Taking a Look Inside

By: Alejandra Bautista

At Colonia Roma in México city there’s a place of pure devotion for corn. The love for it oozes from the heart of an open kitchen in which each preparation shows it’s guests the potential behind this ancient grain. It seems like the first experience of many in this place is a revelation, a punch of flavor of authentic corm that for many years has been forgotten under the cloud of commercial products made from GMO seeds that abund nowadays in the country’s harvests.

But traditions can’t die. It’s a daily decision made by the team at Expendio de Maíz.

I had the chance to talk with Ana Dolores Gonzales, chef in Expendio, a place in which 2020 brought challenges that they, like many others in the gastronomic industry, didn’t plan to face.

“In the beginning of the pandemic it was super hard, we’ve never done delivery, never done anything like it, we’re a very “out to the public” kind of place and when this happened we had to change a little bit our dishes, the way of work, and learn. Because the space is… Have you ever been to Expendio?”

I’d like to say yes, but my plans to visit México in April didn't go much further than an idea, so my vision of expendio is built from pictures. The design of the place allows guests to fully immerse in the work of the cooks.

“We had to adapt, we had to change many things, and now that we reopened again, more people come, not the same as before, where it was full all day, but anyway, we have to be thankful! It’s so amazing that we at least have customers because really, I have strolled around by restaurants in the colonia and...zero”

When we talk about service, the pandemic has definitely demanded some important changes. Just like Ana and the team try to keep the warm and participative experience that identifies them, there’s a lot of establishments that seek to survive in this time without having to compromise their essence completely. For a place like Expendio, social distancing has drawn a line between the kitchen and their guests that many still refuse to accept.

“People, you see, sometimes they don’t understand, because Expendio is an open space and it draws so much attention and before you could come in and see how tortillas were made and all that, and sometimes we gave them a mini tour, showed them the mill and stuff, we would teach them how to make a tortilla but not anymore. People either take it well or like “pinches mamones!”. I’ve tried to keep a little of that contact with the customer, but it’s not like before where it was like coming to a house and hang with friends.”

Nowadays we’re home, but rarely with friends. Cooking, although, has reclaimed the space that it had lost in the life of many, and even though one thing is cooking because you like it, or simply because it makes part of your daily routine, for Ana it means much more than her profession.

“I wanted to be an artist, but I decided that wasn’t my thing. To cooking I arrived quite late, I started like 10 years ago. I took the chance, went studying, I made that choice and that’s that, I haven’t stopped since, I mean, 10 years ago I was like school, school, school and work, work, work non stop, until two years ago that I started to enjoy life a little bit. [laughs].”

“It just happened, I’m not gonna say “Ay, my grandma…” no, I mean, honestly it was because I made that choice and I focused on it and I realized it really is my life. It’s my whole life completely.”

It’s exciting to see the passion that Ana transmits when she talks about Expendio, but before that she spent quite some time working in Perú, and off course I had to ask her about the cultural and gastronomic contrast that she perceived in her stay.

“My first approach with Perú was realizing that we have very similar cultures, but sadly the big difference is that they value it many times more than Mexico. Here we are starting to have this culture of maize, like the Expendio project, that is a little more pricey because it’s a good product straight from the farm, you know?”

Perú is without a doubt a reference in terms of their cuisine and tradition. It seems like in other countries of Latinamerica, we are starting to have this awakening

“When I was there I said “There’s a bunch of stuff like this in my country, we don’t see it, we don't’ take advantage, what’s going on?”. It’s not like I had envy, but I did think like we could do more, we could take more from it… Same happens in Colombia, they have some kickass products and they’re just starting to see them. So, let’s stop looking outside and start looking more into our countries. This is what Perú did. They started to study their own thing, they studied their jungle. And that’s what I tried, not to copy, but it did inspire me a lot to see the things that I had right there in my own country: a lot of rural knowledge, herbalism knowledge, maize knowledge, things that we were not looking at.”

Without a doubt Expendio de Maiz is a place that decides to honor their traditions. By choosing this path they’ve faced some challenges, like prejudices to certain kinds of ingredients.

“Sometimes, the people that come to Expendio, I don’t know what they expected [...] They see the product as something of the poor, like quelites, or eating beans, or dough. There’s people here that keep thinking they are cheap ingredients and from certain classes. Sometimes people come here and say “I don’t eat quelites”. I get cooking, and serve them. They wouldn’t even notice, then they’d say “That’s delicious!” and man, I just served you a dish of fucking quelites!”

