Saturday, May 15, 2010

WaHaCa... Signs of the Thames

We met Thomasina Miers over pavo reino blanco at Christamas dinner this past year. James and Alexandra Brown's cook is the woman they met over the road. She has a cocina economica but it has no sign outside and the front door is shut. It's a secret place known only to the neighborhood. The turkey had been delivered live on the 23rd and kept in the garden of James' studio. Thomasina was here in Yucatan and Oaxaca with the chefs from her trendy Mexican eateries in London called Wahaca . It seems she had won a TV cooking competition (Masterchef) some years ago and Alexandra's Mexican brother-in-law had given her a call. My friend Kathleen Baird-Murray had told me about Wahaca when she was here for day of the dead and we were lamenting the fact that there was no good Mexican food in Merida. Now I suspect there will be a hint of habanero drifting down the Thames...

Friday, May 14, 2010

NY Times Food Critic

Mark Bittman came to Merida a couple of years ago and hung out with David Sterling from Los Dos Cooking School. "This much I had gathered before leaving home, and when I met Mr. Sterling it all rang true; the guy is an encyclopedia. The Yucatán, which feels as Caribbean as it does Mexican, is to Mexico as Alsace is to France, as Sicily is to Italy, as Hawaii is to the United States: formally a part of the union, but culturally quite distinct, and with a well-preserved sense of identity. Mr. Sterling and I checked out the offerings of Yucatecan food at most of the many food stalls that open on Sunday mornings in central Mérida. The Spanish influence is expected, the Mayan core of the cuisine intact and welcome: you might be offered, for example, a paper cup of grated fresh corn with chili and lime."

...and he also discovered Ana Sabrina's tacos on a sunday morning in the park Santa Lucia.

Rick Bayless in Yucatan

If anyone can save Yucatecan Cuisine from it's own bad self it's Rick Bayless. Having lived for 6 years without PBS I thought I could live with out it but I guess I'll have to buy the DVD collection for season 5 Interspersed in every show are scenes of Rick making the dishes that he found in the Yucatan or that were inspired by a special ingredient (one show focuses on the spice pastes that are the base of the seasoning of the cuisine). These scenes are shot in Rick’s home kitchen and garden in Chicago. Rick’s clear explanations and the availability of recipes for all the dishes make it easy for viewers to make these dishes at home and experience the flavors of the Yucatan that Rick rhapsodizes about. One of Rick’s favorite shows is the one where he builds a pit in his yard, along with the help of his 15-year old daughter Lanie, to prepare cochinita pibil, the Yucatan’s most famous dish. After being inspired by seeing a cochinita pibil unearthed at a friend’s house near Merida, Rick and Lanie return home, dig a hole in the ground in the yard, line it with bricks, build a fire in it and cook an achiote-marinated pig in it. They invite friends over to witness the unearthing of the pig and then to enjoy it with them at a fabulous party. This show, among all 13 shows that make up the 5th season of the series, clearly exemplifies Rick’s passion for bringing the earthy, gutsy, delicious flavors of the Yucatan into the kitchens of fans of the show in the United States. What will the neighbors think when the people next door dig a pit in their backyard?

The Gay Chicken Syndrome

No really he's just the happy chicken. He is beside himself with joy to be chosen to be grilled and served on a styrofoam plate with a side of bean juice and cabbage salad in individual plastic bags. There will be mushy rice and habanera salsa on the side. There may or may not be a place to sit and for sure there will not be enough napkins. I never order chicken in a restaurant but grilled chicken is one of the absolute best things you can find in any village or neighborhood of Merida. Just look for a dusty road and you'll find a delicious purveyor of Grilled Chicken. Great for a picnic.

Food&Wine Magazine

Melissa Clark tours the Yucatan one panucho at time with Patricia Quintana in tow. The eat in the Market and at hacienda Xcanatun. So should you.

