Interviews

Instagrammers I love: Mexican Food Porn

October 11, 2013 by Lesley Tellez

Tacos Leo in Los Angeles. Photo by Mexican Food Porn.

Mexican Food Porn’s photos make me ache for Mexico City.

His images — shared both on Tumblr and his Instagram account — capture Mexican food’s rich colors and layers, and sometimes its chaos. Chilaquiles bask in a messy lagoon of cream; a shrimp taco with a harsh sheen of cheese shines a little too brightly under white lights. (Haven’t we all eaten that shrimp taco, maybe a little too late at night?)

The owner of the account is a 27-year-old Mexico City resident, who spent five years living in California’s Bay Area. He was born in Monterrey, Mexico.

MFP agreed to answer some questions for me via email, but he said he preferred to remain anonymous, as he’s actively pursuing other interests unrelated to photography and food.

Here’s more from him. (Disclaimer: he sometimes uses stronger language than I generally do on this site.)

Q: Why Mexican food and not some other kind of food?

Tacos Guisados in Mexico City. Photo by Mexican Food Porn.

Ask any Mexican who leaves the country for any period of time, what do you miss the most? Politics? Traffic? No… people miss their food. The blog was formed in San Francisco, basically because of my nostalgia for Mexican food and culture. During my five years in SF, I noticed that while the Bay Area has some decent Mexican food spots, I was always longing for more authentic stuff.

While exploring, I realized that Mexican food, or any food really, is marked by geography and culture. A taco in L.A. is way different from the ones in S.F. A burrito in SF is way different than in San Diego. The possibilities are endless, and I tried to embrace everything. One of my favorite burritos? Señor Sisig California burrito. A fusion between Filipino and Mexican/Californian, stuffed with French fries. Is it “authentic”? Nope, but who cares? It’s a niche on its own.

Also, Mexicans tend to “Mexicanize” anything in their way, especially food. Go to a Japanese restaurant in Mexico and it’s not uncommon to see bits of jalapeño in your soy sauce. Hot dogs? Wrap them in bacon and top them with grilled onions and serrano peppers. Fettuccine with creamy chipotle… so what is truly Mexican cuisine?

Fettuccine with creamy chipotle sauce. Photo by Mexican Food Porn.

Finally, more than Mexican food I want to emphasize one of life’s greatest pleasures: sitting down, ordering drinks and enjoying a meal with loved ones. Doesn’t matter if it’s Chinese, high-end Indian or drunk greasy tacos at 4 a.m.

Q: What was the best thing you ate recently?

A barbacoa taco with avocado cream, from Pujol, Mexico City. Photo by Mexican Food Porn.

Pujol in Mexico City. I went for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it was simply amazing. The food, the decor, the concepts. It was a great experience. From that entire meal, the barbacoa taco with a tortilla made with poblano peppers and the Mole Madre were fucking unreal. I forgot I was sitting in a fine dining establishment. Enrique Olvera is redefining our cuisine in amazing ways.

Another amazing spot? La Panga del Impostor in Guadalajara, a little informal hip seafood joint run by Chef Antonio de Livier and restaurateur Javier Rodriguez. Everything in the menu is jaw-droppingly good. You happen to be in Guadalajara and have a near-death hangover? Go there.

A scallop, octopus and shrimp tostada from La Panga de Guadalajara. Photo by Mexican Food Porn.

A scallop, octopus and shrimp tostada from La Panga del Impostor.

Q: You’re stranded on a desert island and can only take 3 antojitos. What are they?
This is a cruel question. Only 3?

– Guacamole with pork cracklings to scoop
– Tacos de carnitas
– Tortas – Cemitas

It’s interesting, because seafood isn’t considered to be in the antojitos realm, but I think they totally should. And since I am in a deserted island:

-Aguachile
-Coctél Vuelve a la Vida
-Oysters. Oysters and more oysters.

Extra points:
-Mezcal, tequila and ice cold beer. (Better be hydrated.)

Q: Do you cook?
I try to as much as I can. I tend not to measure things, I just throw things around, scoop with my finger to taste. For me cooking has been lately some sort of laboratory-style therapy. Chopping things, letting things simmer, smells… just simply engaging all the senses and testing. It’s pretty relaxing. That said, I don’t think I would last 3 minutes as a line cook, but I can feed a small group of people.

Mexican Food Porn’s homemade tomatillo salsa.

Q: Have you found any Mexican food dishes particularly hard to photograph?
Not really. As of now most of the food pictures I take are with my iPhone. I guess the challenging part is to have a good angle and right lighting. At times it’s hard to just whip out the phone and take pictures. You know, just holding your plate of tacos, or at a restaurant. Moving around the plate and other eaters. I’m getting better dealing with the “what the fuck are you doing?” looks.

