Mexican Evolution

When the need to dial down life’s intensity becomes intense, the need for a vacation comes to mind. Or at least it used to. Some time ago, I realized that I was more interested in travel than a vacation and the best travel for me features a flood of the unfamiliar: New food, new language, new music, new people and new places.

Oaxaca (Wa ha’ ka), Mexico, provides all of that and more. One of Mexico’s 31 states, Oaxaca is a rugged, mountainous region located in the southeast, home to an impressive collection of peaks, jungles, beaches and valleys as well as ruins that hint at the area’s diverse cultural background. It’s also the country’s culinary capital. I’d visited Oaxaca before — in the mid-1970s — so I knew that the food was phenomenal, the woven textiles and art unique and the people warm and gracious. When I saw a Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) culinary tour offered by Daniel Hoyer’s Well Eaten Path in the summer of 2006, I jumped at the opportunity, not just for the gastronomic offerings but also for the chance to immerse myself in Oaxaca’s many other pleasures.

Hoyer, a Sante Fe chef, had been organizing trips like these for years, weaving local cuisine into a Mexican mosaic that included culture, art, kind weather and the timeless sensibilities of the Oaxacenos. The Well Eaten Path leads visitors through locals’ lives, homes, villages and ultimately their kitchens, to observe the preparation of food so incredibly complex that very few foreigners would even recognize it as Mexican.

Cooks in Oaxaca — and in many parts of Mexico — are one step removed from medicine men and women, skilled technicians with finely tuned tastes. To be invited to join them and their families for a meal is to partake in much more than a meal. Indeed, it is to partake in their lives. No rushing this, the best time of the day, indeed, the best time of life. It feels old-world and European, sharing this life-affirming intimacy with people from another world.

There were seven of us on the tour and we cocineros were warmly welcomed everywhere we went — kitchens, mescal distilleries, weavers’ studios, restaurants, even on the streets. We were invited to share meals at tables in the humblest of private homes — without plumbing or modern appliances — sitting across from proud faces serving us their best. My clumsy Spanish was greeted with ever-widening smiles as I sought to appreciate the simplicity of their daily lives while savoring the subtleties of the imaginative spread they had laid out before me. More than one woman took it upon herself to make sure I ate my full share. Confronted with a skinny visitor like myself, every mother in Mexico seemed to feel it was her duty to put some meat on my bones, to succeed where my own mother had obviously failed. I quickly learned to embrace their directives; my mama did raise me to be polite.

Although culinary tours can sometimes lean toward entertainment rather than participation, my group was determined to get food on its collective fingers, to take home some new tastes, and lots of opportunities to learn by doing were made available, each one cherished. Salsa-making lessons were numerous and diverse. My favorite takeaway was a tomatillo and tomato salsa with smoked chilis toasted on a device that looked like a plowshare directly over a hardwood fire. The resulting smoky fresh delight has forever replaced all store-bought concoctions. Discovering so many options for salsa preparation opened the door to infinite variety. I’ve shaded each one differently ever since and all are invariably wonderful. Moles (mo’ lays) were another hands-on favorite, requiring a day’s attention and experienced fine-tuning. The best moles, I learned, flood the taste buds with combinations of flavors that cannot be pinned down to the chocolate, chili, herbs or any one of the many other ingredients that comprise them. In fact, it’s generally agreed that if you can make out any single ingredient, the mole is not a good one.

During the Dia de los Muertos celebration — which actually lasts several days, at roughly the same time that Americans celebrate Halloween — every family remembers lost friends and loved ones in a fashion that many might find macabre. People laugh at death and its inevitability, build altars in their homes and throw parties in cemeteries, honoring generations of family members that go back millennia. Grandparents, parents, teens, children and everyone in-between attend every gathering together. Even Death himself pays a visit. According to custom, we live as long as we are remembered, and I clearly recollect the sad song of two older men, sung low and lonely, over the grave of their compadre. How proud I’d be to know that my best amigos would miss me like that. Of course the holiday also includes special meals and dishes prepared for the returning spirits. Favorite cookies, beer, fruit and even plates of enchiladas are placed on altars so that the Dead will feel welcomed among their family again. Every special day has a special meal, and meals certify any day as special.

This way of life has been going on for centuries, as evidenced by the ancient ruins that command the surrounding landscape. Between planned excursions on The Well Eaten Path, there was ample downtime to explore and I set my sights on Monte Alban, a well-preserved city that dates from 500 B.C. and was once home to 17,000. Many similar cities are found all over Mexico, long outlasting the Aztec, Zapotec, Mayan and other civilizations that built them. The sense of history evoked by these sites is difficult to comprehend and a visit to one with an informed guide invariably opens the mind and imagination to the realities of pre-Columbian America. The inhabitants were mathematicians, astronomers, farmers and, well, cocineros — it always comes back to food.

In hindsight, I can recall specific experiences that I’ll treasure as long as my memory endures, but it’s the intricate tapestry of life in Oaxaca that is a bit astonishing in retrospect. The living philosophy of a rich, natural life lived among loved ones on ancient homeland seems less fictitious and more available now. And the knowledge that it exists in Oaxaca –and who knows where else — is comforting. I thought the journey would be about food and I was amazed at the remarkable cuisine I sampled and — to this day — copy freely. But, while there, I kept wishing I could show some painting or weaving or heart-warming scene to old friends who could use some simplicity in their lives, or at least some different complexities. I’d say that I’d do it all over again but that would be restating the obvious. What I’d really like would be for all other culinary tours to encourage active participation in the world that gave rise to the food sensibilities. Knowing how the food fits in is like learning music instead of a song: It’s yours to play a thousand different ways.