Mimi Lopez (english)

The guava juice brought me to tears. I had arrived in Oaxaca late at night the day prior, there was no drinking water where I was staying and I had skipped the last two meals. In the morning, we had driven 2 hours under the stinging rays of an uncommonly hot day. Ernesto drove his taxi while telling me the story of his breakup: her girlfriend’s affair with his cousin, their stillborn child, the accident where he lost his arm. We got lost in the tangled dusty roads of a small town. A man fixing an old radio in his hardware store pointed towards Mimi’s restaurant. She was standing next to a table set with breakfast and a full pitcher of guava juice. I sat down and took a breath as expansive as the mountains on the horizon. Mimi smiled at me and handed me a tortilla. We ate and chatted. After three hours of conversation and a tour of her house I was taught the proper way of digging for water from the three men finishing Mimi’s well. Instead of throwing a coin into the well, the workers told me to follow a chicken while whispering a wish to myself. My grandfather used a similar tactic when I was child: he used to tell me that smart people follow ants to the anthill and count them. I left Mimi’s house with a full belly and smelling of smoke. On my way out, she gave me an ear of red corn that glistened in the sun.

• Thank you for your time, Mimi. Did you grow up in this town?
  No, I’m from another community further up called Estanzuela, Soledad Etla. I got married at 16 here in Matadamas. My parents worked embroidering aprons; my mom still makes me aprons for my classes.

• How old is your mom?
  My mom is 68 years old.

• She's relatively young.
  Yes, yes. My dad passed away 12 years ago, on April 25th. He used to go to Chiapas, Juchitán, and Pochutla to sell my mom’s embroidery. When my parents were away, I stayed behind to cook with my grandmother, my dad’s mom. But I wanted to study.

• What would you have liked to study?
  Accounting, but it didn’t happen. Still, I’m grateful I learned to cook. We appreciate eating at home, with family, it feels pleasant and comforting.

• Are you the oldest of your siblings?
  No, I have an older brother named Noé.

• So as a child, you stayed home to cook.
  Yes, with my grandma and my siblings. That’s why I was raised a bit rough, because I grew up with three brothers. I remember one time my dad bought a wheelbarrow and I took my youngest brother in it to gather chilitos. There used to be some chilitos that grew on barrel cacti—they taste really good. During the rainy season, you let the cactus get some sun, it turns red, and the chilitos pop out, so we’d gather them to make chilito water (a fruit drink that tastes great). Well, I took my brother with me, and he fell out, got stuck on a rock and fell. I remember my mom scolded me because my brother ended up with a scar.

• He still has the scar?
  Yes, he still has it—it was a bad scrape. We used to go wash clothes and bathe in the town stream. Nowadays, you can’t do that anymore—it’s not common and people will take your photo. We used to carry water from a small spring, and that’s the water we drank and used at home, carrying it in cans with a pole across our shoulders. Later, the community built a well for drinking water. Now it’s dry, not like it used to be. We also used to have a distillery for making mezcal, but that’s gone too. There were big guava trees in the hills with large pink guavas. My mom used to say, “You’re a little rascal, always climbing trees”.

• How was your life as a child?
  I started cooking as a child. My routine was washing clothes and tending the pot of beans. That’s how I grew up. My mom says, “You’ve always been a hard worker”. And it’s true—we didn’t have money. Sometimes, to be able to eat meat on Sundays, my mom made me popcorn, peanuts, and crunchy snacks. She’d make me little bags and I’d go sell them in the village every afternoon with my brother Beto. We’d go out with a round basket and he’d carry another bag in case we needed more. We’d come home so happy when we sold everything. It was wonderful that my mom made things for us to sell—it was beautiful. My mom also had white daisies. She had a little plot of land, and on Sundays we’d go sell flower bouquets door to door. That’s how we were able to buy meat. That’s why we value meat so much. We didn’t eat meat every day, only on Sundays. If there wasn’t any, we’d eat nopales, beans, or a tortilla de perro.

• What’s a tortilla de perro (dog tortilla)?
  A smaller tortilla. We spread it with pork lard and soak it in whole beans—it tastes amazing with salsa.

• What kind of meat did you eat when you had some?
  Beef, pork, or chicken. We always had chickens at home. Later, when my dad could afford it, he bought pigs.

• And chickens are good for eggs.
  Yes. But there’s a time limit for animals. Once they’ve laid their share of eggs, you have to butcher them. If they get too old, they won’t cook well—it takes forever.

• Did you eat goat?
  Only during a celebration and only if you had money. My dad also took care of goats and knew how to butcher them—he taught us how to make barbacoa. When my kids started growing up, I told my husband, “Wow, the kids are growing and we don’t have money for their schooling”. That’s when we started selling barbacoa, cooking it in a stone oven like my dad taught us. But my dad was very chatty, super sociable, not the type to stay focused with you. He only came to teach us three times. And just like he was friendly, he was also mischievous. He was also very strict and rough. If you misbehaved, it was a beating. I remember when arcade games like Pac-Man came out. My brother went to town to buy meat and spent the money at the arcade. He said he lost the money, and my dad beat him. But my dad also made us spinning tops—he’d go get cedar wood, carve it, and drive in a nail. Now kids just want cell phones.

• Mimí, how have you managed to use social media to help your restaurant?
  We post about who we are and how we eat—what feels natural to us. So when a customer asks what a tortilla de perro is, our staff knows what to say. They know what’s in the barbacoa and the pipián because they eat it too and they watch how I cook it. I want to serve food the way we eat at home every day. Our concept is family cooking. I give my all because I feel that if people are coming to try my food, I have to give it my best. We work as a family. When I have cooking classes, people leave happy and excited, because in the end we all share what we made together.

