The Mexico City Culinary Establishment

[caroline]

Many of us on this list are used to seeing Mexican food through the eyes of those who interpret it for the United Status: Diana Kennedy, Rick Bayliss, Zarela Martínez, and so on. Wonderful interpreters, all of them. But their focus is cooking, not the culinary scene.

And since the culinary scene is fascinating, very different from the US, and essential to understanding Mexican food, I thought a series of observations might be of interest.

And where better to start than with the Mexico City Culinary Establishment? I don’t think there’s any US equivalent. Mexico City is a world unto itself in highly centralized Mexico. For those who live there, it’s the only place in the country that matters (think Paris for a comparison).

Within Mexico City, a core circle of thirty or forty people make up the Culinary Establishment. Among them, in no particular order, are Cristina Barros, José Iturriaga, Patricia Quintana, Jorge De’Angeli and his wife Alicia Gironelli, Lula Bertán, Sonia Corcuera, Luis Vargas, Maria Dolores Torres Yzabal, Lila Lomelí, Victor Nava, Janet Long, Silvia Kurczyn, Graciela Flores, Margarita Carrillo, etc.

So who are these people? These are people whose first second language is as likely to be fluent French as English, who have a parent or grandparent from Catalonia, Poland, England, France or Italy, who grew up eating a Mexican version of French or Spanish food. ("What you must understand, Rachel, is that we never ate Mexican food at home," said one, a staement that actually needs some teasing out). They are part and parcel of the rest of the Mexican establishment. To get some sense of this, imagine if in the US, the director of the National Endowment for the Arts, a few Harvard faculty, a fifth-generation Rockefeller, the wife of Alan Greenspan, and assorted poets and novelists were all involved in researching, cooking, and promoting American food. I know the mind boggles, but that’s the way it is in Mexico City.

Given their international connections, it is not surprising that this is the group that represents Mexican food internationally. They are the people who sit on Slow Food Committees, try to find chefs for “internal” Mexican restaurants in the US, shepherd around and/or cook for a lot of the visiting tours from the US, in many cases provide contacts for US cookbook writers, go to IACP conventions, sit on Premios de Gourmand committees, and are promoting Mexican food as a UNESCO Patrimonio de la Humanidad.

Ironically, they have probably had much less impact on the Mexican provinces, except perhaps Puebla which is reachable in a day trip from MC. Given that essentially no newspaper food pages reach the provinces, that there are no nationally distributed Mexican culinary magazines with a half life of more than a year or so, no major chains of bookstores, much of their impact is at present restricted to Mexico City.

But what an impact!

This group has done an amazing job promoting Mexican cuisine. Among their accomplishments:

• a series of stunning (and often stunningly expensive) Mexican cookbooks, many or most of them unavailable in English

• opening of high end Mexican restaurants (traditionally high end Mexican food was found in clubs, corporate dining rooms, or homes)

• the investigation and publication of scholarly studies of middle class and “popular” Mexican food across Mexico

• scholarly culinary histories and anthropologies at a world class level

• excellent glossy illustrated culinary histories, studies of individual foodstuffs, foreign influences on Mexican cooking written in understandable ways at affordable prices for a more general audience

• incorporation of a serious culinary component in the Mexico City Festival and lots of other public events

• reprints of classic Mexican cookbooks and manuscript cookbooks at affordable prices

• cooperation between high end restaurant and university academics to offer hands on training in Mexico’s culinary heritage

• support and training for mayoras (traditional female cooks in Mexican restaurants)

There’s a whole lot more that could be said but this is already a ridiculously long posting,

Rachel

[rancho_gordo]

As the soul singer Millie Jackson says to one of her lovers in one of her songs: If you stops now I'll kill 'ya!.

Keep this post going. It's fascinating!!!!!

[esperanza]

Rachel, this is a marvelous topic and one that is very little discussed. People so frequently ask me where they can find a "really good Mexican restaurant" here where I live. The truth is, a really good Mexican restaurant is tough to find, even here in Mexico. Most exquisite Mexican food is cooked at home, but it's not of the alta cocina class.

