A falta de pan, tortillas!
Just a quick post today as a prelude to a more detailed one on some of the best writings on Mexican food and food culture, something I have been meaning to do for some time now.
I've been engrossed in 'Turnip Greens and Tortillas: a Mexican chef spices up the southern kitchen' by Eddie Hernandez and Susan Puckett which was recently published in the USA. Hernandez describes himself a born-again southern boy, originally from Monterrey in Mexico (which is a city I have visited often). His family did not own a camera during his boyhood so food and cooking is how he triggers memories of the past. The food he knew all those years ago was defined by climate and geography, a lack of garden space (which meant daily trips to the market was a necessity), no electric refrigeration or access to the appliances that we -and he- now have close to hand. It would be so easy to romanticise this life (fresh, locally-grown ingredients, the colour and bustle of a healthy and well-patronised local food economy) but I still remember how hard the families living close to us in Saltillo, northern Mexico, worked to produce the beautiful foods we bought, cooked and ate. Chickens had to be fed, watered and protected from predators and the hot sun. (We were actually given live chicks at Easter at school and were expected to rear them as carefully as our parents reared us.) Water had to be collected or carefully metered out; crops were carefully chosen to best suit their growing conditions. Here, we can bung some vegetable seeds in and be fairly confident that they will grow, irrespective of our benign neglect. This happens not so much where the weather and its impact on the topography can take out half a year's work in two minutes flat.
Hernandez is a playful, resourceful and sensible chef whose restaurant, Taqueria Del Sol is in Georgia. He says he is not 'food correct' but instead draws upon the history of his Mexican culture which is one of adaption and accommodation through necessity. It has been forged through waves of conquerors, occupiers and explorers, and the interplay between the country and its close neighbour, the USA. We're used to eating Tex- Mex food (and more on the kinds of books that showcase this in my next letter) but what Hernandez does is meld the cuisines of the American Deep South where he lives and cooks, with that of his homeland.
Don't worry that this has resulted in a book which is inaccessible, ingredient and technique-wise to the average (British) reader. I don't think it is although I appreciate I come from a position of having cooked Mexican food since I was a kid. There's plenty of hand-holding though and I hope the spirit of adventure will encourage you to switch out and swap with confidence what is good, locally, for you.
What I really want to emphasise is how much his recipes make my mouth water and this doesn't always happen with cookbooks, even the ones I adore and know intuitively that I will enjoy every meal I cook from them. There's something so engaging about this book, I can imagine Hernandez smiling as he tested his recipes. I mean, just imagine these: tomatoes and pickled pork skin tostadas; Cubano tacos and tacos filled with Nashville hot chicken or NOLA-style fried oysters.There's a pork, peanut and black bean chili; a soup named after the Tacquiera Del Sol's dishwasher whose recipe, a cold seafood soup has become one of Hernandez's restaurant classics. The chicken and green chile pot pies served in giant, puffy tortilla shells are epic whilst recipes for Tabasco cream gravy. a green chile horseradish sauce and a Mexican maque-choux; some aromatic pickled jalapenos with carrots and onions; a comforting green pea salad with roasted chiles and red onions, and green peach salad with a simple lime dressing are actually driving me half-demented with hunger as I type. And that's before I've even got into the pudding section with its natilla (a creamy, cinnamon-scented confection), chocolate chimichangas with tequila cream sauce and ancho chile pralines.
Turnip Greens and Tortillas is fun and I think we all need more of this, amid all the food- earnestness and angst and worrying about whether our microbiome has been murdered by the last thing we ate.
More on Eddie Hernandez here
And watch his Vimeo on cooking turnip greens with arbol here