Latest / New Worlder / Episode #127: María Álvarez and Isaac Martínez

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Episode #127: María Álvarez and Isaac Martínez · New Worlder

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Nicholas Gill, and this is the New Worlder podcast.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Co-host Juliana Duque will be joining shortly.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we are speaking with Maria Alvarez and Isaac Martinez,
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: who are the co-founders of the Mexican culinary book publisher, Novo.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: We had Maria on a couple of years ago, when Novo had just started out, but they've put out
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And have some exciting projects in development,
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: so we wanted to talk to Maria again alongside Isaac.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Novo is the first culinary book publisher in Mexico,
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: and they have already put out some beautiful books
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: that go in-depth around Mexican culinary elements like mushrooms,
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: pulque, pork, and now fish.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: This last topic is especially intriguing as it's being written by Jorge Leon,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: who has the restaurant Alfonsina in Oaxaca, which I have written about quite a bit.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Jorge started a sustainable fish company a couple
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: of years ago called Costa Pesca just because he wanted to get fish from the coast
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: of Oaxaca on his menu in Oaxaca City.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: However, at the time, it was easier to get fish flown in from Baja at the quality he needed.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, He started working with a few local fishing families to buy whatever they caught
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: and work with them to install practices like Ikejime to make sure the fish get
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: to him in the best possible condition.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It started off as something small,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: but it is snowballing into a much bigger idea about sustainable fishing in Mexico.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to see the book,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: which is called Bita Cor de Pesca Salvaje, and it comes out in December.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can pre-order it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Novo's slogan has been Sembramos una Milpa,
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: which is their way of saying,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: let's create an ecosystem of ideas around food, sort of like a Milpa is.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: But now they have actually planted a Milpa in Huehuaycalco,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: a small village in the state of Mexico.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: They are working with a local farming family with the help
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: of organizations like Tomoa and Tierra del Monte.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they're going to be documenting what is happening on that Milpa for the next five years.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: We talked to them about what exactly a publishing company starting a Milpa means
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: and what the documenting of that is going to look like.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like New Worlder, Novo is a small, independent publisher.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So please check out their catalog at novomx.com.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: As major media morphs into the control of fewer and fewer hands,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: supporting independent voices like Novo's, like ours, is especially important.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So please subscribe to our newsletter if you haven't already.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's at newworlder.com or just search for New Worlder on Substack.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Also, my forthcoming book, Eating the Amazon, is available for pre-order.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: It comes out in April, but it's already on Amazon and Bookshop.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Pre-order sales ensure that there's a strong demand and that the publisher prints enough copies.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it really does help a book like Eating the Amazon get read.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a good, honest book.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is also enjoyable to read and will hopefully inspire you.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the show.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: So when we first had you guys on, I think Novo had just started.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like you just had...
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: A couple of books and now it's been a couple of years and more books have been released.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: How are things, I guess, progressing as an independent culinary book publisher in Mexico?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's been an interesting journey.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_02: Last year,
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: we published a book,
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: our first bilingual book, which is called Que Viva El Pulque, Long Live Pulque.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: And we've had very,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: very good developments with that book because with that decision
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: of making it bilingual, we got to reach a
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: New public and new audience.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: And we actually got the book is going to be published by Chelsea Green in
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: the United States and Europe.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: it's something that I had never imagined that a subject as niche
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: as Pulque would reach an international audience.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So we are very, very proud of that book going beyond our borders.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: It was really unimaginable.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And we're very,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: very happy to say that in the spring,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: they are going to release Presale and the book is going to be published in the fall
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: of 2027.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: And in Mexico is doing quite well.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think the people that,
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: the following of this type of beverage or the following of this subject
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: about fermentation is quite like a,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Nerdy type of audience that we that we feel very comfortable with.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it was a big bet because I don't know how much you know about pulque,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: but it's basically you cannot drink it outside of a specific region
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: in specific regions in Mexico.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it depends a lot of the quality depends on on like The closeness to the source
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: because of the, it's alive.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's a beverage that it's alive.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: So you need to be close to the place where they actually make it and to the, yeah,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: the culture of pulque is like a very,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: very well established in the surrounding areas of Mexico City and also in Tlaxcala,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oaxaca, Puebla, the state of Mexico.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: So we are very, very happy with what's happening with that.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Generally, you make poquerias where poca is actually being made, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not usually just a place to drink.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually where they're being made as well or not always?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, it's not always.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: The place where it's made is called Tinacal.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: It used to be that it was sent in trains.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Towards Mexico City were like a big consumption of pulque during the 19th century
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: and the first half of the 20th century.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: But then after the Mexican Revolution, the beer displaced all the consumption.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: But it was not,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: the pulqueria is more like the place where you drink it,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: but it was dispatched every day.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was like a daily drink.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's actually called despacho, which is like, yeah, dispatch.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: The pulque that was ready for every day coming into the
