- an hour s drive from oaxaca city lies the farming town of santa ana zegache, the unassuming epicenter of corn. mm-hmm. mm. amado ramírez leyva is my guide to this region, where corn has been worshipped for over 6,000 years and is still the beating heart of mexican cuisine. cut us, and we bleed yellow. [soft music] [dog barks, animal bleats] hola. soy eva. hola.
so now we have our chocolate for the mole. - yeah! [horn honks] alex s world-famous restaurant, casa oaxaca, celebrates the glories of this region s produce. so there s no better place to try oaxaca s famous mole negro. is this everything that your mole has? - yes, correct. - i mean, this is a very culturally mixed dish, mole. these 28 ingredients are a marriage of spanish imports, like limes and walnuts, with indigenous staples like chiles and, of course, chocolate. okay. - muy bien. [light music] - i love that everything just goes all together. the chiles off the comal. rather than spicy heat,
- even ice cream. have you tried it? they make it in oaxaca. - no. - it s delicious and amazing. - mm-mm. oh, look at yours. my god. respect to omar. i have never seen so much cheese gobbled so fast. sí. i always assumed it just came in this shape. [laughter] [light music] back in the city, i want to check out how this local cheese is celebrated at oaxaca s hottest restaurants. star chef celia florián loves innovating with traditional ingredients in her kitchen to create gastronomic magic. hola. un gran placer. - mucho gusto. - ay, mucho gusto. [chuckles]
[upbeat music] - oh, look at these agave. oaxaca is the land of the agave plant. and where there s agave, there s mezcal the smoky liquor this region is famed for. i ve always been more of a tequila girl myself, so i m off to a palenque, an agave farm, for a little mezcal education in san baltazar chichicapam. and i m excited because this palenque has a maestra mezcalera, which is a female master of mezcal. and it s very rare in the mezcal industry. tequila is only made from blue agave, while mezcal uses a variety of species. so, to see the field out here with all this diverse agave is pretty cool. hot, arid plains are the perfect breeding ground, but you got to be patient. some agave can take over 30 years to mature.
hola. connoisseur sylvia philion champions traditional producers. a mezcal authority, three years ago, she discovered doña berta s artisanal spirit. - what doña berta is doing now how we say it in oaxaca. shaving the agave. - and what type is this one? both: cuishe. - this is a species that you can only find in oaxaca, actually. - okay. - what she s doing is she s taking out all the leaves so we can have the heart of the agave. - and this is the part that s gonna be cooked? - yes. [surf rock music] so this is a very important part of the process. this is where mezcal takes the smoky qualities