Chefs have undertaken projects to document ancestral gastronomic recipes that are in danger of extinction and protect ingredients such as pejelagarto fish, amashito chili and cocoa that are used in unique dishes.
Specialists tell EFE that they seek to protect the richness of Mexican cuisine, recognized in 2010 as a World Heritage Site, and claim that it is more than tacos, since its cultural diversity is reflected in regional recipes that, in many cases, are in danger of disappear due to the lack of formal registration.
The designation of Mexican food as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO showed how little record there was of traditional regional recipes, explained Luz Alvarado, researcher and editor of gastronomic books.
“There was a lot of enthusiasm (for the appointment), but very little research, many of the chefs already working professionally wanted to provide the world with a different offer, a little more innovative and when they went to their roots they realized that there was not enough information,” he explained.
From this, chefs from multiple regions of Mexico searched for those recipes and ingredients, to document, disseminate and systematize them.
Maru Toledo has been doing gastronomic research in Jalisco, a state in western Mexico, for 23 years with cooks in the municipalities to record their way of preparing dishes, the ingredients, the details that make them unique and the culinary language during practice.
A few years ago he recovered the recipe for ‘turco’, a typical dish from southern Jalisco, thanks to the help of Doña Cruz, a 97-year-old woman who made the recipe, prepared for the last time before the Mexican Revolution of 1910.
“What I offer are the flavors of people from before, it doesn’t matter if I like it or not, because the priority is to know what what the ancestors ate tasted like, why they used it, what they used it for and when they used it.” they ate,” he commented in an interview.
With the publication of thirty books, his objective is to preserve this knowledge so that new generations of chefs have a basis to connect with the roots of Mexican gastronomy.
Lupita Vidal, renowned chef from Tabasco, a southeastern state, has dedicated a decade to traveling through that entity to explore its flavors, ingredients, culinary techniques, and cultural identity.
In his travels he has found ingredients such as garfish, amashito chili and cocoa, as well as wild varieties of parsley, cilantro and oregano that have always been used in local kitchens.
“You find something all the time, they are these stories of resilience and survival in which all Tabasco residents understand each other and how people, despite the difficulties, continue to cook their ingredients, continue to cook these traditions,” he expressed.
This has also favored more sustainable ways of cooking and consuming regional products.
“We have moved far away from our identity and we no longer consume what is ours, part of promoting this is that I feel that cooking is a social act, it is a political act, it is an act of love and it is an act of responsibility,” he indicated.
Chef Nico Mejía has dedicated more than 20 years to gastronomy and 10 to documenting the gastronomic wealth of the state of Colima, southern Jalisco and part of Michoacán, which is linked to the diversity of landscapes and climates, he said in an interview. .
In his visits to communities, Mejía collects the ancestral oral testimony of the inhabitants, in addition to trying to dignify and value indigenous cuisine, stigmatized as poor or simple, but with an unknown cultural depth.
“Don’t think that because it is an indigenous cuisine it will be little cuisine, but quite the opposite. It was going to look for the cook, to ask and then question ourselves. There are many dishes that come from other states and took root, there are dishes that emerged from there and there are various stories,” he noted.
The fruit of this work is reflected in five books that show the different cuisines of the region and that in a few months will be available for free download.
With information from EFE.
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