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: urban centers.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: But now you can have pulquerias close to the places where they are making it.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: But it used to be more haciendas and like big facilities.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what inspired you to Put this book in English and Spanish.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is it separate English and Spanish editions or the book is bilingual?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: The book is bilingual.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the decision was made because we thought this is a subject that has been
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: so stigmatized and racialized.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's been so isolated that we need to talk about this for a bigger audience.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: Even if you cannot try pulque directly, you have to come to Mexico to do it.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: We need to talk more about this.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: The beer industry displaced it and so it was like a matter of discrimination.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: So we thought putting it in English would help spread the word.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: And actually whenever we've discussed this subject with non-Mexican people,
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: You can see, like, they're super open to try it, to taste it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and it's not the case with most Mexicans from,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: maybe from my parents' generations,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: and it would say,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: like, pulque is not mainstream, and it was not mainstream for many, many years.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the decision.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we wanted to make it, Available for people that is not prejudiced against pulque.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like chicha in South America.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like it's been isolated for so many years,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: but it's still a similar fermentation in most cases and served in similar ways.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: And how strict is the regulation from the government about pulque?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Or has it changed over time or what is the role of the government?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: It has changed a little bit over time because now it's, I mean,
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: it kind of went through like a prohibition era where people would be
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: like banned
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_02: from places and it actually became like a very
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: guerrilla way of selling it.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: even one of the places that inspired Juan Escalona to write about this book is,
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's been nonstop selling for 80 years.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's under a bridge, literally, like in the street.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: And they've been selling it for ages.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: And when you ask them,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: why don't you have like a proper local And they said like,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: we've been doing this for so long and like half of the times we just had
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: to like pick up our stuff and kind of run because it was like prosecuted.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: But now it's like re-emerging, it's way more popular and now it has like fiscal advantages.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if it's like a correct term, but now it's a more
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's becoming a lot more
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_02: mainstream, but the government is helping producers especially.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So they're encouraging pulque production now?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: They're encouraging, yeah.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think they would need more encouragement,
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: but at least they are not facing this prosecution and prohibition of selling.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So they stopped harassing, basically.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: They stopped harassing.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: Which feel like acceptance.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: And what we want to achieve is also that it's become normalized,
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: that you can find it in restaurants and you can find it in tasting menus.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's starting somewhere.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like there's bars like Tlekan that serves A cocktail made with pulque and yeah,
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: in special occasions you can find it in Pujol or like in Alfonsina in Oaxaca.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a regular thing that you can try pulques from different places in Oaxaca.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's better.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's becoming better.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the book is playing a good part of that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: So we're very, very proud of that, of having published something that it's not as...
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I never imagined it was going to be published in other countries.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So your next book, Coming out in December, I think, is with Jorge Leon from Alfonsina.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us about that?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we're super excited.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's also something
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: following sourcing and ingredients.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Jorge Leon has been for four or five years now, very interested in sourcing all the
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: He started sourcing fish for Alfonsina and he realized it was very,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: very difficult for him to get good quality of fish and he has always been interested
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: in sourcing and Traceability of all his ingredients.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: So he decided to take it in his own hands and went to Puerto Escondido and
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: to Ciguatanejo in the search of fishermen and fisherwomen that can help him with
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: the sourcing.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: And he ended up developing a small company called Costa Pesca,
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: where it's all wild,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Wild fishing and all like having this philosophy of consuming fish
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: that is like just getting to know what what the sea can can bring.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: And because I don't know how much you've you've seen it.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: But in Mexico City,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: sometimes it's just like we are obsessed with tuna and Maybe in
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: the supermarket you can find salmon.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know where it comes from.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: So what Jorge Leon is doing, he actually...
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was a bit more than he can handle for Alfonsina.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So he started giving this fish to other restaurants.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: So now he is...
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's providing Rosetta,
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: and Pujol,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: and Lago Algo,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: and Blue Box Cafe,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_02: and other Labo Fermento in Oaxaca as well,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: and Piazza Pazticho,
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: like a lot of restaurants in Mexico City and Oaxaca with this wild fish,
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: and with all the
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: So he decided to publish a book with us,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: to create a book with us to talk about this way of doing things,
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: this way of respecting what the sea can bring and learning how to cook
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: with whatever comes.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So is this an issue all over Mexico, not just Oaxaca, that
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, all the fish that you can get in a good quality is just coming from Baja.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the issue?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then everything else,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: it's like there's not much care in the logistics of it getting,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: from the sea to to, you know, cities or from what I remember him telling me is
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to get certain fish on his menu from Oaxaca because everything
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: on his menu is from Oaxaca.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: But everything he could get in the city was just,
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: basically in good quality was just coming from Baja or from somewhere else.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he went to see what was going on and that's kind of how this project started.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, Baja is...
