What initially inspired Enrique Olvera to leave Mexico and attend the renowned Culinary Institute of America was cooking for those he loved.
At first, he cooked for the girl who would later become his wife, then for friends. When his friends’ fathers began to arrive at his dinners, he realised he may have hit upon his calling.
So it’s fitting that Tu Casa Mi Casa, his second book to be published by Phaidon, should focus on the sort of meals that led him to open one of the world’s great restaurants – Pujol in Mexico City. Much like his professional cuisine, Tu Casa Mi Casa represents a different sort of Mexico to the one frequently bastardised elsewhere. His care over the recipe for masa, the base for tortilla, tostada and tlayuda, is emblematic of his care for both his cuisine and culture – relating the history of the corn, from its domestication to the deified position it held in Mayan culture to its present-day, industrially planted existence.
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