Q: Chile de árbol or habanero?
Lately I have been eating a lot of habanero. But how can you say no to chile de árbol?

Chef Roberto Santibañez on grapes and his new Brooklyn restaurant

August 26, 2013 by Lesley Tellez

Chef Roberto Santibañez

When people ask me for my favorite Mexican restaurants in New York City, Fonda is typically high on my list.

The restaurant’s two locations (in Park Slope and the East Village) are comfortable and cozy, and the menu sticks closely to Central Mexican classics, with some New York flair. I’ve tried and loved Fonda’s cochinita pibil and the braised duck tacos with tomato-habanero cream sauce; the tlacoyo with spring-pea spread and mushrooms is currently on my must-try list.

Chef Roberto Santibañez, who grew up in Mexico City, opens a new restaurant in Brooklyn this fall, after spending the previous few years writing Mexican cookbooks.

Santibañez recently paired up with the California Table Grape Commission on a promotional campaign. I snagged a few minutes with him last week to talk about both grapes and his new place. Here are a few excerpts from our conversation.

What’s so exciting about grapes, anyway?
I think they’re incredibly versatile and useful. I use them a lot, too, in our cooking. They add texture. To me a grape is a very balanced ingredient all in itself, even if it’s a little tart, it’s a great thing to eat. I love them. And you can use them in guacamole and they give crunch and texture. You can cook with them, too. You can make a sauce and cook the grapes in it and it’ll be delicious. And you can roast them.

Grapes aren’t traditionally used in Mexican cooking, though, correct?
It’s an ingredient we always eat, but it’s not something that’s used a lot in cooking, except when it comes to guacamole. They do add grapes to guacamole in the state of Guanajuato. They add grapes, peaches, pomegranate.

Can we go back to the roasting grapes idea? That sounded really interesting.
You can make a salsa with grapes. You can roast grapes and grind them up with garlic and chile de árbol or a chipotle. And if you think of that fruit with everything it provides to the dish, it’s the same as a tomatillo or tomato. It’s actually providing fruit, tartness and sweetness.

You’re opening a new restaurant in Brooklyn, selling Mexican tapas. What is that?
It’s botanas. We’re going to do small plates to share. We’re going to have breads, jamones, chorizos, morcilla. Aceitunas and all that stuff. And there’s going to be great red wines, great aiolis, dips. It’s going to be very worldly, not necessarily focused on Mexico.

Any plans to write another cookbook?
I do. I just wanted to purposely take a little bit of time off, because as you know, right after publishing Rosa’s New Mexican Table, I immediately got into Truly Mexican, and then immediately into Tacos, Tortas and Tamales. I was just sort of taken back a little bit and thought I needed to focus on what’s really bringing me home. It’s our business. Books are fantastic for exposure and they give you an incredible amount of professional satisfaction. But they don’t necessarily make a lot of money. So I needed to regroup with myself and wait a little bit. But there’s a very nice project that I have in the back burner, about Mexico City.

You’ve been in the restaurant industry for awhile now, particularly in New York. What’s one thing you’ve noticed about Mexican food now that’s different when you arrived?
It’s become more and more available. But the wonderful thing about it is not just that it’s become availble in one kind — it’s become available at the super higher-end, lower-level, mid-level. It’s no longer that Mexican food in New York had only a few either very high-end or low-end establishments. Now you have a gamut of them. You can see all sorts of shades and textures, and that’s a wonderful thing.

I have to say, I’m intrigued by this idea of using grapes as tomatoes. I guess I’ll just them on the comal and hope they don’t explode?
Yes. Or put them on the toaster oven, like you would with grape tomatoes, if you’re going to make a salsa. It’s delicious.

Coming next: Roberto Santibañez’s recipe for grape guacamole.

Pati Jinich on Mexico City, her new cookbook and love for her native cuisine

May 28, 2013 by Lesley Tellez

Photo by Michael Ventura

Pati Jinich, a Mexican chef with a television show on PBS, almost spent her career as a Latin American policy analyst. (Which is crazy, because she’s excellent on TV: warm, charismatic, approachable.)

Then, about eight years ago, while working for a Washington D.C. think tank and researching a paper on Peru’s Sendero Luminoso, she found her mind wandering to ceviches. She told herself: “This is nuts.”

She quit her job and entered L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where she earned a degree in Intensive Culinary Skills. In March, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published her first cookbook, Pati’s Mexican Table, which carries the same name as her television show.

The book combines personal stories from Jinich’s life — growing up in Mexico City, living as a newlywed in Dallas, and later, putting food on the table for her husband and three boys in Washington D.C. — with the nuts-and-bolts of Mexican cuisine.

She describes the flavors of common dried and fresh chiles, and emphasizes that not all Mexican food is spicy. The cookbook also includes lesser-known recipes from classic Mexico City restaurants, such as Bellinghausen and El Bajio.