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Way more advancing than the rest of the country in those terms.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: And he wanted to see, like, there's a huge coastline in Oaxaca.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And he ended up working with families in Puerto Escondido and Cihuatanejo,
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: which is very close in terms of the type of sea you will get.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: But he's always said, like,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: he has learned from From Ezequiel that is like the pioneer in Baja,
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: but that he's also from Oaxaca, coincidentally.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: But yes,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a way of expanding
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: this culture of quality to other places in
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: the Mexican coast where we have such a big coast and such a large
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, amount of, uh, such a,
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: like a variety of, of, um,
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: species and that we are very,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: very, I think there's, there's a gap in the knowledge of the consumer.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like we don't know many, I mean,
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: before this book,
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know many of the species and I haven't, I mean,
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: I have tried many, many other flavors and, uh, textures and ways of, uh, cooking.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's a, it's a,
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's a, it's an approach of like, I think we are going to need it, uh, in the future.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just getting to know everything around you,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: like the whole, you know, Atlantic coast I'm sure is just untapped.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's in, there's fishing everywhere.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just a matter of getting it out of the water at the same condition
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: as it's being cut,
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: to consumers and Yeah,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: and learning better practices that come from either Japan or Baja.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just killing practices, just to
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: get it in a
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: proper condition.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like simple things that really change the entire product.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'll probably add also in terms of the transportation of the product.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to draw some analogies here between the books that we're discussing,
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: pulque and pesca or fish, which is the transportation and the logistics, right?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Actually,
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: one of the things that we know most about pulque is the curados,
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: which is basically a result of treating the pulque As a way to try to revive it or
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: to change the flavor and the texture of it.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Just because the transportation between the haciendas or the way it was produced all
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: the way to the city was basically like an over-fermentation of that drink.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: They needed to add on some fruit juice or something else just to change that.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end,
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: if you were to drink it from the source,
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: it's clearly one experience versus the other one.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Similar to if you were to eat a fish that was just caught And treat and produce
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: and cooked in the source versus transporting it all the way to Mexico City or
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: to other region.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's also telling.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: We touched upon that in the book as well,
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: because that's a critical portion in terms of understanding how fresh or how
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: the product could be consumed and best used and treated as it is.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: I also think that that fosters This proliferation of other species and
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: the biodiversity that the sea can bring.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: unfortunate because it's a hurdle and an issue sometimes for people
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: that actually do the catch and have these types of companies and just try
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: to approach the end user,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: the demand,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: because you require infrastructure and CapEx and some other stuff to make sure that
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: the quality of the product is still the same.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: But logistics at the end is a crucial component.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And thinking about analogies is similar to the territory.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like we're focusing on the literals of Oaxaca and Guerrero.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: But if we were to do this more inclusive or try to exhaust,
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: which I think it's really impossible to exhaust the biodiversity that we can have
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: on plates and the food in Mexico.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Talking about Baja, talking about also the Gulf of Mexico, in Veracruz, the Yucatan Peninsula.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have produce only 12,000 kilometers of littorals in Mexico.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's an amazing journey,
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: but we tried to focus in Oaxaca and Guerrero because it was close to Jorge's heart
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: and I think just to try to represent that territory as well.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: How did you guys first connect with Jorge?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: For me, Alfonsina is one of my favorite restaurants on earth, I think.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I've written about them a few times and I've stayed in touch with Jorge
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: and talked to him every once in a while.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: the first time I went there,
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was in Oaxaca and someone recommended I talk to Jorge because he was about to open
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: a restaurant.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know a name or anything.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I and they gave me his number.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: I messaged him and he was like, yeah, come on over.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have a sign yet or they didn't have formal hours or even a staff or anything.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was just like Jorge and Elvia, Jorge and his mom cooking.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: They were mostly just making tortillas for neighbors,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: spending all this time on this beautiful masa and Just doing like simple snacks.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jorge was kind of,
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: trying to set something up off to the side and,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: you know, just have like a little bar set up.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And, and like,
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was just blown away by what they ended up,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know, making just because it was like being done with so much care with this.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like unbelievably rich family dynamic that was going on with,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: cousins and brothers and everyone just like living in the same house and,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: you know, all helping together.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And but the like precision of what they were doing had this like precision
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: of fine dining, but it definitely wasn't fine dining.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's very precise, you know, attention to detail.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like it made this huge impact on me, like and it still does.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember I named it.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like we were doing this like new restaurant of the year for New Worlder then.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was,
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: it had only been open like a few months and I still don't think they even had a sign