I usually ask foreigners visiting Mexico to think about what they want to eat when they dine out wherever they live in the United States. The almost inevitable answer is "something we don't cook at home"--fine Italian, fine French, Asian, etc.

Your analysis of the upper echelons of Mexican society hits the mark exactly. Yes, los Sres. Cremita might grab an antojito here or there, but they're much more likely to want sushi made of fish flown in this morning from Japan or a beautifully prepared French meal than a plate of churipo or birria. Even a meal such as the one I described at Izote is suspect, at least until someone insists that it's truly worth trying ('No, honestamente, de veras, vamos--vale la pena, te va a gustar.')

I tried with all my might to find a way to get into the event at the Museo on Monday night--I even asked about it at Izote--but to no avail. I was pleased but a little irritated to read about it in La Jornada on Wednesday morning as I was leaving the city. I had so wanted to be there.

Please give us more of your thoughts!

Edited October 10, 2004 by esperanza (log)

[shelora]

The fabulous cookbooks of Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless are invaluable resources to cooking great Mexican food with authentic ingredients. These books have given me years of culinary satisifaction.

I have eaten my way through Mexico for the past 12 years or so and taken cooking classes along the way, bought food and eaten in markets, asked a lot of questions, attended Mexican food conferences in Oaxaca and at the CIA in California.

I am very serious about learning more and more about this incredible cuisine BUT why isn't there any one place to go to seriously study this?

Okay, there are, or were boot camps set up with Diana Kennedy once a year, but this are high priced affairs for a struggling food writer/cook. One can take simple day cooking classes in a lot of places in Mexico, but don't you think there should or could be a centre of study in a place such as Mexico City?

There are no known culinary scholarships to study Mexican cuisine is such a way. For an outsider that is. That is very sad, for a cuisine that has so much to offer. And one I desire to learn more about.

I personally love the idea that I can go to D.F. and have wonderful French, Lebanese and Mexican food and we should be extolling the virtues and accomplishments of the people you have mentioned in the first post.

I think the reason that people always ask where can they can go for really good Mexican food is that we can't get it here in Canada or America.

Okay, Fonda San Miguel, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo excluded and the now closed Cafe Azul.

That's it for now.

Shelora

[joiei]

maybe it is time for someplace like the CIA to consider going beyonds the borders of the United States and look at opening schools in places they read about. ??

[theabroma]

maybe it is time for someplace like the CIA to consider going beyonds the borders of the United States and look at opening schools in places they read about.  ??

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Ay! Que no, mi amor! Bite your tongue! All the teachers we need are already in Mexico, with the knowledge gushing out of their fingers in a torrent.

The historians, gastronomers, writers, researchers, yes. There are some very good ones this that group enumerated by Caroline.

We desperately need people to write about, often as documentarians, what goes on food wise in that country. We need, perhaps, even more Kennedys and Baylesses - the person who finds their beshert or besheret in the cuisines of Mexico, and who writes about it. The non-Mexican outside observer/participant can be, in some cases, more valuable than the native one: they notice things that perhaps are so common to the native, that they slip past notice more easily - and the reverse applies as well to people studying any cuisine outside the one they grew up on.

As for the CIA, it is difficult to imagine that they could suck it up and go in to learn. Besides there are Cordon Bleu affiliates already in Mx. ... as well as some excellent culinary schools. The big culinary academies have, well, at least since DK's second book, had the opportunity to go to be introduced and to learn. Some of those writers publish in English. So there is an increasing amount of "real" and "authentic" information available for those who wish to begin to learn. There is also a whole nation, at our doorstep. Let's just go there, go to the market, and start talking to the market lady. Watch here work. Put aside the fear, and begin to learn.

In retrospect, I managed to arrange a two day intensive cooking seminar for myself in Ixtlahuaco, Hidalgo, where I was stranded a couple of days last year waiting to see if my ripped open oil pan could be welded shut. I drove out of that little place in the cloudforest with more recipes, information, and training than you could possibly imagine. I know that because even now I am just realizing what Frederica taught me.

NO, they need to be teaching us, not us, them.

