Deep inside the market in the town of Ocotlán de Morelos, 35km south of Oaxaca City in southern Mexico, the artist Frida Kahlo is still alive, and cooking a mean chicken mole.
Every morning before heading to her food stall in the town’s central market, Beatriz Vázquez Gómez, who bears a striking resemblance to the Mexican artist, transforms into Frida. She puts on bright lipstick and a traditional Tehuana long embroidered skirt, puts flowers in her hair and pencils in the prominent Kahlo brows. She then walks past hundreds of vendors selling fresh blue-corn tortillas, stringy quesillo cheese, prickly pears, fried chapulines (grasshoppers) and gusanos de maguey (mezcal worms), all delicacies in Oaxaca, the state known as Mexico’s culinary capital.
Beatriz’s mother opened this food stall 60 years ago, but when she died, Beatriz took over, and La Cocina de Frida was born. “I never met Frida, or knew much about her, but many people in the market told me I looked like the painter,” she says. “So I read about her and she became my hero. It’s a gift to look like Frida.”
While seeing La Frida Kahlo de Ocotlán in the flesh is what draws people to the market, locals and tourists stay for her Oaxacan specialities. Communal tables at Frida’s are usually full of shoppers tucking in to typical fare such as estofado (stew), enfrijoladas (tortillas folded around creamy black beans), chiles rellenos (stuffed chillies) and her famous mole coloradito (spicy red sauce).
“This is what I’ve cooked all my life,” Beatriz says. “I love preparing mole – toasting chillies, cocoa, sesame, spices. I like developing aromas and flavours.”