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: when we did this.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the restaurant the year before was Mugarets in Spain.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And, and we named it that and people were like,
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: what the fuck is like, like what the fuck is Alfoncina?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like no one's ever heard of it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: No one had heard of Jorge.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Some people knew like, you mean Moles, the guy in the, that used to be at the kitchen of Pujol.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then like people started going,
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it was because of me,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: but like people gradually heard of it and they started going and then like fruit
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: and wine went there and like all this other media went there and it just kind
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: of blew up.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: But there's still,
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: for the most part,
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: off the radar,
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think for most people and for how amazing that place is and what it means and just
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: the richness of the story,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think There's not a lot of, not enough people know about it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it's because they're,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know, out by the airport and the neighborhood, what's the neighborhoods?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: San Juan, Batista, De La Raya or something that basically next to the airport.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's outside of like the tourist bubble.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So no one still,
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: but what they're doing and how they keep evolving with all these like layers
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: of these sustainable practices and like water reduction and like compostable toilets
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: and solar power and This project with the fish, it's really incredible.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really glad that you guys are making a book with them
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: because I do think people like them have this amazing story to tell and this example
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: to lead.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than just, is the food delicious or not?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: It very much is.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: They have this whole complexity around them that's so beautiful.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: So beautiful.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the first interactions between Isaac and myself was a group chat
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: with recommendations from Oaxaca.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we've never met before, but Isaac told me, you have to go to Alfonsina.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's a place where a guy and his mom are cooking and it's amazing.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know Anything else.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I went there with my partner.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: And we asked, like, at that time, it was like one menu was Elvia's and one menu was Jorge's.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: And we said, like, let's just ask for the two of them and then we see what.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they were both so, so amazing and so subtle.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you can still see how these two visions
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: Are now just one,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: and all the gentleness put in the corn,
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: in the fish, in the pulque de Isor, everything is so subtle and impressive.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that was my first.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually something that Isaac recommended me before we even met.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: To close the loop with gratitude here and to actually give credit to Nick,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was one of the persons that got like,
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: what the fuck is this restaurant of the year?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how I got to know Alfonsina because of your article on the restaurant of
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: the year, Nick.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: That just got me like, we should take a look into this, no?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the next time I went to Oaxaca,
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I went there and yeah, I got exact same experience that you got.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: But basically with this, Opportunity to connect with something more profound than the food.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was about what they were trying to represent and what they were trying to bring
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: into a plate Of years of years and generations of just the way they think and care
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: about food.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that was something that blew my mind now because,
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was eight years ago, something like that, if I'm not mistaken.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, back in the day, yeah, it was tougher to get that kind of experience.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I think nowadays is something that you actually like look for
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: and it's even tougher to get, right?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that authenticity It's kind of like the heart that you find with Jorge and Elvia.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: And even when you go right now with Elvia,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Comedor de Tia Elvia,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: it's very reminiscent of that initial experience where it was like no sign
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: or nothing, like you're not making sure if it was like the right place or not.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you cannot get more honest than that.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: maybe my opportunity to say thank you for that recommendation and we're closing
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: the loop with that initial thing.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: More concretely,
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_02: for the book,
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_02: he participated as Nanay Watabe,
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: the author of our book,
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: Estado de Hongos,
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: invited him to cook a recipe for Estado de Hongos,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: and he created an amazing,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: amazing experience for us because it was not only cooking this mole with mushrooms,
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: but he sent us to the woman To Anastasia,
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: which is the mushroom, how do you say this in English?
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the forager.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we ended up going with her in
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: the search of mushrooms and
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: So he was a big part of Estado de Hongos, and he invited us to stay in Alfonsina.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we spent days with the entire family, sleeping in these rooms that are above Alfonsina.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so it created a very deep bond.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: After that,
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: he just said,
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: and I was really surprised he wanted to do a book about fish and about fishing.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: But it was like this, when we started, I just said, like, this is perfect.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is Jorge going out of his territory in the search of fish.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Of the quality he wants and of the things he enjoys.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: And in this process,
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: it's been amazing to getting to know him better because he's really like a monk.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: He's like a meditation.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: He is.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's a gentle, quiet guy.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's not this ego-driven, loud chef that's on a stage every five minutes.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's this quiet guy at his family home cooking and trying to make it better all the time.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's incredible.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the way he...
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: The curiosity he...
