Food and Drink mini-series: Rethinking Mexican food and drink

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: Food and Drink mini-series — Rethinking Mexican food and drink

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Lilah Raptopoulos
Hi listeners. Welcome to the fourth and final episode of our special mini-series on food and drink. Today, I am bringing you a live conversation from the recent US FT Weekend festival about one of my favourite topics — Mexican food and drink. It’s hosted by my colleague, our drinks columnist Alice Lascelles, and you’ll hear from two women who are elevating Mexican cuisine and culture around the world: Pati Jinich and Bertha González Nieves. Pati is a chef and also the author of three bestselling cookbooks. My personal favourite is Treasures of the Mexican Table. She’s also the host of the TV show La Frontera on PBS, where she brings us to eat with her on the US-Mexico border. Pati is kind of like a food diplomat, and I love how she explores all the ways that Mexican food is just a lot more diverse than the tacos and the quesadillas that you know. Bertha is the CEO and co-founder of Casa Dragones, which is a small luxury tequila company. She’s also the first woman designated a master tequilera. I spent some time with Bertha for a piece about tequila that I’ve put in the show notes. She’s really interesting. She sort of helped to rebrand tequila for Americans as this high-end spirit that you should probably be sipping. OK, this is a great conversation. Let’s get into it. This is FT Weekend, the podcast special edition. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos. Here’s Pati Jinich and Bertha González Nieves with my colleague Alice Lascelles.

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Alice Lascelles
Welcome to Beyond borders: rethinking Mexican food and drink. Pati, maybe we can start with you. Mexican food has always been quite spicy, but I think it’s particularly hot right now, isn’t it? I mean, what’s, what do you think is fuelling this huge interest in Mexican cuisine at the moment?

Pati Jinich
I mean, I think that Mexican food has always been of interest in outside of Mexico, but there used to be this kind of view of it being very exotic. And I think increasingly with the access of more ingredients and the information about more dishes and regional cuisines, people feel like they can bring it home. I feel like the American palate has widened incredibly to the point that you not only have people going out for tacos every once in a while, but you have the #tacoTuesday, and you have people making tacos at home. There’s now books and books on like the hundreds and thousands of different kinds of tacos and that’s just one example. I feel like it’s become a part of not only the American but the international culinary lingo.

Alice Lascelles
Yeah, I mean, I think people are used to seeing Mexican food at more the sort of like street food level and domestic level. But we’re really now seeing it in the sort of upper echelons of fine dining as well, aren’t they?

Pati Jinich
And Alice I think, and Bertha, I think you, you may see this in tequila, too. I feel like the outside world looking down a little on Mexican food, you know, it wasn’t French food or Italian food or the finer foods. It was looked down a little bit as, you know, the taco, the street food. It has to be cheap. It has to be, you know, not, not valued as such. And I think it’s not only the outsiders, but Mexicans. We think that everything that’s outside of Mexico is superior. We have this kind of inferiority complex where in Mexico, when somebody had a birthday or a celebration, you’d go to the French food to celebrate, you’d go to the Italian food to celebrate it. And it took a big movement and revolution like 15 years ago, you know, when you started with tequila and when the big Mexican chefs started being recognised, when we got the Unesco heritage award recognition that Mexicans began saying our food is worthy of a white tablecloth as well.

Alice Lascelles
And, Bertha, I mean, this is a story very much for tequila as well. I think a lot of people, you know, used to think of it as something you drank as a student, you know, shots and about hangover and all of that kind of thing. This image of tequila is totally changed. As I was looking at some data just the other day that was showing that tequila would be the most valuable spirit in the US by the end of 2023. Of any spirit. So that really gives you an idea of like the premiumisation that’s happening in tequila at the moment.

Bertha González Nieves
And I think it supports that voracious appetite that the global consumer has for culture and authenticity. Mexico has a richness of culture that you can see it in architecture, in design and, obviously, in cuisine, in contemporary art. Tequila has come a long way, the same way as Mexican cuisine. I think we are on a mission to showcase that tequila has more than 250 years of history. Actually, the Aztecs were, you know, fermenting agave, so way before that. And there is a true gift of craftsmanship in Mexico. And we’re trying to prove that tequila can compete with any other sipping spirit around the world.

