Appetite for Adventure
Diana Kennedy is a legend.
Curious, intrepid, gutsy. She's a certifiable adventurer, tooling about Mexico in her 1999 double-cabin Nissan truck, a camper-type cover over the back, a cot and a sleeping bag inside.
She's also 87 and doesn't plan to slow her almost 40-year campaign to tell the world about the glories of Mexican cuisine.
Credit her appetite: “I am tenacious. And I love to eat,” she said during a phone chat. “I go into the field and see some delectable thing they're cooking, wild plants perhaps, and think, ‘Oh my God, I have to write about this.' I just think it's insatiable curiosity. To me, life is a continuous process of learning.”
To that end, she has added a ninth English-language cookbook to her resume, a behemoth weighing more than six pounds, titled, “Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy” (University of Texas Press, $50).
More than a cooking manual, the book is a love letter to the rich diversity of cuisines, ingredients and traditions of Oaxaca, a state tucked along Mexico's southern edge. Her focus is on 11 regions (Sierra Mazateca, the Isthmus, etc.), their cooks (“They are the soul of this book,” she said) and recipes.
She is crisscrossing the United States — stopping in cooking schools, bookstores and museums — on behalf of the book and to urge cooks north of the Rio Grande to move beyond serranos and anchos to rarer chilies, perhaps costenos or chilhuacles.
A stickler for authenticity, Kennedy can't see why you might fudge a mole recipe if you can't find a particular chili.
“People say, ‘How are we going to get all the ingredients? How about all the chilies?' I want people to start asking for these chilies,” she said, “because it means this is an export from these very poor regions of Oaxaca, and it can spur production of these unique chilies.”
Testing all the recipes and writing about a few unusual ones was done at her teaching-research center in the state of Michoacan, not far from where Monarch butterflies winter. It was built 30-plus years ago with water conservation elements before “green” became a buzzword. (“I have always been a bit of a hippie,” said Kennedy, who has a place in Austin, Texas).
This book was almost derailed by political changes in Mexico (she began working on it in 1994, though she's been visiting Oaxaca since the '60s) and a U.S. publisher unable to see why certain instructions should be included.
“‘Do you really have to tell people how to clean an iguana?”‘ Kennedy recalled the publisher asking. “Well, you actually do. I think there's always somebody who wants to know how to clean an iguana. Why should they be prejudiced about giving all this information? There's enough in the book that people can cook, let alone the things that they can't.”
Perhaps she means the chapulines (grasshoppers) or the wedding stew from the Isthmus “where you put a whole cow into a pot and cook it all night,” she said. Though she doesn't give a recipe, she does offer details.
Kennedy may be uncompromising when it comes to ingredients, but yields to the mountains of Oaxaca. “Once I get into the mountains, I always take a driver because if you get stuck on some of those roads and you're trying to turn that car around and there's a dip of 1,000 feet below, well that is not my cup of tea.”
Born in Loughton, Essex, Diana Southwood Kennedy credits her mother's fondness for England's countryside for the author's interest in nature. She spent her war service years with the forestry corps. These days, she's part of an international effort to catalog Earth's biodiversity. Her focus? Mexico.
“I am not an academic, historian, anthropologist or botanist,” she wrote in the book's introduction. “Just an adventurous cook and lover of the natural world.”
9 cups water4 cloves garlic1 teaspoon salt½ white onion2¼ pounds pumpkin or winter squash, peeled, seeded, cut in ½ inch cubes (about 4 cups)1 tablespoon vegetable oil½ pound tomatoes, finely chopped2 sprigs epazoteToppings: Crumbled queso fresco, chopped onion, chopped green chilies, lime quartersCombine water, two of the garlic cloves and salt in a stockpot. Cut one slice off the onion half and add to pot. Heat to a boil; cook 5 minutes.Meanwhile, chop remaining onion and reserve. Add pumpkin to the pot; lower heat to medium. Cook until tender, about 20 minutes. Discard onion slice and garlic.Finely chop remaining two garlic cloves. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add chopped garlic and chopped onion; fry until translucent, 1 minute. Add tomatoes; fry until reduced, about 5 minutes.Place about 1 cup cooked pumpkin in a blender with some broth and purée.Return to pot. Add tomato mixture to soup. Season with salt if necessary.Add epazote; simmer over low heat, about 10 minutes. Set aside to season, about 30 minutes. Heat through; serve with toppings as desired.Epazote can be found in grocery stores serving Latin American neighborhoods.
½ cup olive oil6 cloves garlic, peeled, finely chopped2 white onions, finely chopped10 ripe tomatoes, finely chopped1 pound lightly smoked fish, skinned, boned, shredded5 serrano chilies, finely chopped2 Mexican bay leaves or 1 bay laurel½ cup water or more3 tablespoons white vinegar1 small red bell pepper, cut in thin strips1 cup fresh or frozen peas½ cup pitted green olives½ teaspoon salt¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepperHeat olive oil in a deep skillet or casserole; add garlic and onion; cook, stirring, until translucent, 2 minutes. Add tomatoes; cook until reduced, about 10 minutes.Add fish, chilies, bay leaves, water and vinegar; cook over medium heat until mixture is well seasoned, about 20 minutes. Add bell pepper, peas, olives, salt and pepper; cook until peas are done, 5-10 minutes. Cool; serve at room temperature.This recipe calls for barrilete or skipjack tuna or any lightly smoked fish. The finished escabeche is served on tostaditas (crisp tortilla pieces).
2 large grapefruit, peeled, segmented4 pasilla chilies3 cloves garlic, finely chopped¼ teaspoon saltRemove tough membranes from the grapefruit. Spread grapefruit segments on a serving dish. Toast whole chilies over low heat, turning once, being careful that you do not let them burn, about 2 minutes. Remove stems and seeds. Grind chilies in a blender to a powder. Mash garlic with salt in a bowl and stir in chili powder. Sprinkle mixture to taste over grapefruit just before serving.This is usually served as a botana (a snack served with drinks) with tostaditas, or try it as a salad with slivers of jicama.
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil1½ white onions, thinly sliced2 cloves garlic, peeled1¾ pounds tomatoes, quartered, cooked in a small amount of water2 jalapenos, toasted, skinned, seeded2 large sprigs epazote½ teaspoon salt12 corn tortillas, 6 inches in diameter¾ cup crumbled queso fresco1 small bunch flat-leaf parsley, torn in small piecesHeat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a skillet. Add about 1/3 of the onion slices and the garlic; fry until golden, 5 minutes. Transfer to a blender with ½ cup of the tomato cooking liquid and jalapenos; blend until smooth. Add the tomatoes with the rest of the cooking liquid; blend to a smooth puree. Return mixture to skillet; cook over medium heat until reduced a little. Add epazote and salt; keep hot.Heat about ¼ cup of the vegetable oil in a skillet. Fry tortillas lightly on both sides, one at a time, adding more oil if needed, until crisp at the edges. Drain on paper towels.Dip tortillas, one by one, into the hot tomato sauce. Fold into quarters; place on warm serving dish or individual plates. Pour remaining sauce over; garnish with remaining onion, cheese and parsley.These simple tortillas can be served as is or with eggs.