Regards,

Theabroma

Edited October 10, 2004 by theabroma (log)

[caroline]

Hey, thanks all for responding so positively to a dry disquistition on the Mexican culinary establishment. I want to respond properly to all of your points, partly selfishly because this is such a fine opportunity to sort out my own thoughts on Mexican food with such a knowledgeable group. I'm furiously jotting down notes on who owns, cooks in and eats in restaurants, fine home cooking, servants, and how culinary knowhow moves between classes and regions in Mexico. More shortly,

Rachel

[docsconz]

Any thing more on this?

[kalypso]

I'm going to add a big "me too" to this list. I like the traditional food of Mexico, but a recent trip really opened me up to contemporary Mexican and got me thinking about things, some of which were raised earlier in this thread. I would be very interested in more discussion.

To Shelora - You bemoaned the lack of a CIA-style cooking school in D.F. That does, indeed exist. El Centro Culinario is remarkably similar to to the CIA. I toured and ate at their facility in November and it reminded me an awful lot of CIA-Greystone in Napa. The Exec. Chef (Sergio) is fairly young (late 30s/early 40s?) and is a veteran of El Bulli and Le Cirque in NYC.

The schools' whole approach is beyond the strict parameters of traditional Mexican and is an attempt to integrate the vast array of influences that have shaped eating in Mexico. An exciting concept and well executed in the terrific meal I had at Alquimika, the resto operated by El Centro Culinario. I picked up a brouchure for the school and spent some time talking to Sergio while I was there and asked specifically if it would be possible to do a stage with them. Yes, you can and they'll work with you on the length. A reasonable level of language skill would be necessary. If you're interested PM me and I'll give you the contact information.

[salomonrobyn]

Tell us more about Alquimika. Where is it?

I'm going to add a big "me too" to this list.  I like the traditional food of Mexico, but a recent trip really opened me up to contemporary Mexican and got me thinking about things, some of which were raised earlier in this thread. I would be very interested in more discussion.

To Shelora - You bemoaned the lack of a CIA-style cooking school in D.F.  That does, indeed exist.  El Centro Culinario is remarkably similar to to the CIA.  I toured and ate at their facility in November and it reminded me an awful lot of CIA-Greystone in Napa.  The Exec. Chef (Sergio) is fairly young (late 30s/early 40s?) and is a veteran of El Bulli and Le Cirque in NYC.

The schools' whole approach is beyond the strict parameters of traditional Mexican and is an attempt to integrate the vast array of influences that have shaped eating in Mexico. An exciting concept and well executed in the terrific meal I had at Alquimika, the resto operated by El Centro Culinario.  I picked up a brouchure for the school and spent some time talking to Sergio while I was there and asked specifically if it would be possible to do a stage with them.  Yes, you can and they'll work with you on the length.  A reasonable level of language skill would be necessary.  If you're interested PM me and I'll give you the contact information.

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[kalypso]

Tell us more about Alquimika. Where is it?

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Well, the first thing I should tell you is that I shouldn't try to think in English and spell in Spanish while multi-tasking. It's actually Alkimia, not Alquimika.

The address is:

Av. San Jeronimo 243

Col. Jardines del Pedregal

The food is upscale, contemporary Mexican seasonal cooking. It is affiliated with El Centrol Culinario; similar to how The Wine Spectator Restaurant is affiliated with CIA - Greystone. The restaurant is large, open, airy with some vast expanses of glass, grass and water. I found the room extremely comfortable and relaxing. It made me totally forget there were 20 million people just outside the door.

Alkimia bills itself as a "Cocina Mexicana Restaurante - Escuela" - and -

"La Alkimia de las recetas se hace fundamental en un espacio de fantasias eroticas. Un mundo de texturas y de sutiles transformaciones"

Erotic fantasies? Possibly. I know that almost everything I ate there seduced my palate if nothing else. The foie gras soup that arrived with a large noisette of espuma de foie piped into the bottom of a wide soup plate was certainly luxurious once rich beef consume was added. The swordfish ceviche with it's whimsical presentation was as much fun to eat as it was to look at. I'll admit the Tartar de Atun made me swoon. The brandy snifter filled with chocolate mousse bore a striking resemblence to Medusa's head with all the minature churros sticking out of it. It was food and a meal that engaged the senses and made you really take notice of what you were eating, what it looked like, what it tasted like, how it was presented.