Alice Lascelles
Shall we take a look at this tequila, then?

Bertha González Nieves
Absolutely.

Alice Lascelles
. . . to get things started. So I’m going to hand over to Bertha to really talk us through this.

Bertha González Nieves
We’re gonna be tasting Casa Dragones Joven. So this tequila is made for sipping and pairing with food. So what you’re gonna get in this tequila is a floral in the citrus notes of the blanco tequila, balanced with a sweetness and the spice of the extra aged tequila. So it’s a blend of two different styles.

Alice Lascelles
It’s really fragrant rather than fiery, isn’t it? Just the aroma . . . 

Bertha González Nieves
So the nose in the experience of taste is really the eyes of the palate. There’s around 600 different aromas and flavours catalogued in the Mexican Academy of Tequila. So the options that we have as producers are really endless. So as you can see, the aroma is really fresh, is really inviting, really subtle. And we’re gonna do the first sip and second sip. And then I promise you, we won’t be micromanaging your, your experience (laughter).

Alice Lascelles
Now, this is a lot more elegance on the finish, I think, from the fine water that a lot of people sort of, you know, drank as students. How do you achieve that sort of smoother?

Bertha González Nieves
So we believe in harvesting the plant when it’s really ready to be harvested. Our agave is right at the skirt of a volcano of tequila. So we have a very rich mineral soil. So that really makes a huge difference. And then, you know, it’s the craftsmanship that comes into a product, that the whole idea is that our products are sipping tequila. The whole idea is that people believe in us to sip and savour.

Alice Lascelles
Well, we’ll carry on savouring this. But in the meantime, Pati, can you pick a couple of dishes that you think might surprise people or be lesser known that you’d like to highlight?

Pati Jinich
Yeah, I think one that most people will recognise is mole. When people think about mole, people think about the chocolate-based mole sauce from Puebla, which, I mean, it’s exquisite. Everybody loves it. But just like that mole, there’s hundreds, if not thousands, of mole recipes that can be made with five ingredients, and as we say in Mexico, “con una mano en tu cadera” like, with a hand on your hip. And so one of those dishes is a white mole that I have in the book that is called mole de novia, white mole sauce, because it’s white and every ingredient in it has to be white. So it has ingredients that you wouldn’t think of going to mole. It has pine nuts. It has green apple. It has plantain. It’s this incredibly delicate sauce that you wouldn’t think is a mole-like the, you know, rich, chocolatey sauce from Puebla. But I think every mole story, every mole recipe tells the story of the DNA of a community or a family in a specific historical time. And that’s the beautiful thing about what we do.

Alice Lascelles
Talking about sort of tradition, and I suppose then authenticity, you know. This is something we were talking about a little bit backstage, but this is a hot topic at the moment in food about sort of authenticity, appropriation, like what is the correct version of a traditional dish. Like, where do you both stand on this, Pati?

Pati Jinich
I’m very opinionated about it (chuckles). I mean, who has the right to drink tequila? I say everyone, right? Who has the right to cook Mexican food? I say, everyone. As long as you do your research, and you give due credit. To give you an example, there’s a phenomenal restaurant here in DC, if you guys haven’t gone, called Tiger Fork. The chef is Peruvian. Tiger Fork is a restaurant that specialises in Chinese food from Hong Kong. Is he culturally appropriating? I mean, this is a man who went to Hong Kong, lived there for years, started with, you know, chefs there, loves the cuisine, loves the ingredients, did his research, does classic traditional foods. And then he plays a little bit, too. So I think that if we start saying from the outside, who has a right to cook it or who has a right to taste it, we’re only shooting ourselves in the foot. If people have a hunger for learning about Mexican food and they’re making the slushy margarita with a machine, it’s great! Then, you know, you can come and say, do you want to try and sip my tequila too or try a new cocktail? Or, you know, aside from the taco you’re making, let me teach you a few new ways to do it. But is that upsetting? Like, no, that just speaks to the conversation between the US and Mexico. Is a burrito Mexican? Is it American? Are nachos Mexican . . . 

Alice Lascelles
Yeah. Talk us . . . 

Pati Jinich
Are they American . . . 

Alice Lascelles
Through some examples of those kind of border foods.