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like that drives him towards the sea is, it's amazing.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's like just contemplation of the richness of
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: the sea,
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: of the variety of flavors that we can get in the wild fishing.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it's been an amazing journey, like to share all his, the care he puts in everything.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: I have a question about the role you guys play in all this and if that has changed
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: over time because as editors and entrepreneurs,
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: I wonder if you see yourselves more, I mean,
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_03: you're journalists,
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_03: you're visual artists in a way,
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_03: you are also activists, you are just good citizens doing what feels right to do.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_03: For your country and your local communities.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm sure this is something you have asked yourself and discussed between the two of you.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: And what are the limitations or the challenges you see in that process?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it needs to change over time.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: And it feels like an existential experience too, because it's a lot.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, personally,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_03: but also The more traction you get,
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: or even,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_03: funds you get,
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: international funds, local funds, people trusting their stories to you guys.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's, you know, you take this seriously.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, I'm curious about that,
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: that journey.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that question.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually, yeah, the emotional side of all of this work is what moves us.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's something that with going back to the Pulque book,
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: we thought this is going to be a difficult one because we're not going to have
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: the corporate sales we can normally Expect because we need them going forward
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: to fund more stories and more books and more of this creation.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: But then we resorted to crowdfunding and we had a very good response
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: and all these things that happened afterwards with the rights of
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: the book being bought by an international label.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we feel I mean, it's a difficult business, but it's an amazing journey.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's worth the struggle because of what you say,
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: like being an activist and trying to change the nature of books and this permanence,
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: we're up against immediacy and consumerism and all these things.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we've We are very,
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: very happy with what we're doing,
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: but it's also sometimes when we see the business side of it,
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: it's like, wow, how are we going to go forward with all this?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then you get someone like Jorge or someone like Juan Escalona
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: or someone like La Tia Elvia, and you say, it's totally worth it.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: We need to work with these people.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: Learn from their resilience and their way of looking at things.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're very involved with all the process.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: We go to the sea and we go to the forest and we go to the Milpas and So it's
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: a very vital experience in a way and we want to transmit that in the books.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: But definitely we sometimes have existential crisis with the business side of things and then
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Most days are just so amazing and so humbling that it's all worth it.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure Isaac shares most of these feelings.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Also, one thing that is very,
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: very important that we've been doing and we've been thinking since the beginning of
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: the foundation of Novo,
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: This year we made it like real,
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: is that we wanted to be in the field,
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: like to go
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_02: and do our own Milpa and get to know a specific family working on
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: the field and work alongside them.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: We managed to do that this year.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: In January,
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: we started preparing the field in a place called Huehuacalco in the state of Mexico
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: in the, how do you say, the skirts of the volcanoes.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's a beautiful, beautiful, amazing place.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: And in April, we planted corn and And beans and
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: squash, calabazas.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: And we started our own milpa.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for us,
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: it's been a very important move because it was like a metaphor of our actions.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't it always sembramos una milpa?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was like your slogan the last time we talked.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, like, let's plant a milpa and see what happens.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: But you're actually...
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: We've been wanting to go from the words to the action.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: We use that as a metaphor,
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: just trying to pick a lot of the elements around the milpa and what that represents.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: First of all,
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: echoing 100% what Maria transmitted in terms of how we feel
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: and how we Operate around the novel thinking not for what we do,
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: what we aspire to do and how to transform that into a business.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: But also taking one element of your question, Juliana, I mean the responsibility, no?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think the responsibility that we carry over from the people
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: that trust their stories, because in some cases they are life stories, no?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: And really like represents a life I mean, I think it's a very important thing.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: The pork is an ingredient and then Juan with Pulque, Jorge with the fish.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that responsibility now we took that and the way we were like,
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: thinking through the projects, took that responsibility what Amilpa represents.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: We had some initial interactions on how to really do that and how to approach that
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: for us to engage.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because unfortunately,
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we didn't have the privilege to be born in a place where Amilpa was around.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Maria at some point lived In a more like rural ambient,
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: but at the end, we're like more urban type of living.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really a responsibility for us to engage when thinking about Amilpa.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not being part of it.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's really like getting deep into how to understand what represents fostering
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: or trying to be part of that.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we took that responsibility and basically searched for people
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: that have been doing this for a long time.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's how we got with Tierra de Monte,
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: one of our partners on the Milpa project,
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: and also with long-standing friends such as TAMOA,
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: that is this amazing company that has been doing work around Herloom ingredients
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: in Mexico and just taking the best of Mexico out of And I think that's
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: a very important point of view of it to Mexican restaurants in the US and Europe.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: we floated the idea and we wanted to have this coordination between how to,
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's adopting a Milpa is the best way,
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: but at the end it's just engaging with this responsibility and awareness
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: of what it represents.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, to Maria's point,
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: The metaphor of Sembremos una mil pasa slogan and really representing that.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it also touches upon a lot of the reasons why we do what we do in terms
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: of just If we can have people just turn and say or ask the questions of
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: where my food is coming from or what was needed for this food to be in this plate
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: and all the processes that needed to happen,
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think we could feel that we accomplished.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: We
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: are aesthetic people and we like to tell those stories in an artistic way,
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: but at the end it sits at the core of linking communities,
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: territories, people and awareness around food.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think the Mil Pais is the core of that expression in Mexican gastronomy.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're so proud and happy to be now part of this first-year project.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be a five-year project.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: We understood as part of that responsibility that we needed to commit beyond on
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: a crop-by-crop basis and really needed to go deeper in terms of what
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: that represents.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: And our partners on Tamua on the commercial side and Tierra de Monte,
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: this other amazing company that is doing bio Inputs for regenerative agriculture as
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: a concept.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're just fostering soil health and just bringing practices back to what they used to be.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: At the end, it's funny because unfortunately, it's not even Milpa because Milpa is a system.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: What we found now is a monocropping thing around corn.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: But back in the day,
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: Milpa used to be At the core front of really regenerative and syntropic agriculture
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: as a system of producing food.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So they're just bringing those elements back and trying to bring that to the community.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Again, we just went there to harvest the elotes, to the first step of the process.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: There's this big party with a lot of amazing food and people.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good fiesta.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're there for the elotiza.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking forward for the harvest part of things and then just continuing
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: the process throughout the next five years.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen with this information that you guys documented?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going to be a book?
