by Alex Kinderman, December 20, 2018

Discovering yourself in regards to your style of cooking I feel is one of the most important journeys we will take as chefs and culinarians. Over this past fall quarter I feel I have gone down this journey quite a bit. I have always known Mexican food is what I love and enjoy best but I am not exactly sure yet what I wish to do with it in the future.

Lately, I have been researching many of the lesser known traditional Mexican recipes. A few examples I have recently made are huazontles, pambazos, tepache, and a few others. Mexico’s cuisine is so vast and rich it would quite literally take lifetimes to take it all in. After recently making so many traditional recipes I have never heard of before I feel part of my culinary journey is to look into as many recipes as I can that Mexico has to offer. Although there has been a recent push to expose the lesser known dishes of Mexico to the world, America, and even here in Chicago, I always see myself wanting more. I want to follow in the footsteps of chefs like Rick Bayless and Carlos Gaytan who have put lesser known Mexican dishes on their menus. There are still many steps to be made in researching, replicating, and offering Mexico’s cuisine and I want to be a part of that.