There are clouds that rise like smoke from a fire—complex and threatening. There are clouds that settle in the sky like freshly washed sheets—soft and slow-moving. Talking with Jesús is like watching the sky through time, with all its possible facets and no deception. His stories are full of nuance, telling the tale of an examined life. We sat down in a park to talk without distractions, a few blocks from Expendio de Maíz, his restaurant in the Roma neighborhood. It was a hot spring day, but we found relief in the shade. Before sitting down, we stopped by a little shop to buy cigarettes. We talked for two hours, as the morning came to an end and the midday traffic stirred up the birds. A neighbor came out to water the plants and Jesús remarked on the urban drought. He filled the conversation with historical references and reflections on identity that went straight to my heart. We returned to Expendio de Maíz when it was already full, with a two-hour waitlist. I asked him what else he’d like me to photograph. He said: the clay plates, his staff, and the little woven corn keychain he carries in his pocket. So I did.

Where are you from, Jesús?
I'm from the coast in Guerrero, from a municipality called Ayutla de los Libres.
Is your family still there?
My mom is. Well, she’s here now because she got sick—because of her liver. But before opening Expendio de Maíz, I lived over there. I was dedicated to the production, research, transformation, and commercialization of the biodiversity of my land. I'm fascinated by ethnography and ethnobiology.
Did you have the opportunity to study at a university?
I’d say I earned my degree in the kitchen. But I’ve always been deeply curious. I love reading, I love researching. I love traveling, and that became my education—out in the field. Without even realizing it, I was already doing ethnography. During college, someone stole my car so I started getting around by bicycle. I ended up traveling through different parts of the country on that bike. I was looking for bakeries, looking for dance. I love to dance—I was searching for identity music. I looked for the musicians I listened to as a kid. And when I started getting into fandangos, huapangos, sones de tarima de artesa, and polkas, I lost my mind. I traveled with my bike, two pairs of underwear, two pants, and a shirt. I worked wherever I could to afford school. One time I missed a class and lost my scholarship. That was really tough—I had to rebuild myself completely. That’s part of why Expendio de Maíz exists. For many years, I turned my back on my identity—it was hard for me to accept that I’m a mestizo raised in a matriarchal family with rural roots. When I was a kid, they called me chilango in my village and country bumpkin in the city. I’d walk around in sandals all the time and get into fights. I only got along with older people.
Did you grow up with your father?
My father was never around. I know who he is, but we have no emotional relationship. After my car was stolen, I started traveling, and then my grandmother died. She used to ask me to teach her how to make bolillo, but I never did. And when she passed, I just collapsed.
Did you get to say goodbye to her?
No. She was in the hospital in the city. She always got sick but pulled through. That last time, she didn’t recover—and that broke me. That’s when I became obsessed with learning more about baking. In Mexico, bakers are heavily dependent on machines and enhanced flours. But I grew up without any of that—no kneading machines or proofers.