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going to be regular magazines?
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: What happens with all of this?
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're going to be responding that along the way,
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: but definitely it's going to have to come back to the words and it's going
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: to come back to the pages.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think we are like really wanting to,
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_02: like a magazine would make sense for us having this like periodicity and
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: But we're not sure yet how it's going to be like.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think we are, along the way, we will be gathering more actors in this
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_02: project.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: And we want to be very,
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_02: very close to the family we're working with,
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_02: with Tamoa that we're working on the commercial side.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_02: But also now we have some interest from more like the more academic side.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it's going to next year, we're going to definitely put some planning into this.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: What's going to be like back to the pages?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: What's the Milpa is going to look like?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: We have been documenting and we have pictures, we have illustrations.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: We also want to get more students,
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: like culinary students or really any type of students that want to come and visit.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: We want to socialize our Milpa as a resource and we want visitors to come
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we're really thinking how we're going to,
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: like after being like learning very internally,
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: where next year we want to like to share it,
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_02: to really share it and to make it available for people to explore or just taste
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: the amazing things that are coming from there.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like we had, like Isaac said, the elotisa, which is like the, The first taste of the produce.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's one of the best meals I've had in a long, long time.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's a very romantic thing to see,
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: but since we've been there, and also the landscape has an impact.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_02: We started as a...
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: There was a sandy...
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: And now it's like full of, like we were like eating a bounty of things.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was it like an abandoned Milpa or was it just like empty land or what was it?
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was an abandoned Milpa because the family was like the actual,
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: actually the Don Fernando,
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: which is like the father of the family we're working with.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_02: Is a 70 year old guy.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: He has been doing this for ages forever and his parents before him.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is like, he was about to give up.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: It used to be a milpa, but for some years it was not used.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: And now he has involved some of his nephews.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_02: His five daughters are amazing cooks and they are doing...
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we hope the next generation is also more involved.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_02: They are actually excited to be doing this.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_03: Also, are you trying to experiment with different ways of harvesting?
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_03: Because they saw the recent image of T1, T2, right?
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_03: Which might get some academic attention or research attention, right?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't do it for that reason.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing is, yeah,
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: we were in four different It's a heirloom corn, but it's with different treatments.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_02: And one is like the very traditional milpa treatment.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_02: One is only corn and another one is a more regenerative way of doing things.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: But that is very, very close to the original Milpa as well.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, we're going to measure productivity, quality of the crops.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it's like a small comparison.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, even in the landscape, it's kind of different how it's growing.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: But you can see it very, very closely.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_02: And next year we also want to put some Magueyes,
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: because that region used to be also
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: producing pulque and it's kind of abandoned,
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_02: but we want to reintroduce the Maguey.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, we're going to be measuring things in the social and in the
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_02: Agrological way.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a lot of opportunity in Mexico in this kind of agriculture?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like,
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: because, I mean,
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: historically it's been fading away,
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think I assume very rapidly,
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: but are things starting to look in the other direction and there's new avenues
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: to explore?
