Mexico's top chefs to cook for MAP

BY MARIA GALLUCCI
The News
March 12, 2010

Open-faced torta sandwiches filled with spicy chorizo. Marinated jalapeno peppers stuffed with fiery shredded chicken. Veracruz-style vegetables smothered in a bold mole verde sauce. Oaxacan chocolate cake covered in cajeta.

Hungry yet ?

Mexican cuisine for centuries has been defined by a widespread regional diversity that offers richly flavored and heavily spiced dishes. The national gastronomy has evolved over the past 10,000 years from the basic “masa,” or corn dough, into the thousands of plates and meals that define the country’s cooking today.

At the Museum of Popular Art (MAP) in Mexico City, 10 of the nation’s most celebrated chefs will dish up a buffet of secret family recipes and traditional favorites as part of a fundraiser hosted by the civil group “Friends of the Museum of Popular Art (AAMAP) to support the cultural institution. The event, which takes place Monday, March 22 at 1 p.m., is titled in English, “Gastronomy in the History of Mexico: Dishes from the Era of Independence and the Revolution.”

Chef and food historian José N. Inturriaga explained that following the conquest of Mexico by Spain in 1521, a gastronomic amalgamation began as a pre-Hispanic and indigenous heritage blended with new ingredients and techniques from the Spaniards. He said the process peaked by Mexico’s independence in 1810, and that the country had consolidated characteristics that continue to define its cuisine in the 21st century.

“Many of the dishes in our presentation are the culmination of fusions during three centuries of colonial rule in Mexico,” he said, adding that waves of immigration from France, Italy, the Middle East and parts of Asia in the 19th century have also contributed culinary traditions to Mexican cooking.

Mónica Patiño said that the MAP event was in essence a rescuing of this era of “mestizaje,” or mixing. The chef next week will serve up a dish of chicken in a sauce of red and green tomatoes.

“The Spanish might have left, but we can still note the soul of their cuisine in our own,” she said. “Our cuisine continues to be heavily influenced because food is not something dead, it’s not a rock or a pyramid, it’s a living thing that continues creating new generations and adaptations.”

Edgar Núñez concurred, adding that “Gastronomy is not something static; it continues to evolve while always taking from our roots.. I cook with an understanding of what we are, that we are what we eat.” Núñez, head chef at the San Ángel restaurant Sud 777, is expected to serve steamed fish with crust of dusted “chapulín,” or grasshopper, and a sauce of mango pico de gallo with butter of “chicharrón,” or pork rinds.

Chefs cooking up main dishes, soups and entreés include Carmen Ramírez Degollado, Susana Palazuelos, Alicia Gironella de Angelli, Patricia Quintana and Laura B. de Caraza Campos. An ample array of cakes with pineapple, chocolate and “guanábana,” or soursop fruit, will come from chefs Maria Teres Ramírez Degollado and Mexico’s so-called pastry ambassador, Paulina Abascal.