Emilio Perez, chef and partner at Casa Jacaranda Cooking School in Mexico City, cried out over the blitz of a cry of blender, “Check out this and come here.”
Standing in front of the burner he incinerated the tortilla, the browned one still tied to mogule sauce, turning his attention to the blender to taste the spicy red salsa. Then I went back to the burner to see the shrinking raisins (another mole ingredient) plump before mixing the tortilla dough.
For the next few hours, my attention was volleying from ingredients to ingredients to cooking. A class of eight students prepared a Mexican menu of green tamare, chicken moles, two salsas and blue corn tortillas, as we called it, under the energetic guidance of chef Emilio.
For cultural spices, he threw observations such as “We tame corn, and that tame us.”
I came to Mexico City in February and wanted such culinary and cultural immersion. A friend recently returned from Italy and raved about her four-day cooking school. This was over $1,000 a day.
In the Mexican capital, we knew we could grow our budget – the dollar today is worth around 20 pesos today, one of the world's most famous food traditions cited on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage, spending around 200 on the DIY curriculum.
Cooking classes are booming, some of the travel experience trends. They are a key component of what market research firm Grandview Research calls culinary tourism, accounting for $11.5 billion worldwide, and are projected to increase nearly 20% per year through 2030.
My husband Dave and I have taken three classes over three days, catching Lucha Libre wrestling matches, visiting studios at artists Diego Rivera and Frida Cahlo, and enjoying free mezcals on the roof of the Nanavida Hotel in the Bohemian Roman district (P2,888 rooms).
Learn the “Language of Love”
In a shady plaza in the Central Juarez district, Casa Jacaranda chef Emilio ($225 per person) greeted a group of seven Americans and one Canadian.
By majority vote we chose the green tamales – “something that everyone can get,” said Emilio Chef – and chicken and mol.
English classes moved to nearby Juarez market for a tour. In a towering produce stand and a layered display of dried chili, the chef discussed the Milpa farming system, where corn, beans and squash are grown together as the basis for Mexican cuisine.
“We were conquered with food and other ways,” he added, identifying foods that introduced Spanish, such as wheat, olives, grapes and almonds.
At the nearby cafe, La Rifa Chocolatea, we sampled Mexican chocolate, swapped it like currency, and discussed the importance of cocoa, a key element of many molsauce.
Then a few blocks away, we ended up going through the oversized kitchen island in a colorful workshop in Rajacaranda, which shares the space with the art gallery.
Roasted for red salsa with tomatoes, garlic and chile, mixed with pork fat and corn flour for tamales batter, smeared ancho chili on the eggs, and chicken was simmered for 27 flocculated molsau.
“Moles are not recipes, they are categories,” Emilio said.
We made three sauces that show the spectrum of flavors that blend into one mother sauce. One involved plantain, sugar and burnt tortillas. Another roasted cacao and a third fried apple, raisins and sesame seeds.
“When you make a mole from scratch, it's the language of love,” he said.
Sent to wash our hands, we went back and found a piece table filled with taco ingredients using tortillas we had pushed and baked. For the next course, I picked up a Paloma cocktail and filed it in the adjacent dining room. There, a long table was set up with a meal of aromatic tamare and rich moles on top of yellow rice.
For another cooking lesson, I turned to the Airbnb experience. There, gastronomic offerings range from street crawls and mezcal tastings to churro making and bread baking.
“Make Taco Al's Pastor with the Chef” ($66 per person) stood out for his bold attempts with the ubiquitous Taqueria recipe. There, a slab of pork marinated on Adobe spits vertically before an open flame – and professional guidance.
French-born chef Raja Elissa worked in fine dining restaurants in Paris and Los Angeles before moving to Mexico. In 2017, chef Raja, along with his wife, Pilar Moreno, transformed the garage of his home around San Angel into a professional kitchen with stainless steel countertops. He has been teaching there ever since.
“I'm happy to meet people from all over the world,” the chef said he welcomes German and German couples from Mercado Melcher Muzkiz in San Angel by distributing shopping bags.
While picking up pork, tomatillo, pineapple and other ingredients, he leaked a secret to reading Chili. He says that the larger and darker ones are mild, while those with stretch marks “will become like a volcano erupting.”
They took me on a three-stop bus and took me to the chef's house. There, whitewashed walls hidden a shaded garden and a neat kitchen.
Wearing an apron, the marinated pork was colored red with a gentle guazillochili.
Lean pork, normally used by the Tacos Al pastor, is layered and led to a large rotisserie known as the Trompo, from which the outer meat is shaved. In the home version, we created a mini trom pose, driving wooden dowels into sturdy discs of pineapple, marinated meat was thrust into the stakes, and roasted oven assembly.
While the meat was cooked, we used charred and blended ingredients for the salsa, using traditional molcajets, or volcanic stone mortars, making guacamole, pressed and fried tortillas.
We learned useful techniques, such as how to shake the knife blade from front to back, to avoid squeezing fragile produce like tomatoes. A way to cut sashimi into a portion of the pork and open it like a book. And how to force garlic cloves by tripping them out of the skin.
As we sat and dined, we roamed around the mini trom, sliced ​​meat into tortillas and topped with tacos with diced onions, coriander and salsa.
“The best way to build bonds”
There are no moles, I texted the next instructor. I don't ask for tacos.
“I plan something different,” replied Alex Ortiz, an elementary school teacher who is moonlighted as a cooking instructor in a downtown apartment via a platform spoon.
Airbnb travels overnight, spoons, cooking. This coincides with hosts who are usually skilled amateurs, but sometimes specialists.
Among the seven travel spoon options in Mexico City, I chose “Modern Mexican Cuisine Class with Fun Couples” ($190 per person including market tours and meals).
“I love teaching and I love cooking,” Ortiz said on a walk to San Juan Market, explaining that his wife, Yale, the other half of the couple, was working.
When he began his spoon trip seven years ago, Ortiz sought supplemental income. He now expands his culinary training with his university courses, so he enjoys it several times a month.
“It's like spending time with friends and eating and drinking. This is the best way to build a bond,” he said.
Ortiz's ambitious menu included hominy and pork stew known as pozole. The two of us are appetizers (Chalpas and Chicharon de Queso) and salsa, guacamole and corn cake for dessert.
At the market, guides point to barbers, office supplies stores and florists while shopping for grocery stalls, produce stalls and tortilla makers, calling the market “original Walmart.”
Back in his small kitchen, I chopped a cactus paddle. For the main dish, Dave worked on a chili-based sauce, browned the meat and eventually transferred all the ingredients to a pressure cooker.
While it was steaming, we made chicharon de queso and shredded Gouda cheese fried in a non-stick pan until it was thin crepes. After flipping and crunching on each side, the flexible sheet was coaxed over the rolling pins and stiffened into the shape of a tube. Once plated, Ortiz urged me to choose karate and produced decadent cheese potato chips to soak in guacamole.
Pozole, topped with radish chunks and chopped cabbage and sprinkled on Chilean ground (the dishes that Ortiz, as recognized, were more expensive than the average home-cooked dish, but were lighter and more complicated on the table.
“It's like throwing a dinner party,” he said. “You want something better than you do every day.”
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