Do you consider baking a European tradition?
It’s more of a syncretic feature, like the tortilla. Wheat and flour were introduced in the 16th century. And the sweet bread baking identity we have in Mexico came in the 19th century due to the French wars. Each historical period—from the Churrigueresque to the Romanesque—has shaped a different cuisine in Mexico. In fact, Mexican identity has strong European roots. Consider mezcal—it wouldn’t exist without the Arabic still, which arrived via the Spanish. And it was made possible in part because so many Catholic clergy—Franciscans, Jesuits, Dominicans—took the time to learn Nahuatl. Add to that the arrival of the Filipino still, mastered by the Tlaxcaltecas. Our contemporary food identity is the result of a beautiful syncretism. There are no pure pre-Hispanic elements left—everything is syncretic.
Tell me more about Mexico’s culinary diversity.
There are many Mexicos, and they’re all different. For instance, when you go to Calpan, you don’t find “chiles poblanos,” and in Oaxaca, there’s no “queso Oaxaca.” These products have different names—our biodiversity is vast. Puebla, Oaxaca, and Yucatán are beautiful beings that have represented us powerfully. But what about Michoacán, Tabasco, and Veracruz? So many quiet cuisines, identities and foods that have been lost. We also live in a world that wants everything instantly.
What else can you tell me about the period when you were biking across Mexico up to today? What happened in those years?
So much. I think the most important part is that I found myself. Today I can say openly that I have a strong femininity. I recognize and cherish the matriarchal energy that fascinates me. I know how to make tortillas, I was born in a place where nixtamal was made daily, where we sent corn to the mill, where we ground it by hand on a metate and made chilate. I’ve also spent 20 years quietly organizing parties, fandangos, and weddings. I’m actually great at weddings. And I realized that the only way to throw a proper party is to truly know the people. You can’t win me over with money—you win me over with humility. If we connect, we’ll make something beautiful.
Considering how fickle life can be, how do you avoid despair and find care through cooking?
Well, not just cooking. I’d say the kitchen is a beautiful tool for giving life to others. But it’s also become a space that’s been overexploited. At what point did we lose the desire to give life and turn entirely to making money? It’s hard to develop a food philosophy and stick to it—especially in a world driven by supply and demand. And if you get caught up in the hype of shouting for organic or overpriced ingredients, the chef’s role becomes superficial. I’m not criticizing others—just saying I don’t agree with what I myself wouldn’t do. My counter-proposal is: how can I break the system through validation? For example, going into the countryside helps you build bonds of trust—and that’s the hardest thing in life to build, and the easiest thing to lose. There are so many rural markets, so many identities, so many Mexicos, so many ecosystems, so many producers. By recognizing the people who grow sesame, chickpeas, corn, beans, chicken, rabbit, turkey, duck, or any bird—by recognizing them, I’m doing what I can to tell you that I love you, that I miss you, that you matter, and that I want to give you life through food. That’s my way of raising my hand.

How have you negotiated the tension between staying authentic to your identity and making Expendio de Maíz a functioning business?
I come from a matriarchal tradition, where women—and I say this strongly—are the fundamental engine of a family. I come from a school where you work intensely all 365 days of the year. We know that during Día de Muertos, you’ll sleep no more than two hours a night, because that’s when you bake a ton of bread. When we do weddings, we prepare food for five days. I believe Mexico is a country where it’s easy to thrive. I genuinely believe that any business rooted in honesty and warmth has the capacity to succeed. I also believe that when you feed someone, you have to enjoy it, live it, cry for it. You have to give it 18 hours a day in your first year, and your second, and your third. You have to understand that your restaurant is your baby, and if you don’t give it the love it needs—like a mother would—it won’t survive.
What were your first years like with Expendio de Maíz?
What hit me hardest was the rent. At first, my partners only wanted it to be a space for selling corn products: tortillas, masa, tostadas, totopos. But that wasn’t enough to pay the rent, and I was working 19 hours a day. Out of nowhere, I started inviting people to eat with us.
Do you also have experience making chocolate?
At one point I went back to my hometown in Guerrero, when the community police started forming. I realized that many ingredients my family produced were at risk of disappearing, like cacao. So, in Puebla, where I studied, I’d go out on my bike to sell chocolate de metate. It took two days to make. I’d roast cacao on a clay comal from my land for 18 hours. I used a recipe from my village, one that includes egg yolk. I’d make little round chocolate tablets, just like Ana, a woman from my town that taught me.
Did you ferment the cacao?
No, I never fermented it. My family would send it to me already dried. I roasted and peeled it by hand. I’d end up with tons of cacao husk stuck under my fingernails. I didn’t use sugar—I used panela from my village.
You mean piloncillo?
See, from my perspective, piloncillo came about after a major moment of internal migration in Mexico, when people from rural areas started demanding good panela. The sugar industry saw an opportunity to transform the cane stalk into a cheap product. But if you offer piloncillo in a community that produces panela, they’ll curse you out. Piloncillo sweetens and colors, but it has no flavor. In my land, we have sugarcane fields with more than seven different varieties of cane. Piloncillo is considered trash. It’s like if you grew up eating Maseca tortillas your whole life, and then suddenly someone gives you a handmade tortilla made from ancestral nixtamal. Or like cheese—Puebla is the top producer of quesillo in the country, but when you go to Mercado Hidalgo, you find it for 60 pesos. But how much does it actually cost to make 1 kg of cheese? It depends on the cow, on the protein content of the milk, on the season, on whether it rained. You need 9 to 13 liters of milk to get 1 kg of cheese, plus labor. How is it possible to sell quesillo for 60 pesos a kilo? Also keep in mind—cows don’t give milk forever. They only lactate when they’re nursing calves. And after a while, their milk gets watery and loses protein.