Pati and I have followed each other on Twitter for years, and we recently got a chance to meet in person. Over coffee in Chelsea, she told me why she wanted to do a cookbook, what jumpstarted her love for Mexican cuisine, and where she likes to eat when she’s home.

Here’s an excerpt from our conversation, which I’ve edited for length and clarity.
…

Carlos Yescas on the myths about Mexican cheese

May 24, 2012 by Lesley Tellez

I first I met Carlos Yescas last year, during a beer and Mexican cheese tasting at a deli in Polanco. He led the cheese portion and he was excellent: he talked about lesser-known Mexican cheeses with a passion of a guy who’d made them himself. The event was organized through his company Lactography, which supplies artisan Mexican cheeses to restaurants in Mexico City. Yescas runs the company with his sister, Georgina Yescas A. Trujano.

Lactography hosts three tastings this weekend: one tonight with Mexican microbrews at Culinaria Mexicana, and one Saturday and Sunday with mezcal at Salón Obregón, part of the Corredor Cultural Roma-Condesa.

When he’s not teaching classes about Mexican cheese or working with Lactography, Yescas is finishing a doctorate in politics in New York. I met up with him there a few months ago and he graciously answered a few questions over coffee. Here’s more on him.

Q: What does Lactography do?
A: We monger cheese knowledge. That means that we are trying to educate producers, retailers, and consumers about artisan cheese. Our goal is to ensure that people have access to better cheese, produced with quality milk and with the care and craftsmanship of great makers. For that, we train retailers to take better care of cheese, but also we go back to producers, especially in Mexico, to help them produce better quality cheese. However, the most important part of our mission is to expose the consumer to better products, explain the provenance of cheese and the care that its makers put into it. We strive to help producers maintain their livelihoods, while bringing better products to the market.

2. When we met in New York, I asked you what were the most common myths about Mexican cheese. You replied, “In Mexico or the U.S.?”, and I didn’t realize until that moment that of course both countries carry their own distinct stereotypes. Can you share with me some of the most common misconceptions about Mexican cheese in the United States?

Queso de Bola de Ocosingo, one of the cheeses Lactography sells. This one is made by Laltic in Chiapas, by cheesemaker Charito Lopez Bassoul.

Myth #1 Mexican cheese is low-quality.

Myth #2 Mexican cheese is only good for cooking. Cheese in Mexico is a very common snack. Most times people will get it in a “botana,” along some nuts, or even fruit. For example, it is normal to get some quesillo (otherwise known as queso de hebra de Oaxaca) with a shot of mezcal. Also it is common for people in the center of the country to get fresh cheese, with avocados, nopales and habas as little side dishes to complement a meal.

Myth #3: All Mexican cheese is made from cow’s milk. Mexican goat cheese has been around for about 30 years now, it is mostly produced in Guanajuato, Queretaro, and some in Michoacan. The same goes for sheep, which is now produced in Queretaro and Hidalgo. Most of the cheeses of these milks are made into Spanish style cheeses, but little by little new formats appear.

Queso de cincho, an aged cheese made by Quesos Coita in Chiapas, cheesemakers José Trejo and Rúben Leon Rodriguez.

Myth #4: Not all cheeses are young.

Q: Last, where can people find Lactography cheeses in Mexico City?
A: All our cheeses are in Dumas Gourmet in Polanco (Alejandro Dumas No. 125), you can also buy them directly from my sister. She can be contacted at: 04455-3677-9868 or at preguntas@lactography.com — we do a lot of direct sales. We will have an online store by the end of July and people can also enjoy some of the cheeses at restaurants in Mexico City, including, Eno on Petrarca, Sud 777, Dulce Patria, Salon Obregon, and we are adding two more restaurants in the coming months, but can’t still share that info.

Reserve your spot at the Culinaria Mexicana tasting tonight here, or check out the menu for the Lactography cheese tasting at Salón Obregón this weekend. To reserve a spot at the latter, email preguntas@lactography.com.

Mark Bittman on Mexican food

May 10, 2012 by Lesley Tellez

Photo by Sally Stein

Mark Bittman, the New York Times columnist and cookbook author, is probably best-known for teaching people how to cook simply. His How To Cook Everything books have more than a million copies in print. He’s also fan of Mexico: Bittman has written about Mexico City woman chefs and the Condesa tianguis, and his columns occasionally include Mexican or Mexican-inspired recipes like tlayudas and Mexican chocolate tofu pudding. (The latter is insanely good with churros.)

Last week Bittman was among three American speakers invited to Puebla’s International Mole Festival. I snagged five minutes of his time, where he explained more about his love of Mexico.

Q: When did you first start traveling to Mexico?
A: I don’t know, 30 years ago. But seriously, really seriously, it’s been five years. In the past five years it’s become a priority.