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know Isaac is definitely more knowledgeable in this agricultural field,
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_02: but I think it's not significant yet.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you can see that in Mexico City restaurants,
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: you would expect a very good quality tortilla.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe 10 years ago, you wouldn't Have a tamal in a menu because it was not a restaurant item.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: You would eat that in your house.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_02: And with a raise of tacos as the mainstream restaurant fare,
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: you would expect to have a very, very good tortilla.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's not The numbers are not that significant because it's still
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_02: a very small part of the general consumption.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the quality of the tortillas in a supermarket or even market,
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: we've been losing quality for years and years.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: The worst industrial corn, basically.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_02: Something,
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: and I think we also want to raise awareness that we need to,
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: as consumers,
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_02: we need to ask for better tortillas and for better masa and for better,
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_02: like it's,
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: even in some of the street stalls that used to be amazing corn from,
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, like they would bring it from nearby ranches.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you can tell it's not actually like the blue corn Massa.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: It has some additives or something that is not the real deal.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't know much about statistics and
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think also when you compare the baseline for this,
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: Nick, is that we're talking about agriculture that is subsistence.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's basically the core of the Milpa and that's still the most relevant portion
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: of how that way of producing corn happens in Mexico.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's,
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: the reason why,
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: companies like Tamoa,
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: and I know there's this company in the States called Mazienda,
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: and like,
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: dedicated, Maizajo even, they're doing also something similar here in Mexico.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're just,
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: the guys from Chocol in Guadalajara, which are like trying to get to the core of it.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just highlight that as a superb type of approach to the ingredients.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: But when you look at the reality and try to link,
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: if that could become an extra source of the month,
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: you realize,
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: to Maria's point,
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: on taquerias that are winning whatever Michelin 50,
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_01: whatever thing,
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: They focus on the proteins and the ingredients that go in the tortilla.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody is really taking the time to highlight the corn and how to take that level of
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: the taco to the place where it belongs,
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: focusing on the corn,
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: which at the end is basically the white canvas of whatever you want to do
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: and charge versus a street taco.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not to get in controversy, it's like a taco should be charged X or Y.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's just about consistency around the stories that you tell On the pricing
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_01: of your menu and the type of things that you are approaching to consumers.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that all the way down to the stories of the sourcing,
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Could be represented also in how you source and how you engage with something
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: so relevant as corn.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that will be increasing because I think that particular type
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: of Mexican food is getting traction, not only in the States, but in Europe as well.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've seen taquerias now exploding in Madrid, in Berlin, in Copenhagen, in the Nordic.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_01: That will continue and that will prevail.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully,
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: our intention is that our model or our way of engaging with
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: the Milpa could be adopted by someone else and really try to tell that story.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I think,
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: to Maria's point,
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: we'll need to find out the best way to To just tell what we're doing to the people
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: and invite others to join.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the end,
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_01: since the very beginning,
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: the intention was for opening this up for whoever wants to do it.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: We devote a percentage of our book sales to actually fund this as part of
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: the work we do in Novo.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: But there are many ways to get funds on this.
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's a matter of really having the will to engage and just put it out there.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: So are there any other books in the pipeline after Jorge's?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_02: We've been working for...
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_02: Actually,
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_02: we started before Pulque and before Bitácora de Pesca Salvaje,
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_02: which is the name of Jorge's book.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: We started working with Edo Nakatani.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: He's the
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: grandson of the couple that created
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: a widespread snack called Cacahuates Japoneses, Japanese peanuts.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: So those aren't actually Japanese?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're Mexican?
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_02: They're Mexican.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_02: These Japanese are Mexican,
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: totally Mexican,
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_02: but they were created by a couple,
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: a Mexican woman and a Japanese man,
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: a migrant that came before the Second World War,
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_02: and he lost his job because of the war and because of the
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_02: Deportation of Japanese people from from Mexico during that time.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: But because he was already married to a Mexican woman,
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: he could stay, but he couldn't have he couldn't work like he couldn't be employed.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was very difficult.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: So they decided to to to cook and to create something in their kitchen.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he used to work as a as a kid in a confectionery place in Japan.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so just from From his memories and from what he did,
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_02: they started like, what can we do with the things we have in Mexico?
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_02: But of course,
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_02: back then there was no soy sauce,
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: there was no rice flour,
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_02: there was other things that they created this snack from
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_02: and they became hugely popular and
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_02: The grandson, Edo Nakatani, he's an amazing chef.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: And he's a chef that
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: derives all his flavors from migration.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: Not only Japanese, but he has an idea of migration as a source of creativity and resilience.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_03: I was thinking that these are such specific products and stories,
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_03: but at the same time representative of how food works as a language
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_03: and how it connects people.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's both very unique and also you can almost replicate the message they are trying to
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: For us, every book is a chapter on the bigger,
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: and in that sense,
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: this is a more, I don't know, it's like a more funky book in a way.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_02: This one is a lot of recipes that you can make like These quick recipes
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: that you can make at home,
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: but that have all this idea of Mexico as a, as a,
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_02: as a melting pot, as, as, as,
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_02: as good a melting pot as any,
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_02: like we've been like this, this,
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_02: this Japanese cacahuates is something that you can buy in the,
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: in the, In the street that
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: construction workers will buy us like an energy snack.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_02: And you can find it everywhere and anywhere.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_03: But also there is an accent to every story, right?
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like when you, for what I can perceive, the story of Albusina and his, you know, the harmony.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_03: Transmits to this project,
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_03: and then this guy insisting to you guys,
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_03: this migration would give me the drive to create and to do all these.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_03: And then Milka, well,
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_03: story of,
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_03: oh, not Milka, but Polk, about marginalization and, you know, the racial issues.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_03: So there is something very...
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_03: There is an accent to every story that is probably coming
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_03: from what they are transmitting to you, which is precious.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that responsibility plus the legacy concept that was also mentioned,
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's probably the best way for us to pay homage to what we represent here
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: in the Mexican gastronomy.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because whenever you're like, how can you define Mexican gastronomy or Mexican food?
