- hola! - hi, eva. how are you? - good. nice to see you. i ve come 30 miles north of monterrey to meet ranch manager jorge montemayor to collect a cherished ingredient that s been on the menu in nuevo león for thousands of years. so you raise them here and then let them go? - yep. - rancho del puerto, one of the hundreds of ranches in nuevo león, specializes in deer farming. - so we have, like, three or four breeding pens, with 20, 25 does per stud. - mm-hmm. so there s only one man in here? - yeah. - and these are his ladies. - his ladies. - so are they all pregnant? - right now? we hope they are. [laughs] - oh. the deer may be bred in captivity, but then they re freed to roam, just like their ancestors did. there s many stone carvings made by the nomads who lived here 8,000 years ago that depict the food they hunted.
to have this sort of restaurant? like, elevated cuisine from nuevo león. - yes, it s meat and carne asada - yes, that s what the people think. - everybody has a grill, so why do i need you? - totally, totally. - so it s not just about taste. - that s right. yeah. - okay, so are you putting me to work now? [laughter] okay. what are we making? - well, let s do it. - okay, let s go to the kitchen. - are you guys working? - yes. - okay. all right. just making sure. so to understand this recipe, we need to go back in time. like, way back to when a giant meteorite struck the yucatán peninsula, wiping out much of life on earth, but triggering the growth of the flora and fauna of the modern world.
nuevo león and texas were once part of the same country ruled by spain and then by mexico. in 1845, the u.s. annexed what would become the lone star state. but the people of nuevo león and texas still have so many shared tastes. nowhere is this more present than in the state capital, monterrey, the industrial hub of the northeast. the locals are nicknamed regios, meaning royals. they are hardworking and ambitious. and when the daily grind is over, just like us texans, they like nothing better than throwing some steak on the grill. [both speaking spanish] cómo estás? mucho gusto. this is every guy i dated in high school.
- hola! - hi, eva. how are you? - good. nice to see you. i ve come 30 miles north of monterrey to meet ranch manager jorge montemayor to collect a cherished ingredient that s been on the menu in nuevo león for thousands of years. so you raise them here and then let them go? - yep. - rancho del puerto, one of the hundreds of ranches in nuevo león, specializes in deer farming. - so we have, like, three or four breeding pens, with 20, 25 does per stud. - mm-hmm. so there s only one man in here? - yeah. - and these are his ladies. - his ladies. - so are they all pregnant? - right now? we hope they are. [laughs] - oh. the deer may be bred in captivity, but then they re freed to roam, just like their ancestors did. there s many stone carvings made
- hola, eva. - i have come to the museum of mexican history in monterrey to meet katya schoening, who started the city s sephardic jewish center. - i m a researcher specialized in the history of the jews that arrived from spain after the edict of expulsion. first of all, they were, like, crypto-jews, and they lived in secret. - is it hard to find evidence? - yes. i mean, they lived as christians, but inside the houses and inside their life, they have jewish practices. and here is full of jewish practices, actually. - and it s influenced the food. - definitely. - the founding governor of monterrey, luis de carvajal y de la cueva, was one of the many jews who left spain at the time of the inquisition. they had to pose as catholics in public while keeping their forbidden jewish faith hidden, a phenomenon known as crypto-judaism.