At Expendio de Maíz, do you only use products from small communities?
At Expendio, I can tell you the name of the dog of the person who grows our ingredients. But I’ve never had 100% sustainability. I’ve reached up to 92%, but I’ve also had weeks where it’s just 60%.
It’s fortunate that there are distribution networks for quality products.
Commerce as such—and this is something beautiful about Mexico—developed through compadrazgo, introduced by the Spanish. Compadrazgo was the perfect excuse to form family bonds without blood ties in a land where many communities were in conflict over tributes. Suddenly, two people from different communities marry, and a military alliance is formed. Or two people become compadres or comadres. That changed Mexico deeply. That kind of structure didn’t exist before the Spanish. Before them, in the 14th century, the Mexicas expanded aggressively. Tribute systems exploded by the end of the 15th century, and people began to feel the pressure and fear. This was orchestrated by the Pochtecas, a kind of intelligence unit trained at the Calmécac. They’d approach a tlatoani and say, “Look, the people in Obrera produce cotton, but they don’t get along with those in Buenos Aires who produce salt. They’re fighting. But we have extra tribute to offer.” So they'd gain the trust of one group and give them salt. Then they’d go to the other group, ask them to stop harassing the first, and give them cotton. If either group refused, they were threatened with the jaguar and eagle warriors. Then they demanded surplus corn from both. That was the submission strategy. Eventually, people realized they were all under the Mexicas’ Triple Alliance. When the Spanish arrived, unlike the English or French, they started gathering this information. English colonies would arrive, isolate themselves, kill everything, and steal what they could. In Mexico, the Spanish declared that the inhabitants of these lands had rights, could learn a trade, and could be evangelized.
That history strikes me as controversial—it sounds like a more “efficient” kind of colonization.
I understand your perspective—and ours here in Mexico too—but much of our educational discourse contradicts who we really are. We’re not more Spanish, more native, or more Asian. We’re syncretic. Turning our backs on our Hispanic roots is a way of denying ourselves. Even our language is Spanish. Many Spaniards came here to build their lives. That’s how the casta system was born—to allow offspring of Spaniards to be called criollos and to have more rights, like riding horses or walking in the shade. I fully understand how disgusting the casta system is. But if we compare it to the slavery of North America, the perspective shifts. We are the result of everything that has happened—mistakes and all. We are a rich, biodiverse country. I find it amazing that the first Franciscans arrived in 1524—twelve of them—walking barefoot from Veracruz! Hernán Cortés (the new tlatoani for the Mexicas) kissed their feet and hands. The Mexicas were stunned. And then the first thing the Franciscans did was learn the language. Cortés spoke Nahuatl! What blows my mind about our food identity is the Atrial kitchen. The atrio was an ingenious invention. They built a mini Romanesque church like a military structure and invited people: “Come in! Come into the church!” But no one wanted to. So the Spaniards thought: “Let’s put blood on the saints, since their gods are associated with blood.” Again: “Come in! Come in!” Still, no one came. Then a friar placed a cross in the atrium. The atrio was an open stronghold in front of the church where people were essentially equal. You’d see a Franciscan with apples, because he planted an orchard—apple, pear, walnut, olive, pomegranate (thanks to Andalusian influence). And they’d plant tomatoes, corn, squash, and beans.
What I hear is the birth of the market.
No, no. What I’m describing about the atrio is simpler. Spanish missionaries created a new space because people wouldn’t go inside churches. They set up a cross and performed medieval narratives, as Salvador Novo called it—the theatrical drama of missionaries. That’s why we have so many dances of Moors versus Christians—a dramatized story of who’s good and who’s evil. The atrio was the circus, the entertainment, the doctrine. A century-long transition made Mexico the most Catholic country in the world—almost chosen as the seat of the Pope. Our education paints history in binaries—heroes and villains—but when you peel it back, Mexican identity is the product of the Virreinato.

