Last weekend's food and wine festival at Ixtapa Zihuatanejo, sponsored by Food & Wine magazine, was virtually a one man show--and that man was Rick Bayless, the USA's most talked about Mexican restaurateur, cookbook author and TV food show personality ("Mexico - One Plate at a Time").
Bayless was without question the star, promoted by the promoters, his likeness on posters plastered around town, and media from both sides of the border lined up for interviews.
But if you could get a ticket, the price to attend one of his demos was only $40. And Bayless gave back by showing dishes that you could actually make, not impressive, impossible chef creations.
The theme was "Market to Table," and he'd gone shopping locally to make three dishes typical of the coast of Guerrero, the state in which Ixtapa Zihuatanejo is located.
These were spiny lobster in mojo de ajo (garlic-olive oil sauce), camarones a la diabla (spicy shrimp--shown in the photo below) and aguachile (raw seafood with lime juice and chile).
As he cooked, he moved seamlessly back and forth from English to Spanish so that everyone could understand.
The demo took place outdoors at the Hotel Las Brisas Ixtapa, which faces the beach.
For spectators, it was ideal--cool breezes for comfort and the ocean quietly rumbling in the background. For chefs, not so idyllic. The breezes did what they were supposed to, mitigate the heat. But that included the heat needed to cook the food.
Federico López, who gave "The Purist's Point of View" at the Hotel Barceló Ixtapa, finally put a sheet of foil over a skillet of fish to conserve what heat there was.
As big a star in his country as Bayless is in the United States, López was voted one of Mexico's top 10 chefs five years in a row, founded the Ambrosía culinary school in Mexico City and consults on both sides of the border.
In the '90s, López was in the forefront of new cooking. But elBulli in Spain put him "out of style," he said, and so he switched to the other side, conserving traditions.
However, the food he presented was anything but old. it would seem that López is at the forefront again, not of anything so elitist as molecular gastronomy but of vegetarian and vegan cooking.
He's obsessed with greens--quelites, as they're called in Mexico. And he lined his demo space with containers of huazontle (rich in protein, he said), epazote, hoja santa, cilantro, radish tops, lettuce leaves and chard as well as fresh favas, peas, poblano chiles, asparagus and tomatillos.
With these, he made a mole verde for local robalo, combining green pepitas with the quelites and vegetables and topping the fish with asparagus.
For another dish, he placed a creamy purée of favas and peas under fish fillets and topped them with a leafy vegetable salad tossed with a simple lime juice and olive oil vinaigrette. It's in the photo at the top.
"The coming battle is between red meat and vegetables," he said. It's clear what side López is on.
Chef Guillermo González Beristáin, who also struggled with insufficient heat as he cooked at Club Intrawest, walks a middle road. His theme was "Old Meets New: The Flavors of Contemporary Mexico."
Beristáin has six restaurants in Monterrey in northern Mexico, including the flagship Pangea.
His opener, a crab-filled avocado, seemed conventional enough, except for its topping of crushed chicharron and accompaniments including jelled Clamato (a tomato-clam broth drink popular in Mexico), green mole, cilantro foam and tostadas made from three kinds of corn.
His take on meat with salsa borracha (drunken sauce) veered from the traditional too, as he replaced the beer that is customarily used with red wine. "It makes a finer, more delicate sauce," he said.
Other additions were veal stock, fried chorizo and chunks of barbacoa, all of this seasoned with serrano chile, onions and tomato.
The presentation was anything but traditional. Beristáin smeared a plate with chayote purée and then goat cheese diluted with cream and pickled jalapeño juice. A spoonful of the salsa borracha went onto this.
Next he added sliced beef tenderloin that had been seared and finished in the oven. And then a sprinkle of sea salt and a garnish of tiny corn gorditas and crisp-fried cilantro.
Beristáin ended with a Pangea dessert, a mango shell filled with diced fruit and coconut ice cream, topped with crisp flour tortilla strips sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and a dash of sweet-sour jamaica sauce.
It was a logical dessert, because mangoes are a leading crop of Guerrero. But Beristáin was not such a purist that he wouldn't condone using canned mangoes instead of fresh and building the dessert in a martini glass.
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