abigail has been grinding corn by hand, making masa and moles like this, the ridiculously faithful, time-consuming, difficult traditional way she was taught to make these things and the way she s been making them since she was 6 years old. look at her hands, by the way. small, surprisingly delicate, given all the hard work, all the pushing, kneading, grinding, stone against stone over the years. then look at her forearms. the power there. it s impressive and beautiful. every time you enter a house in oaxaca, especially the small villages, they always offer you a shot of mescal. mm, so good. seguesa, a mole and chicken dish. this mole sauce, like a lot of
the real old school moles made by masters like abigail, uses 35 different types of chili peppers and takes more than two weeks to make. do you think that until recently, until guys like you, that mexicans were not looking back at their own food culture, they were looking elsewhere? what was going on? we were conquered. we are also a culture that was conquered first by the aztecs and then we were conquered by the spaniards. so we were always told that everything that was good and excellent has to be imported. right. and what we have here, it was just not good. right. another zapotecan classic, chili agua, a simpler dish of cow and pork brains cooked with chilies, tomatoes and yerba santa. as a cook, the main thing i learn was to develop a little bit my cuisine here. there was this space where nobody tried to innovate.
miles outside of oaxaca. a town where the arts, crafts, and traditions of the pre-hispanic mexico are celebrated and packaged for consumption. abigail mendosa and her sister rafina are zapoteca, original people from mexico before the spanish. before the aztecs. this is her restaurant, where abigail has been grinding corn by hand, making masa and moles like this, the ridiculously faithful, time-consuming, difficult traditional way she was taught to make these things and the way she s been making them since she was 6 years old. look at her hands, by the way. small, surprisingly delicate, given all the hard work, all the pushing, kneading, grinding, stone against stone over the years. then look at her forearms. the power there. it s impressive and beautiful.
every time you enter a house in oaxaca, especially the small villages, they always offer you a shot of mescal. mm, so good. seguesa, a mole and chicken dish. this mole sauce, like a lot of the real old school moles made by masters like abigail, uses 35 different types of chili peppers and takes more than two weeks to make. do you think that until recently, until guys like you, that mexicans were not looking back at their own food culture, they were looking elsewhere? what was going on? we were conquered. we are also a culture that was conquered first by the aztecs and then we were conquered by the spaniards. so we were always told that everything that was good and excellent has to be imported.
abigail has been grinding corn by hand, making masa and moles like this, the ridiculously faithful, time-consuming, difficult traditional way she was taught to make these things and the way she s been making them since she was 6 years old. look at her hands, by the way. small, surprisingly delicate, given all the hard work, all the pushing, kneading, grinding, stone against stone over the years. then look at her forearms. the power there. it s impressive and beautiful. every time you enter a house in oaxaca, especially the small villages, they always offer you a shot of mescal. mm, so good. seguesa, a mole and chicken dish. this mole sauce, like a lot of the real old school moles made