Show Notes
Most of what North America calls Mexican food barely scratches the surface. Tanner Agar, Michelin-winning chef and bartender, and broadcaster Jerry Agar go deeper. They start with pulque, the ancient agave drink older than tequila, and the spirits mezcal drinkers should know next: raicilla, bacanora, and charanda.
From there, the dishes rarely seen north of the border: escamoles, huitlacoche, chapulines, sesos, nopales, and the moles beyond the black one. Chef Anastacia Quiñones-Pittman, three-time James Beard semifinalist and founder of Oh Hi Hospitality, joins to discuss cooking Mexican food in a Tex-Mex city, and why queso has no place on her menu.
The episode closes with the tortilla: its history, the science of nixtamalization, and why it deserves the respect we give bread.
0:00 Pulque: the drink older than tequila 2:32 The 400 drunk rabbits 5:35 Tepache vs. the health inspector 7:02 Would tequila exist without the Spanish? 7:43 Tejuino & pozol 8:46 Charanda: Mexico’s rum 10:17 Raicilla: the “little root” loophole 11:38 Bacanora 12:14 Would you eat this? Escamoles (ant larvae) 14:20 Huitlacoche (corn fungus) 16:04 Chapulines (grasshoppers) 16:52 Sesos (brains) 18:51 Chamoy 20:18 Nopales (cactus) 21:25 Beyond black mole 22:36 Chef AQ: Mexican food in a Tex-Mex town 29:20 Cal-Mex vs. Tex-Mex 32:03 Why queso isn’t Mexican 34:41 The truth about tortillas 37:05 The giant burrito isn’t Mexican 38:27 Nixtamalization explained 40:52 Making tortillas at home
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