Photography by Samantha Demangate
Oaxaca, Mexico, is a land you can’t comprehend until you’ve been there. And even then, you can only scratch the surface. For outsiders, it’s a place hidden in time. Lost but not forgotten. Inaccessible yet close and connected. Life here revolves around a fusion of traditions and ways of doing things that go back thousands of years. Like any culture, the best introduction is through its food. In Oaxaca, food goes beyond nourishment. It’s a sacred and respected art that carries traditions and stories passed down for generations. In January, we were fortunate to spend a day with one of the best stewards of Oaxacan cuisine, Mimi López.
Mimi López runs a restaurant in the town of Matadamas, 30 minutes North of Oaxaca’s capital, Oaxaca de Juárez. Her restaurant, Maíz Cocina Tradicional, is becoming one of Oaxaca’s most respected establishments in the region. Mrs. López, or Mimi, as she likes to be called, began giving cooking lessons and later started her own YouTube channel which now has over 2,000 subscribers.
Meeting Mimi
On a summery January morning, my girlfriend and I join some friends and a few strangers to visit Mimi and her family for a private cooking class. Mimi’s classes have become quite popular and we all feel incredibly lucky to partake in them.
We pull into Matadamas at around 11AM. Green fields of corn, herbs, and vegetables stretch towards town. Towering mountains form a picturesque frame around the scenery. Suddenly, as we arrive, dogs and wandering chickens dart out in front of us. “Welcome to our home! Here is my mom. She’s been waiting for you,” says Mimi’s son, Charlie López.
Mimi is standing by the family’s long outdoor table. There are several dishes and ingredients laid out in front of us. We start the day by washing our hands and pulling up a seat to share homemade bread and delicious cheese to get our appetites going. Mimi asks us our names, what we do for a living, where we are from, and what we know about Oaxacan cuisine. She remembers every single one of our names.
After introductions, we all get ready. Our mission was to learn how to make four Oaxacan staples from scratch: Sopa de Guias de Calabaza, a pre-Hispanic vegetable soup made with young squash shoots; fresh tortillas; Chicken and Cheese Tamales; and Mole Negro, one of Oaxaca’s gastronomic treasures.
We break up into groups. Mimi stays close, hovering over us like a loving military commander. She prepares the coals, distributing their heat over the comal—a stone griddle. Anyone from Argentina or Texas would scoff, but Oaxaca may be the leader in cooking with fire and smoke.
“You can’t preserve something just through pictures or videos, you have to live it. Like, if you want to preserve tortillas, you have to cook tortillas”
We start toasting the spices for the mole. Dried chile peppers, cloves, nuts, and several other special ingredients go onto the comal until they’re toasted to perfection. Once they’re finished, we jump in on the metate, a long stone surface used in Oaxaca for grinding spices. Mimi begins by showing us the correct pattern to grind the ingredients into the mole paste. We begin with the chilis and finally add the rest. The work is grueling but intoxicatingly satisfying. The aromas of the toasted spices and sweet fragrances of fruit, nuts, and chili oil waft into our faces.
As the others finish cleaning and de-stemming the squash and washing the herbs, another group follows Mimi’s lead in preparing the tamales and the tortillas. Mimi’s son Charlie brings us a bottle of the local Mezcal to share while we finish up. Its rich flavor overpowers the alcohol’s strength. Notes of smokey agave and flowers fill my nose and mouth. The finish lingers on my palate for minutes. Mimi and Charlie look at me assuredly. They know I’m tasting some of the best mezcal of my life.
After finishing cooking and preparing the ingredients, it’s time for us to eat, drink, and share stories. Everyone’s conversations suddenly end as we taste the food. The complexity of the flavors dance around, both confusing and delighting our senses. Every type of bitter, umami, sweetness, saltiness, and sourness expresses itself. This food seems to scold you and caress you at the same time until you have no thoughts left but pure satisfaction. “You grew up with this?” I ask Charlie. “Yes! And I never take it for granted.”
“I have always been learning from what surrounds me, from my Oaxaca”
Like everyone with this much talent, there’s a journey to be told. “My story of how I learned to cook is in two moments,” says Mimi. “I was the only woman among three brothers and my mother commissioned me to prepare the food. She gave me the ingredients and the procedure, but nothing else.”
The next step in her culinary evolution came from her mother-in-law Josefina, who took her talent and developed it. “Everything had more meaning because she loves the traditional cuisine.” Mimi’s mother-in-law taught her the techniques and traditions of Oaxacan cooking. “I have never had a formal education as a chef, but I have always been learning from what surrounds me, from my Oaxaca.”
Mimi continued to cook for her family. Her husband’s cheese company was doing well and everything was going normal. That was until 2019, when she won second place in the Meeting of Traditional Cooks of Oaxaca competition for her Pipian of Cactus dish. Mimi blew up. Recognition came, not only as an incredible cook but as an educator. “After that moment I decided to open my restaurant Maíz Cocina Tradicional, start my YouTube channel, give conferences to university students, and offer traditional cooking experiences.”