Q: Why?
A: It should’ve been a priority all along. I saw the error of my ways. Look, you can’t go everywhere. It’s important for me to see as many things as I can see, globally. But my early loves were European and Asian cuisine, and I’d say I was first Eurocentric and then I spent a great deal of time in the late 90s/early 2000s traveling in Asia. I don’t have to apologize for this, but I mistakenly put Mexico not at the top of the list. But it’s worked out fine. It’s still here.

Q: What first captured your attention in Mexico in terms of the food?
A: It’s a really interesting question because the first couple of times I came here, I went to the Yucatán. Without being cruel, I would say that it ’s not — the way Yucatecan cuisine is presented to visitors is not the best. Yucatecan cuisine is spectacular in its soul, but it’s very hard to find that. Very hard to find it. Because Yucatecan cuisine is Mayan cuisine, and what’s sold in most restaurants in the Yucatán is not that. But I only learned that recently.

I think what really attracted me was street markets and street food in Mexico City. I have friends who’ve been kind enough to schlep me around and show me, probably starting eight or ten years ago.

And I have been nowhere. Let me say, I know more about Poblano food than about anything else, and I don’t know anything about a lot of them. So I’m totally a real beginner.

Q: Yeah, I was originally surprised to see your name on the list of speakers. I’d seen in some of your columns that you’d visited Mexico, but I didn’t know you had such an affinity that you’d actually come here to talk in Puebla.
A: Well. I’d go talk in Bhutan where I’ve never been, because an opportunity to talk to a big audience is an opportunity to talk to a big audience. You just get there early enough to not be an idiot about the food. And I have to say I’m not an idiot about Poblano food.

Q: You repeated yourself in your talk, when you mentioned innovation in Mexican food. You said twice that Mexican food does not need to be tinkered with. Why?
A: Because it’s really good. I mean that’s an easy answer. How are you going to make this food better? By adding soy sauce? By adding more cheese? By what? By turning it into pizza? If someone’s going to tell me I’m having a mole poblano pizza, that’s nice, but let’s not have that be a symbol of Puebla. What’s going to make it better? GMO corn and mass-produced masa is not going to make it better.

For further reading, check out Mark Bittman’s “The Minimalist” column in The New York Times or his books on Amazon.

Inside the sweet world of Mexican desserts: A chat with Fany Gerson, author of My Sweet Mexico

October 29, 2010 by Lesley Tellez

When I first moved to Mexico, I was amazed by the multitude of sweets available here. I’d eaten a few Mexican desserts in my life, but this was much more than flan, capirotada and tres leches cake.

A quick trip through my local market revealed syrupy, honeyed figs; waxy-looking crystallized fruit, and candied lime peels bursting with shredded coconut. Traditional candy stores sold delicate, powdery marzipans made from pumpkin seeds and peanuts, and milky fudge-like bars of jamoncillo de leche (they’re pictured above). There were slices of tropical fruit dusted in chile powder, and gummy nuggets of sweet-and-spicy tamarind.

At Dulcería de Celaya — one of my favorite candy stores, because it looks like a time-warp from 1899 — there were rows and rows of treats I’d never seen or heard of before. One candy, a crunchy puff of meringue, became a favorite based almost solely on its name alone: “suspiro,” or sigh.

I wanted to know all about these sweets. Where did they come from? Why are they made with certain ingredients and not others? But it was difficult to find sources, either in English or Spanish. This is why I’m so excited about My Sweet Mexico, a new cookbook of authentic Mexican desserts, beverages and breads, written by Fany Gerson.

The book features recipes for nearly every sweet I’ve seen and gawked at in the markets: the lime wedges stuffed with coconut, the bright jamoncillos, gaznates, muéganos, marzipans. Plus there are gorgeous full-page photographs, and short histories of each group of sweets to start off each chapter. Among the chapters are Dulces de Convento (sweets of the convent), Dulces de Antaño (heirloom sweets), Pan Dulce, Maiz, Postres.

“These recipes are being lost,” says Gerson, whom I was lucky enough to meet in New York recently. “It’s part of a very strong oral tradition. Many people don’t even have written recipes, they’re passed down from grandmother to grandmother. Like many crafts in Mexico, it’s threatened. It’s not just the recipe — it’s the act of eating an artisan sweet.”

Gerson, a Mexico City native, studied at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. She’s worked in the kitchens of Eleven Madison Park and Rosa Mexicano, among others. Right now she makes paletas, aguas frescas and other Mexican treats for her company (and soon-to-be shop in Manhattan), La Newyorkina. You can also find her paletas at La Esquina and Marlow & Daughters in NYC.

Gerson was nice enough to field more questions from me last Sunday, while she sold her homemade aguas frescas at the New Amsterdam Market near South Street Seaport. Here’s more from our conversation.

Also, I plan to make her pan de muerto recipe in the next few days, so look for it soon!
…