If I had to choose one place, I would choose Oaxaca. That’s where I want to retire – even though I’m not sure I’ll be retiring any time soon. I love the topography of the city, the climate, its rich history. Oaxaca has beautiful food and great markets, and it attracts people from everywhere in the world, which makes it a very cosmopolitan, cultural city. It’s large enough that it doesn’t feel as though you’re isolated from the world but small enough that you never feel lost. The city has a particular grounding energy.
I used to go to Oaxaca with my parents and we ate molés and quesadillas in the market. It’s very colourful, almost like a party. Markets are where Mexican food actually comes from – it wasn’t cooked in restaurants until recently, only at home and on the streets, in markets and in casual eateries – fondas, cantinas or botaneras. So the reference is always in the street. Wherever I travel to in Mexico, I like to go to the markets because that is our starting point, not only for our creative process, but as a culture.
I would definitely start the day in the market. We like to have friends over to eat, and I always invite them to the market with me. That’s where the cooking starts. I’d go to Tlacolula or Etla, to the central market, and see what’s good. It would be autumn: October to me is the most beautiful part of the year, because it’s the end of the rainy seasons. It’s not too warm, everything is green, it’s the time of the year when the pumpkins are starting, you can get corn and squash blossoms, you still get good tomatoes ... everything you need to make good Mexican food is at its peak.
There I’d have a squash blossom quesadilla with some salsa. It’s probably the one thing I’ve eaten most in my life, and I think it synthesises Mexican culture well – Spanish and pre-Hispanic influences; cheese, corn.
We’d then go home and cook, family style. Something to share with my friends and family, listening to good music and finishing with some dancing at the end – salsa! That would be a good way to go. We’d start eating around 1pm and finish as the sun went down.
I’d make some beans in a clay pot, then roast a suckling pig or lamb in a barbacoa – under the earth wrapped in banana leaves – served with adobo and lots of salsas, bunches of coriander and chopped raw peppers. The beans would just be cooked by themselves with some epazote. There’d also be fresh tortillas.
A tortilla is very simple but also super complex – you can talk about tortillas in the same way you talk about wine, the colour of the corn, the shape of the grain, its provenance, and all the differences. It has a lot of expressions. The more you focus on one thing, the more complicated it gets. Our food is like that - it’s very focused, so it needs to be perfect.
We’d have mezcal and beer to drink. I also love old vintage white wine, from the Jura in particular right now – a good, oxidated, decadent white. I don’t pay much attention to pairing suggestions. People say you can’t eat shrimp with red wine. But I’d rather have really good shrimp with really good red wine, than bad shrimp with bad white wine that in theory goes well together. Of course, they complement each other, but they can also live apart! I think food has to be about enjoying, not about teaching. Cooking can be technical but eating has to be about pleasure.
We wouldn’t need much more food. Maybe every four hours, we’d come up with something else. But you have to pace yourself. I’d want to keep it simple.
For dessert, we’d have fruit and ice cream. Whatever is in season – figs are great in October, when I’d be holding this feast, with honey ice-cream or olive ice-cream. We’d be listening to salsa – El Negro Jose by the Flamers is a song I love. It reminds me of being in my grandmother’s house when I was just a kid. It has such a nostalgic, festive quality – perfect music for tacos.
I like to have dinner outside on the patio. And I’d like there to be sunshine and then rain. Really beautiful flowers on the table – which, along with the people and the food, would bring all the colour we’d need. Everything else can be simple and natural and honest. Things that are well-made give me great pleasure – the marble of a good table, a nice piece of linen, a good song.
My friends and my family would be with me, a small group, 20 people at the most. My kids, my brother, my parents, my best friends who I’ve been friends with since high school – for some reason most of my friends are architects, and they’d be there too. Jorge Lestrade who helps us editing the books: he’d be there. He has beautiful conversation – smart and funny – which is always nice to have.
- Enrique Olvera is an acclaimed Mexican chef with restaurants in Mexico City and New York. His latest book, Mexico from the Inside Out (Phaidon) is out now; enriqueolvera.com
