states of the Mexican republic and each a revelation of the enormous variety of this ancient pre- hispanic food. To be precise tamales predate the tortilla by thousands of years.
Our menu:
1. Tamale from neighborhood of Mixquic in Mexico city made without masa of lambs brains.
2. Mole tamale from the state of Chiapas.
3. Tamale made with a dried shrimp hash from the state of Sinaola.
4. Drunken (Borracho) tamale from the state of Monterrey. A hangover cure according to local lore.
5. Zacahuil, the "Big" one, in the style of the Huasteca. Whole pieces of pork, chicken or guajolote (wild turkey originally, not our domesticated wimps).
6. and last but not least the Spanish influenced sweet tamales -- made from candied fruits (dulce de frutas) or strawberry marmalade.
Standing are Magda Bogin IACP member and director of Cocinar Mexicano. Sergio Ynurigarra Slow Food officer and Mezcal maven, seated are Pat Tanner IACP member and Slow Food officer (visiting from Princeton N.J), and Mexico City residents Anita Saurez and Carlota Warnholtz.
giorgio@avantel.net
Xoconostle Mi Amor -Tuna Agria
With a slightly sour tang, xoconostle from the nahuatl language, is the oval fruit of a cactus. Found in the central region of Mexico its use varies from its addition in the famous Mole de Olla, stuffed with escamoles (black ant larvae), prepared in jams and jellies, refreshing "aguas", flavoring pluque and as sweet dessert wine. In a land where everything has a use, this beautiful but spiny fruit has been used for millennia. As part of Slow Foods commitment to preserving and supporting small artesanal growers our convivia was transported back in time to the Ex-Hacienda San Jose el Marquez located near the village of Santa Maria Amealco in the state Hidalgo.
Construction began in the 1600's by Marques del Villar del Aguila on a land grant from the Spanish King Philip III on an estate of almost 114,000 acres (46,000 hectares). In its long life it has served as monastery, home and military fortress but with the land reform and revolution, the hacienda has been reduced to a scant 50 acres (about 20 hectares), half of which is planted with xoconostle. With the Spanish conquest also began deforestation, introduction of foreign plants and animals, scant rainfalls causing desertification, causing a crippling effect on the traditional farm economy of the region. The 3 acres of buildings are in various states of disrepair, note the roofless chapel, but still a plucky young couple, Yunuén Carrillo Quiroz and her husband Gabriel Cortés García, whose family has owned the land since the 1940's, have dedicated themselves to preserving and reclaiming the land.
Yunuen and Carlos have placed their "Xoxoc" brand of products into the marketplace and now give employment to 20 workers as well as going out to other communities where they teach what they have learned. They graciously invited us to their home and prepared a traditional Hacienda fiesta for our group that included the famous Barbacoa de Hoyo of the state of Hidalgo. The recipe calls for a yearling lamb to be wrapped in "pencas de maguey", leaves of the maguey plant, with a large kettle to collect the resultant broth, buried in a pit over a fire that is then covered and left for several hours to slowly cook. This method of cooking more commonly known as Pib cooking harkens back to Mayan times. The meat and the resultant broth are fragant, from the maguey leaves, and the meat incredibly tender and juicy.
For information on Xoconostle and the products that are prepared go to www.xoxoco.com.
Or by e-mail: gabrielcortes@xoxoco.com, yunuencarillio@xoxoco.com.
For further information on IACP and Slow Food activities in Mexico contact Vice coordinator for Mexico Ruth T. Alegria at princetoncooking@aol.com. Come join us!
Alicia Gironella De'Angeli and the Larousse of Mexican Cooking
Within the culinary world of Mexico Alicia Gironella De'Angeli is ever present, even when she is not in the room. A recognized authority on the cuisines of Mexico she is also a committed Slow Food officer and was part of the initiative that prepared and presented the proposal "People of Corn -- Mexico's Ancestral Cuisine" to UNESCO. She has devoted herself to research, investigation and rescue of the vast and complex cuisines of Mexico and with her husband Giorgio De'Angeli they have taught, traveled, and written on the complex nature and multiplicity of ingredients found only here.
We met recently to talk about the upcoming debut of the Larousse de la Cocina Mexicana ( Larousse of Mexican Cooking) at her restaurant El Tajin. In this second edition of the Larousse aesthetics and modernity share the pages with the indigenous and traditional, providing a concise guide for the professional and the novice alike. Alicia explains the work as "not a coffee table" but as a text to be used in the kitchen, though the photographs by Federico Gil are breathtakingly beautiful. The book serves as a compendium of recipes with step by step instructions, techniques and methods, and a full descriptive of utensils commonly used in the Mexican kitchen. One of the sections deals with the importance of flowers as food and the preparation of this "gift of nature" transformed into a delicious meal. Moles as well are given an in depth view by region, method of preparation and according to place names.
As Alicia commented "we have created this book to demonstrate the richness of a cuisine that is vast, creative and colorful".
Alicia Gironella D'Angeli is a Member of the Vatel Club Mexico, Academie Culinaire de France, and a Slow Food officer.
Books by Alicia Gironella de'Angeli : El Gran libro de la Cocina Mexicna, Cocina Mexicana para el Mundo, and La Guia gastronomica de mexico. (The book is available in Spanish only.)
El Tajin restaurant:
Telephones: (52-55) 5659 -5759 / 5659 - 4447
Address: Miguel Ángel de Quevedo Num. 687
Colonia: Cuadrante de San Francisco (just south of Coyoacan) Part of the Centro Cultural Veracruzano
Hours: Monday thru Sunday from 1 to 6 PM.
For more information on the restaurant go to: El Tajin