Tell me about the markets.
That’s another incredible topic. What we call a market doesn’t resemble the día de plaza. There are three women from San Pedro Nexapa that I visit every year to forage wild mushrooms with. When I see them selling handmade tortillas at 20 pesos a dozen—even if I don’t need them—I buy them. That’s día de plaza behavior. It’s a beautiful exchange that happens on a specific day in a specific place. Producers, vendors, resellers—they’ve known each other forever, seeing each other every week. They know that even if you don’t need tortillas today, tomorrow you might, and you can trade for mushrooms or something else. That’s our día de plaza identity—not a market. That’s what I grew up with. My grandmother sold bread. Everyone knew her: Doña Luchi. Sometimes someone came selling royal lemons and asked her to trade for bread. I’d say, “But we have a lemon tree at home.” She’d hush me and trade three bags of lemons for bread anyway. These exchange systems don’t happen in modern markets. In Medellín Market, what we have is just a transactional exercise.
At Ozumba, I noticed most things are sold by the bucket.
All producers sell by liter, almur, or cuartillo—never by weight, always by volume. Because depending on the season, your product might weigh less. Corn in January is heavier. If it’s dried well, in three months it loses 7% weight but keeps the same volume. That’s why producers pick up even a single bean if it falls. Resellers don’t do that. A producer respects every seed—they know how hard it was to grow. A reseller doesn’t.
Your historical perspective suggests cultural adaptation. How do you position yourself in your own identity work?
Careful—I’m not rescuing anything. I work through continuity. That’s my approach. I find it arrogant when chefs say they’re rescuing pre-Hispanic cuisines. It becomes a sales pitch that’s hard to sustain.

How do you adapt to your social and culinary context?
Phew… We’re all negotiating something, always. Even if we don’t realize it, we all want something from others—time, attention, food, a hug, admiration, anything. Sometimes I meet chefs of “Mexican cuisine” who can’t even cook beans or make nixtamal—and that bothers me. Nowadays, very few people ask themselves if they need to adapt. They just do or don’t. Expendio de Maíz opened in 2018. At the time, I didn’t understand or intend to open a place with the characteristics of the Roma neighborhood. Emotionally, I was wrecked after losing a former business partner—we split in 2017. Then I met someone I love deeply—now my business partner. He picked me up off the floor and said, “We do this project, or I open something else.” Everything that happened was by coincidence. At some point in my life, I decided to follow my philosophy.
What is your philosophy?
Identity and sustainability, grounded in a historical and cultural context. I love Mexico. I love learning, I love living joyfully. My happiness is simple—I find it in the people around me, the producers, my family, my coworkers, my customers. I love when a 70-year-old lady tells me the restaurant sucks, that there’s no menu, and there’s some scruffy guy serving. Then suddenly, she’s crying over the food, telling me she hasn’t eaten like that since childhood. My life is full of coincidences, of happiness. And yes, I’ve suffered terribly. In school, I couldn’t bathe often, and I was ashamed of smelling bad—I was always on my bike and had no water. I struggled when I worked making cocktails—I couldn’t afford much. I became vegetarian out of necessity. I only had enough to make nixtamal and go to Hidalgo Market in Puebla, a very cheap one. I grew up under a bread stall. As a kid, I’d go to a woman who made memelas bandera. People ordered them with pork steak, but I only had four pesos. One day she asked if I wanted the steak she was having. I said no, and she pulled out a thick, delicious nopal. She grilled it with a bit of lard and placed it on my memela. That was her way of saying, “I care about you—I don’t know you, but I’ve seen you here every week, and you matter to me.” She gave me her favorite nopal—one she wouldn’t sell because she was saving for herself.
Professionally, do you accept or reject foreign culinary influences? Do you see them as a way to experiment or as an invasion?
It can be both, depending on where you are in life. Before Expendio, I couldn’t accept a foreigner cooking Mexican food. But when I met Diana Kennedy, I was floored. My image of Mexican cooks was strong women—ones who knew how to kill a chicken, render lard, grind on a metate, use a molcajete. But in the city, I realized being Mexican doesn’t mean you know how to cook Mexican food. In my rigid past, I believed that if you were going to make a recado, you had to make it from scratch, with seeds and everything. I still respect that process. But I also learned that many people, even if they’re not Mexican, know a lot about Mexico. And I’m no one to judge them for not being Mexican.