Paying more for having good quality food is something that not everybody is willing to do, especially in a society that trusts blindly in commercial products with a high environmental impact and low nutritional value.

“As Mexicans, in the tortillería one kilo of dough from Maseca costs you about $10 - $11 pesos, in Expendio is about $35, so there’s the “Why are they selling me such an expensive quesadilla?” that’s how they see it, but there’s all the work from the maize: Go and select it, nixtamalize it, bring it here. They are eating fresh food! […] We believe it’s much better to have food that we know where it comes from, that we picked ourselves, and that has love.”

To choose their ingredients, the team also takes account of their seasonality, and that's why this place doesn’t have a menu. For Ana, cooking in sync with the ecosystem goes beyond offering what’s available.

“As a cook it gives you freedom and more creativity to make dishes, there’s a lot of restaurants that keep their menus all year long and in reality the product doesn’t behave that way. I like [seasonality] a lot, I wouldn’t see myself doing other types of cooking right now. Seasonality is everything, the mushrooms you get right now are unbelievable, you don’t get them in any other season, I feel like they give you flavors and emotions that you will no longer find until next year. You play with the emotions, with memories and it’s like you crave them more. You play with the seasons and desire.”

In a way, in Expendio the food is an educational tool. Through taste, they make their customers click instantly with their philosophy, and in just one bite, they suddenly get why it is so important to protect what in this place is being defended. Maybe this is the best way in which judgement can be transformed and change the paradigm.

”We would like for local people to understand that eating a tortilla is not just Maseca, that you won’t eat Monsanto for being cheap, but that there’s a whole culture behind maize and the crops and making tortillas and nixtamalization, that’s worth to get to know and give its importance.”
*Maseca is the most popular corn based flour sold in México.

Nixtamalization is a process for the preparation of maize (corn), or other grain, in which the corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater (but sometimes wood ash lye), washed, and then hulled.[*] This process not only augments the nutritional properties of maize, but it adds a smoother texture and incredible flavor.

“What’s great about going to Expendio is that there’s people that (even my family) go and feel it, it tastes super different. And when you start to educate others that go and try the tortilla by itself, they feel the difference and start to realize that what we eat in Mexico as a tortilla is bullshit, Maseca is bullshit. It’s illogical to me, you know? That we are the maize country and tortilla is the base of our food and our way of eating, but we’re eating Maseca, which is transgenic, having all this culture… [...] Monsanto is invading our country and we don’t look inside, to our seeds, what we have.”

Culturally, Latinamerica is still a region in a decolonization process, our identity has been decaying since conquest times. Places like Expendio de Maíz exist to remind us that the reconstruction of our sense of belonging may start with food, nonetheless, we can’t ignore the fact that for many, their plates remain empty. In Mexico, 55% of the national population lives in food insecurity conditions.

When eating is a privilege, what decisions take the ones that can do it?

Malnutrition is also a huge problem.

“I think it is an education and government issue, but let’s go to the basics, in Mexico you can eat healthy and very cheap, but there’s a problem and it’s that here we go to the market and ingredients aren’t expensive but some people don’t want to eat them anymore. One kilo of beans is about $35 pesos, but they don’t find it nutritional because they have this “meat eating” mentality and… Our food is very healthy, is maize, is quelites which are super healthy and cheap, vegetables, also cheap, but sometimes it’s a thing about not wanting to cook. We’ve wanted to give things to people we see on the street, because now we see much more people there than other times, or people that come and ask for help, you offer them dough and they say “No, I want money.” [...] I think it comes from education.”

With that and all, the will to help is not fading away, and even though it’s within their plans, launching a food solidarity project hasn’t been easy for the team, they lack precise information about vulnerable communities, especially with the pandemic in the middle of the road. Their needs to start are clear:

“First we would have to see where the help goes and who is truly in need. When the government gave away care packages, they gave it to people who don’t even have a stove! How are they going to cook that rice, you know?. It’s awareness, sometimes I get a little sad because I can’t do much. From my end I try to, but it’s so hard, I want to be able to feed the people that I see in need, and it’s a project that I’d like to work in.”

After our conversation, I couldn’t keep the desire to help Ana to myself, so I told the SGM team what she needed, achieving to link her with Gastromotiva Mexico so Expendio gets the support and guidance about the solidarity project they want to develop. From this collaboration a solid base will surge so they can start their path feeding those in need in Mexico City.

Thank you Ana, for transmitting all the magic that takes place in Expendio, for believing in what we do and for holding such a cool conversation after a long day in the kitchen!

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