"Quintana, the chef and co-owner of Izote, one of the hottest restaurants in Mexico City, is passionate about tracing Mexican cuisine back to its pre-Columbian roots. She's especially fascinated by the Yucatán, where she's made dozens of trips over the past quarter century to research her 14 cookbooks. Yucatán cuisine is distinctive partly because the region was geographically isolated from the rest of the country for centuries, Quintana explains as we head toward the market in the capital of Mérida, on the northwestern side of the peninsula. Our driver speeds along the Paseo de Montejo—a broad avenue lined with faded colonial mansions in varying states of restoration. This part of Mérida, just outside the center of the city, is architecturally reminiscent of Havana: The Yucatán peninsula juts into the Caribbean Sea, so Mérida is actually closer to Cuba than it is to Mexico City.

The Spanish influences on the cuisine are strong—the conquistadors arrived in the 16th century—but so are those of the Mayans, whom the Spanish were never quite able to obliterate, despite their bloody efforts. Northern Europeans have left their legacy too, particularly the Dutch: Holland was an active trading partner in the 19th century, when Mérida was the center for the production of henequen, a fiber traditionally used for making rope.

"The corn, the chocolate and the honey, the venison and wild turkey, squash, cucumbers, chiles and tomatoes are from the Mayans," Quintana says. "The pork and Seville oranges come from Spain, and the Edam cheese from the Dutch."

Edam? It sounds strange, but as we enter the dim, narrow lanes of the huge covered market, I see balls of Edam and Gouda everywhere, piled into pyramids next to dozens of bins of earth-toned recados, the ubiquitous herb-and-spice pastes. Quintana stops in front of the tubs of recados. "Each one of these is for a different dish, and people buy a few cents' worth to use that day," she says."

SF Gate almost visits the Yucatan

"When people think of Mexican food, they certainly don't think of the Yucatan," said Jacqueline Higuera McMahan, who writes The Chronicle's South to North column. "It's one of my favorite areas, but one that, up to this point, has been sort of neglected."

Facing the Gulf of Mexico at the country's slender southern tip, the Yucatan Peninsula includes the states of Yucatan, Campeche and Quintana Roo. Separated from the rest of Mexico by mountains and jungle, its people were isolated until modern times and looked to the Caribbean, and beyond to Europe, for trading partners.

From their contact with Cuba, Yucatecans developed a taste for black beans, fiery habanero chiles (related to the Caribbean Scotch bonnet), and garlicky meat marinades made with the sour juice of the Seville orange. The Spaniards introduced saffron and olives; Lebanese spice traders brought kibbe; and the Dutch left behind Edam cheese, which Yucatecans stuff with ground pork, olives and raisins and bake until soft.

The Mayans, the peninsula's indigenous people, contributed the technique of cooking meat in a closed pit lined with river stones and banana leaves. Cochinita pibil, the pit-roasted pork that is perhaps the Yucatan's signature dish, derives its name from the Mayan word "pib," for pit.

Yucatan Chocolate Museum

Plantacion Tikul the new Eco Museo de Cacao opened this summer in the Ruta Puuc area between the Mayan ruins of Xlapac & Labna. This is the fourth Cacao museum produced by Eddy Van Belle after Prague, Bruges and Paris. The Yucatan museum is in the middle of a plantation of cacao trees that will eventually number 100,000 and is a collaboration with Ki Xocolatl & Matheu Brees.

The tour is divided into traditional homes where you will learn the history of cocoa an Mayan culture, cultivation and the process used in making chocolate. The gardens will surprise you with their ample selection of orchids, a place to discover the native flora and fauna. You will treated to a traditional Mayan drink, prepared fresh using organic cocoa and spices. And as the day comes to a close you can enjoy a comfortable view of the cocoa plantation from the terrace of a modern cafeteria that offers its services in the Ecomuseo del Cacao.


The museum is open daily from 9 to 6 except Christmas & New Year. At the end of the leisurely museum tour there's a great gift shop and cafe for panini and chocolate in the jungle.

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