Pati Jinich
Well, nachos originated in Mexico, and I actually wrote an article for The New York Times on the origin of the nachos because everybody, everybody looks down on nachos. Nachos is not true Mexican food. It’s Tex-Mex food. It’s not real. And the cheese, and the, that’s not what we do. It’s not authentic. The same thing happens with burritos, with fish tacos. But whatever you say, everybody wants to bite that burrito.

Alice Lascelles
Yeah, well . . . 

Pati Jinich
And everybody wants to jump in to those nachos. And when you stop trying to understand it, and you realise that it is a dish that is a conversation between the flowing, ongoing relationship between these two countries.

Alice Lascelles
Yeah.

Pati Jinich
You just stop trying to understand it, eat it, and that’s that.

Bertha González Nieves
I think food and drink, no, need no passport. It’s, you know, I think food and drink have a freedom of existing and of, of, of like travelling across borders, which is why we all are so obsessed with food and drink.

Alice Lascelles
Bertha, quickly, like, what’s the, what’s the future for tequila and agave spirits? Because we’re also seeing a real diversification in tequila as well, aren’t we now, and agave spirits generally?

Bertha González Nieves
Well, hopefully we can create more platforms for more spirit development in Mexico. But today in Mexico, there’s around 200 different agaves catalogued in Mexico. Mexico has really the ideal temperature and geography for the plant to really, you know, make it its home. And today we only have six appellations of origin that come from agaves. And you go to France and they have more than 300 just for wine or Italy. So I think that, I think we’re in the tip of the iceberg. If we get the right grants and the right investments, there would be many more, not only in agave spirits I mean, I’m, also in food, right? So I think that the future is bright. I think the interest on spirits, Mexican spirits around the world is at an all-time high. And we just need to be smart and very respectful of the land, very smart about bringing the new generations into this and then very smart about how we continue to seduce palates of people around the world.

Alice Lascelles
We’ve been talking, touching on the sort of politicisation of food, I suppose, and of course, Pati, you were a political analyst before you got in to food and drink, weren’t you? I’m sure there’s a lot of FT readers who probably secretly harbour the desire to sort of bust out into some new career. When was the moment that you . . . 

Pati Jinich
I have to say, OK, so the moment that I decided to switch . . . I was tasked with writing a political analyst report on the state of democracy in Mexico. This was 15 years ago. And how you could compare the transition to democracy, tortuous transition to democracy in Peru and in Mexico and how you compare the two. And I had a co-worker who was Peruvian, and she was telling me about Peruvian ceviches. And I had never been to Peru. And she said that the best ceviches in the world were Peruvian. And I said, wait, (chuckles) have you noticed that Mexican ceviches? And we don’t have one. We happen to have, like, hundreds. You guys have one? And I was like, I want to research these. And instead of researching on the political paper, I started researching on the origin of ceviche, like who got to ceviche first, where does the word come from. And I went to my boss and I said, I think I am of no use to you. I’m writing this article on, on ceviches, and I don’t want to go back to the transition to democracy, really (laughter) you know, I’ll finish that paper, but I think I have to switch. (laughter) And I quickly resigned and, and enrolled in cooking school and switched. But I realised that, you know, for whatever papers I could write that a few people would read in the very small academic circles, I felt like I could be of much more use to people who are looking for a recipe for Wednesday night dinner. And that through that recipe I could open their mind into being more welcoming to not only Mexicans and our ingredients but to Mexican people. So anyway, I switched. I’ve never looked back and, and I really believe in the power of food and drink to open conversations.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show. Thank you for listening to FT Weekend, the Life and Arts podcast of the Financial Times. This was the final episode of our special mini-series on food and drink. I’ve dropped links to everything mentioned today into the show notes, including Pati’s piece about the origin of nachos and a few FT food and drink pieces about Mexico. You will also find a special discount in the show notes to a good deal on a subscription to the FT. As always, keep in touch. You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com or on Twitter @ftweekendpod. And I am on Instagram and Twitter, but mostly Instagram @lilahrap. This episode and series were produced by the wonderful Zach St Louis, executive produced by Topher Forhecz and sound engineered by Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco, with original music by Metaphor Music. Have a great rest of your week and we’ll find each other again this weekend.

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