Annual Awards of Excellence Scholarship Trips

2006 Winners Trip to Mexico - Report from Paul Smart, AAE Kitchen 2006

This trip to Mexico was not only a culinary experience, it was seeing at first hand what the Mexican way of life is all about. Mexico has a lot of history having tried to been conquered and taken over by the Spanish, Italians and Americans over the centuries. It really shows in the present how proud the Mexican people are of their country.

Throughout this trip we visited three cities in Mexico and they were so individually different from one another. All three cities were very unique and had something special about them. In all three cities we met some great chefs. From traditional food to modern day fusion cooking, all their food was really good.

Mexico City is the place were all the business is done, with high car production, sales and government meetings. A lot of people go to Mexico City each day to work, with 13 million people living in the city and 20 million in the city throughout each working day it can be quite hectic.

Right next to government house in Mexico City we went to a restaurant called The Sunflower. The head chef there showed us how to make traditional sauces made mainly from chili peppers. This restaurant was the first place we tried grasshopper and was not to be the last. The grasshoppers which they call chapolinas are very small which taste salty and have a slight smokiness to them and obviously a tad crunchy. The other specialty they had on the menu was ant lava which they call escamouli. The ant lava is very high in protein so they only serve a maximum of two tablespoons per person or they will suffer the consequences. The sunflower mainly caters for the senators being right next to government house and wealthy locals who just love these types of delicacies.

Oaxaca is completely different to Mexico City. It is in the country with lots of farms and markets. A lot of their fresh and dried food products get distributed throughout Mexico.

It is also where there is a lot of cactus farms in which tequila and mescal are made. The style of food in Oaxaca is very traditional with hearty dishes, plenty of meat, more home style cooking should I say.

In Oaxaca we met a famous chef owner Alejandro Ruiz. He took us to the markets where we got ingredients to take back to one of his restaurants and cook us lunch, well it ended up being a late lunch because the markets were just so interesting and there was a lot to see. I had never eaten so much food in my life, there were just so many different new things to try.

That night we went to his other restaurant called Casa Oaxaca where he is experimenting with his dishes. He is doing very nice fusion cooking, combining Mexican ingredients with modern style cooking and presentation.

Merida is just so completely different again having so much history with ancient ruins, lots of beautiful old churches and plenty of great restaurants. Merida was my favorite of the three cites because it had it all, great food, history and extremely nice people.

We went to a restaurant called Nectar where we met the Executive Chef Santiago Pineda Leyva. He made us feel very welcome showing us his beautiful restaurant and well set up kitchen where he cooked us three of the dishes of his menu. His attention to detail was amazing, I then asked where he had trained, he said he had been cooking in Spain for a while and he also said he had been to the Fat Duck. Santiago said his restaurant doesn’t get busy until 10pm and they send their last meals at approx 2am, being so hot in Mexico they don’t eat ‘till late.

We also visited the cooking school in Merida where they have a well recognized training program for young chefs. We went into one of the classes and learnt how to make a traditional Mexican dish called cochinita. The young chefs at the school were very keen to learn, and it looks like the Mexican restaurants have good chefs being trained for the future.

In Merida their was an old nunnery that had been restored and turned into a hotel which has a great restaurant, the whole place was just amazing.

On one of the day trips we traveled a bit out of Merida to Izamal, an ancient city with pyramids and one of the first ever astronomy towers. Uxmal was another great archaeological site that we visited that just had to be seen because a photo would just not do it any justice. After seeing the pyramids we went to a beautiful Hacienda which has an underground river running under the town.

There is a big whole in the earth here where there is a cenote (sinkhole) where the ocean runs under the earth and fresh water floats on top of the salt water. The swimming hole is 50 meters deep and the water is crystal clear. I couldn’t wait to get in - straight off the ten metre high rocks into the water on a hot day, this was the highlight of the day!

On our last night in Merida we ate at a nice restaurant called Trotters. The food and wine were amazing in a beautiful setting. The next morning we had breakfast at Hacienda Xcanatun which is run by Chef Cristina Baker. It was now almost the end of the trip she just had time to show us around the beautiful gardens and then guest rooms, which were really nice. It was then time to go to the airport and fly back home.

I would like to thank all sponsors, the Academy of Culinary Arts and the Savoy Educational Trust along with the tourism board of Mexico and Michael Coaker for accompanying us in our trip. This was a life changing trip for me, one I will never forget and I have learnt so much in such a short amount of time, so many thanks to everyone who had a part in organizing and funding this great adventure.

Paul Smart, AAE Kitchen 2006