What are the agricultural seasons like in Mexico City?
In the city, you can find everything year-round. My family grows mangoes. A mango tree naturally produces once a year. But you can force a mango tree to produce five times a year with additives. The difference between a seasonal mango and one grown to meet demand is enormous—in texture, flavor, complexity, depth, aroma. I also think Mexico is overloaded with non-native ingredients. For example, I don’t cook with kale.
Why not?
Because we have a ton of seasonal ingredients that are part of our identity. Kale doesn’t need help—its continuity isn’t at risk. I try to use ingredients I sense are endangered. A lot of ingredients—my own cooks don’t even know how to prepare. Like chayotextle. Do you know it?
Is that the root of the chayote?
Yes. In some Otomí rituals where they grow lots of peanuts—they make peanut tamales, salads, moles, and more—they plant a chayote vine to grow around the house. They care for it for years until a special moment arrives. Then they kill it and harvest the giant roots. It’s the only root that rivals Andean potato biodiversity.
Are there ingredients you wish could be “rescued”?
I’m not in favor of “rescuing.” That term implies bringing back something that’s already lost. For example, my town was once famous for metalwork. For years, the President of Mexico would receive a machete forged in our town. If that knowledge still existed and someone came with a good project and investment, we could make Mexican knives from scratch that would rival Japanese ones. My uncle Román had a knife he used his whole life to slaughter goats. His grandfather used it, and his grandfather’s grandfather used it too. But the last person who knew how to forge those knives died without passing it on. Now no one knows how.
So, there are ingredients that disappear because the community loses interest?
There are more variables. Many things related to food faded because our modern mindset is so different from the old one. Take almendrado—an almond mole rooted in the Plateresque period, when there was tons of wealth extraction. A rich person would pay a bunch of people to peel almonds. The recipe: toasted bread fried in lard for thickening, broth from hen or turkey, two native dried chiles, a bit of garlic, and that’s it. We make it at Expendio when we get good almonds. I’m not trying to rescue it. I’m creating my version of a dish I’ve never tasted, that no longer exists. It’s not my recipe—it’s my interpretation. Let’s go to another era: Zapatistas, Milpa Alta, Xochimilco, Tláhuac, Iztapalapa, Carrancistas, Huertistas. During the Revolution in Mexico City, they invented cuatatapa—a dish from the revolution. They’d dig a hole in the ground to cook beans with wild greens, nopales, maybe xoconostle and malva. They’d bury it and return later to eat. Why? So no one would see the fire. That’s why grandma’s houses have malva plants—it was survival food during the Revolution in case somebody stole your animals. Now, many old ladies don’t even know why they have it. They just do—because their grandmother once had nothing to eat.
I think a way to know someone is through their dreams. Do you dream at night?
Yes, definitely. I’ve dreamed so many things, often linked to my emotions. Last year was tough because of my mom. She’s incredibly strong—like Marvel’s Wolverine, she can regenerate. I don’t have recurring dreams. But I love water—I love swimming, I love people. Sometimes I dream of a house where they feed me, where they seat me with care, and the food is amazing. Even though my grandma was so important to me, I don’t dream of her often.
When you do, does she speak to you?
Yes, of course. She used to bathe me. In my culture, family dynamics are very complex. Most of my experiences were shaped by that matriarchal influence. For me, the best way to know someone is by eating or getting drunk with them. When things don’t go well, frustration comes, and behind it are your demons. There’s nothing more powerful than getting to know someone’s demons and saying: I’m with you, even if I don’t agree. Another big win in my life was deciding that my time matters—and I spend it with people I admire. I love dancing. I love sones and huapangos live.

Expendio de Maíz (english)

Expendio de Maíz (español)