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not one dish,
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: it's not one territory,
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: it's like an aggregation of,
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: in this case, or the way we want to treat these stories.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because it overlaps not only with the stories, but how those stories are built and lived.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's migration,
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: it's territory,
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: it's people,
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: it's communities,
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: it's like all sorts of things that happen at the same sort of moment in time.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also something that is dynamic.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: I like when people tend to go to Cocineras Tradicionales,
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: But like these contemporary expressions of how to do the restoration of ingredients,
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: but then all the way down to communities and things that have become permanent
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: for centuries.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: So all those sort of aggregations at the end,
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: when you try to explain,
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: maybe it's better to do it through chapters or stories than just one term
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: or definition.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's I think also sits at the core of noble.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_02: And there's also other book and it's also about migration.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: And this book is, actually, you probably know this, Poncho Martinez from Tlayudas Poncho.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_02: And now he's...
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, you mentioned it last time we talked.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think you were going to talk with him here in LA.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: That evolved wealth.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's also, yeah, a very different story of migration.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's indigenous people from Oaxaca Living in Los Angeles.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's been 23 years he's been living in Los Angeles.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a very different way of telling stories because all of the oral tradition
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_02: of indigenous people in Mexico and everywhere,
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: but they are very connected with other indigenous people from North America,
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_02: and all of the Oaxacan influence in Los Angeles.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: So it's also coming along next year.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it's going to be two very different books, but also connecting
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: in these stories of people.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I remember when I heard him talking here in LA, Food meeting.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_03: He was telling his story,
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_03: and it caught my attention that his body energy,
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_03: physical energy, and the food he was offering was like same thing.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, his presence was so,
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_03: what he was offering, that was the food he was offering, which is this huge, right?
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's this like, the Tayudas are...
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, what you said actually represents his presence and he wants to keep
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_02: his origin.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_02: He's in a quest, but
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_03: the quest is internal.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: very, what's the word?
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_03: Very driven, very clear about it, and very effective, I think.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think the flavors are very, very bold.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, that's a good word, bold.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's happening.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's happening.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a dream book,
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_00: some big idea,
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: aside of the Milpa,
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: obviously, That's,
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: that's like kind of been in your mind, but you haven't quite figured it out yet.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything like some dream you want to one day put together
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_00: about some topic or place or person?
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_02: Milpa is quite the dream,
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_02: but apart from that and connected to that,
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: I want to I really want to do to create a book with Thalia Barrios.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I really want, like, I kind of imagine this.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of play it in my head as if it's already, like, existing.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a very kind of simple book about tomatoes.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_00: I could see that.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: And just thinking of her and just, like,
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_00: how lucky we are that both her and Jorge both Exist in this day and age and we get
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: to like see these people and eat their food.
• 1:06:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those are like two amazing projects.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like two people you don't, maybe you do, I don't know.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think there has been a lot of media attention on her, but like it comes and goes.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I still don't think her story has really been told that in a very complete way.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, I mean, she's very young, so there's some time.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_02: But still, I think her character is so, like, also this presence, this drive.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously, we have an absolute and confessed admiration for Oaxaca.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's undeniable.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: Also,
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_02: we are admirers of another young chef called Gustavo McQuill from Puebla.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_02: I hope you can come to this place.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you're going to feel some of the emotions you felt in Alfonsina or Levadura de Olla.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: This is a young man from a small village in the skirts of Popocatepetl.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_02: And he is like a cocinero tradicional, but young.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: But he's been growing with...
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_02: His grandmother, he's learned a lot from his grandfather.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_02: They have Milpas.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_02: First they were selling corn to restaurants in Puebla
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: and now he has his own restaurant and he's an amazing, amazing cook.
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_00: What's the name of the restaurant?
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_02: Molino Macquill.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to Macquittle.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it's in Puebla.
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_02: In Puebla.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also very much connected to the Milpa.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's like different expressions from
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_02: the same idea of working with corn and doing it
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_02: in an amazing way.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you could do like 50 books just that tie into that Milpa,
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: you know, just like focus on certain ingredients, certain people, certain, you know.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_03: Which is probably why a magazine makes sense, right?
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's expressions connected to the same idea.
• 1:09:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, corn is a connector.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everyone, for listening.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: Check out more from Maria and Isaac at novomx.com.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_00: Check out their books.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_00: Pre-order Jorge's book.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_00: Pita Cora de Pesca Salvaje.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: It looks great.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to read it.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: And pre-order my book, Eating the Amazon.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_00: Go to Amazon or Amazon.com or Bookshop.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_00: And stay tuned.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like us, subscribe us, subscribe to our newsletter.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so help us out.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: It all helps trying to get our tiny little voices heard.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: And a big thank you to my friend Pat Buzzard for providing the music for the show.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_00: See ya.
• 1:10:05
  [music]