The starters included the aforementioned tuna tartar and swordfish ceviche as well as a nopal blue corn sope and something else I have completely forgotten. Sopa secas included the foie gras soup, a stellar rendition of tortilla soup, a black bean risotto with shrimp and another forgotten dish. Entrees included a seared tuna, venison, duck, pheasant and beef steak. Desserts were light and mostly fruit based. The ingredients may be traditional to the Mexican table, but the resulting dishes and presentations are anything but traditional.

The kitchen cooks seasonally, so what I had in November is most likely not on the menu, or some of the component parts have morphed into something else. Everything we had was extremely well done, but I'd have to say the best dishes were the ones of seafood and game. The breads and rolls produced in house and served throughout the meal were wonderful. 5 months later I can recall most of what I ate, that should be a pretty good indicator of the impression the meal made on me

El Centro Culinario also puts out a food mag called Restaurantes Gastronomia y Vino, which can be purchased at Alkimia and usually includes some of their recipes. Because they are an educational operation, their philosophy is to share everything with everybody in an attempt to educate their community.

Edited March 2, 2006 by kalypso (log)

[shelora]

I'm going to add a big "me too" to this list.  I like the traditional food of Mexico, but a recent trip really opened me up to contemporary Mexican and got me thinking about things, some of which were raised earlier in this thread. I would be very interested in more discussion.

To Shelora - You bemoaned the lack of a CIA-style cooking school in D.F.  That does, indeed exist.  El Centro Culinario is remarkably similar to to the CIA.  I toured and ate at their facility in November and it reminded me an awful lot of CIA-Greystone in Napa.  The Exec. Chef (Sergio) is fairly young (late 30s/early 40s?) and is a veteran of El Bulli and Le Cirque in NYC.

The schools' whole approach is beyond the strict parameters of traditional Mexican and is an attempt to integrate the vast array of influences that have shaped eating in Mexico. An exciting concept and well executed in the terrific meal I had at Alquimika, the resto operated by El Centro Culinario.  I picked up a brouchure for the school and spent some time talking to Sergio while I was there and asked specifically if it would be possible to do a stage with them.  Yes, you can and they'll work with you on the length.  A reasonable level of language skill would be necessary.  If you're interested PM me and I'll give you the contact information.

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Hi there,

Great sleuthing. Do you understand what their connection to unilever would be? I tend to get my back up when I see a corporate sponsor like that. Check it out here.

El Centro Culinario

The chef's recipes using Knorr flavour packets is just a tad alarming. Having not eaten at Alkimia (Spanish for alchemy) I really can't pass judgement. It sounds like you had a great meal, the menu sounds fantastic, but do you think those Knorr mixes might have found their way into your meal? While you were touring the kitchen, did you notice any aberrations in the dry storage?

Edited March 2, 2006 by shelora (log)

[docsconz]

Not to defend it, but this type of culinary school sponsorship deal is fairly common. I do believe that CIA is engaged in a number of them. In fact, the trip I am getting ready to go on is in part sponsored by Viking Range. They sponsor the CIA's World of Flavor Program amongst other things.

[shelora]

Not to defend it, but this type of culinary school sponsorship deal is fairly common. I do believe that CIA is engaged in a number of them. In fact, the trip I am getting ready to go on is in part sponsored by Viking Range. They sponsor the CIA's World of Flavor Program amongst other things.

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I guess it's all about who you can stand as bed mates. I'd much rather take a roll in the hay with a Viking!

Edited March 2, 2006 by shelora (log)

[docsconz]

Not to defend it, but this type of culinary school sponsorship deal is fairly common. I do believe that CIA is engaged in a number of them. In fact, the trip I am getting ready to go on is in part sponsored by Viking Range. They sponsor the CIA's World of Flavor Program amongst other things.

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I guess it's all about who you can stand as bed mates. I'd much rather take a roll in the hay with a Viking!

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I don't know about that, but I certainly would rather have a Viking in my kitchen