Food, Culture, and Ingredients
To get an impression of how intertwined food and culture are in Oaxaca, Mimi sums it up perfectly. “In Oaxaca, everything has a meaning. The celebrations, the parties, the festivals in Oaxaca, everything has a reason to be. Every important moment has its own dish to prepare. Is it your wedding? Perfect! We have to prepare mole negro. Is it your birthday? Cool, you’re having mole estofado. Funeral? Ok, we must make mole coloradito.”
As important as technique is to Oaxacan cooking, ingredients are the backbone. Fresh, organic, and seasonal, everything has a purpose. Out of all the thousands of ingredients, none is more treasured than corn. “Corn is the basis of food in Oaxaca and most of Mexico. You can find corn in different forms, in drinks, in tortillas, or in desserts,” says Mimi. Oaxaca is home to a variety of corn that dates back to over 4000 BCE. Communities have passed down heirloom corn seeds through generations. Each community has a public corn grinder who makes fine or grainy nixtamal—corn soaked in mineral limewater to extract its nutrients.
Wild herbs, organic produce, diverse fruits, and over 20 varieties of beans make up the next important tier of Oaxacan cuisine. Aromatic, bitter, and savory, wild herbs like hoja santa, poleo, avocado leaves, and purslane add an abundance of nutrients and flavor. Cacti too are used extensively and require little water to produce their nutritious and flavorful pads and fruits. Many recipes are vegetarian, making Oaxacan cuisine perfect for plant-based eaters.
“Corn is the basis of food in Oaxaca and most of Mexico. You can find corn in different forms, in drinks, in tortillas, or in desserts”
Like everywhere in Mexico, insects are prized for their nutrition and flavor. “One of my cooking specialties are tamales with green sauce and maguey worms. It is a tamale that is fluffy, with a greasy texture because the maguey worms are very juicy.” Anyone who feels squeamish should experience a savory grasshopper (chapulin) once in their lives. Their flavor and texture is life changing.
The last pillar of Oaxacan cuisine is cheese. The most famous being quesillo, a briny unpasteurized cheese similar to fresh mozzarella but more flavorful and fibrous. Dairy is arguably the tastiest thing the colonizing Spaniards brought with them. Oaxacan cheese, especially Mimi’s family’s cheese, is special.
The Land and its History
With a landscape so diverse as Oaxaca’s, it’s little surprise that it has so much culinary diversity. Starting at the coast, tropical forests meet rocky bays and inlets, providing rich fishing grounds and tropical plant life. Moving inland, interior valleys stretch within the Sierra Madre Del Sur and Sierra Madre de Oaxaca mountains. Here, high elevations and dry, sunny weather provide the perfect habitat for over 100 species of agave cactus and thousands of species of edible plants, fungi, and insects.
Over 10,000 villages with their own stories, traditions, and culinary legacies surround the state’s capital city. They inherited these traditions from the indigenous societies who called this land home for thousands of years. Zapotecs, Mixtecs, and other indigenous groups continue to guard the diverse landscape. These powerful societies mastered agriculture, astronomy, writing, and architecture, creating vast cities like Monte Albán and Mitla.
“If people stop learning the traditional way of our cuisine, one day we will lose it. So we must stay motivated and always be proud of our people, our land and ancestors”
In the 15th century came the Aztecs. Then, the Spanish, who set up religious and social institutions that dramatically altered the social landscape. Oaxaca was a pivotal region in Mexico’s hard-fought independence. Out of the struggle came the Zapotec leader from Oaxaca Benito Juárez, the nation’s first indigenous president, in 1858.
Even during the 300 years of colonization, many people held onto their culture and language. Some ethnic groups remained free from European influence. Once Mexico won its independence, Oaxaca remained on the periphery of its control. On one hand, neglect from the Mexican government caused prevailing poverty and suffering, yet it also allowed independence and cultural preservation, something that’s being threatened in other parts of Mexico. Fortunately, with tourism and food conservationists like Mimi, Oaxaca could find the balance between preserving its cultural heritage and growing its economy.
A Love Letter to Oaxaca
Swerving between steep mountain ridges lined with cactus and pockets of wood smoke, I think of our time in Oaxaca and how much we’ll miss it. The land, the food, the people, the culture, and everything in between captivate us like nowhere else. We feel home here. Our time learning from Mimi and spending time with her family was an unforgettable highlight.
Oaxaca makes me fall in love with cooking all over again. It’s refreshing to see so much care and respect go into food. For Mimi, honoring not only her family, culture, and home, but her cooking environment as well, may be that special touch that makes all the difference. “My space, my kitchen, my pots. When I’m going to start cooking, I always start giving thanks to God. I bless myself and my cooking tools, that give the food a special taste. I think there’s an important connection between my kitchen and me. That’s why I like talking to my tools, telling them that everything must taste delicious for my family.”