• How do you choose when someone contacts you for an interview?
  Before, I used to say yes to everything. One time some guys asked me to be their sponsor and make videos. I said yes, but I also had another event that day. Some people have even contacted me at night. Now I let people know if I already have a commitment—a wedding, a birthday, or the restaurant.

• Why do you think people seek you out so much?
  They like the way I cook. Everyone tells me, “Mimí, your home feels so nice and calm, you can really relax.” Some guests stay three or four hours just chatting—they feel welcome. Some ask for tortillas straight off the griddle while they’re being made. My team tells me I spoil my customers. I say that good service is everything. I’m grateful to have my restaurant now, and for the people who come all the way here in yellow taxis. That effort they make means so much. And this wasn’t even our dream at first, but when we won the Traditional Cooks contest in Oaxaca, everything changed.

• When did you first see cooking as a business?
  With the barbacoa. I saw it as the way for our kids to go to school, because we had nothing, José, nothing. Things had gone so badly for us, very badly. Then comes the moment where you just want your kids to have a better life, not end up like you. That’s been our effort, mine and my husband’s—that our kids study. That’s their inheritance. We don’t have land or anything. This is the sacrifice we make to give them money for school and transportation. I remember the first time we went to sell in Oaxaca. We went to see the late Gochito. One Thursday we asked about his stand, and he invited us to sell our food on Sunday. We didn’t even have plates or tables. Don Goyo lent us the tables his daughters used during the week to sell quesadillas and memelas. So we went on Sunday—my dad, my mom, my kids Charlie, Rafa, and Lili. But at that point, no one knew us. My husband shouted to people, “Come, come eat”! Little by little we built our customer base—it was hard work. Charlie remembers the first time we didn’t sell out. I told him, “Let's hand it out so it is not wasted”.

• Did Charlie finish school?
  Yes, he graduated. He joined a program called CONAFE, where they send young people to rural communities as teachers. He left for a month and we didn’t hear from him. He ended up in a town called Magdalena, past Nochixtlán. There was no phone signal. After a month, he came down with the town agent for the Independence Day celebration, and that’s when we finally heard from him. His dad cried when he heard his voice—we had just come back from selling cheese. Then in November it was his birthday. We ordered a cake and made the trip to visit him. We arrived with the cake, sodas, and food. The teacher said that if he had known it was Charlie’s birthday, the community would’ve killed a chicken. That town didn’t even have toys for their kids. One time Charlie brought them a box of toys from his siblings. That’s how Charlie is—hyperactive and a hard worker.

• What is your son Rafa like?
  Rafa always studied away from home. He finished university and a master’s degree. Some professors from Texas came to give him his doctoral exam, to approve his project. Now he says he wants to go to Japan—because we went there in October.

• It’s interesting that goat, the most expensive meat, ended up being your path forward
  Yes, yes—it’s how I found my way.

• Tell me how your difficult emotions show up in your cooking. What do you do when you’re angry, sad, or frustrated?
  I don’t cook. My grandma Chelo used to say that when you cook angry, even a chicken soup will taste like water. No matter how tasty the ingredients, it will taste bland. Every day I wake up and pray. I wake up early. For example, I’m going to soak the nixtamal today so it’s ready for tomorrow. I wash it early—at 5 or 4:30 if I wake up early if I had a good night’s sleep. I have someone who comes tomorrow and helps me peel garlic or watch the atole and champurrado, so they don’t burn. Sometimes my husband says, “If you want something perfect, do it yourself, my love—that way you don’t get upset”. Music helps too. I love having flowers in the house. On Fridays, they bring me lots of flowers. And if someone comes selling flowers, I buy two or three little bunches. Because I used to sell flowers and I know what it’s like to walk in the sun. If I have a tortilla in the restaurant, I give them one, or a tamale if there’s one. I need those who come to work, but they also need us.

• What parts of your personality do you see in your children?
  Oh boy. Charlie is like me—sociable, chatty, determined. He loves making friends, but when it’s time to work, he does it well. Rafita was sick when he was born, which is one reason we started selling cheese. I remember one time a container broke open because people drive so badly downtown, and the milk spilled all over the car. Instead of getting mad, we laughed. Rafael is very smart and serious. If something bothers him, he’ll tell you honestly. Liliana is the joy of our home—she finds something to laugh about in everything, and she has a very refined palate. My husband recently injured a tendon pulling a sheep, and the same sheep kicked him and broke his nose a month ago. Liliana told him, “Go get a limpia, seriously. That sheep keeps tripping you up”.

• Do you believe in spiritual cleansings?
  My grandma used to heal—she’s 92 now. She helped women conceive. She knows that an herb is good for this or for that. My mom, on the other hand, worries a lot.

• Did your mom get to see you succeed?
  She still sometimes comes on Saturdays to help me cook. She brings avocado leaves, sends rosemary, basil, or a small bundle of daisies. Right now, she wants me to get her a puppy because one of hers died.

• Mimí, what do you like to cook most?
  I like cooking everything. My favorite food is squash blossom tamales and green mole. That’s my favorite because it brings back so many memories and experiences. And spicier is better.

• What’s in the green mole?
  A lot of green herbs like parsley. We used to eat that mole during the rainy season, because we’d go out to gather nanacates (you call them mushrooms). Back then, if it rained for three, four, or five days and you couldn’t wash clothes because they wouldn’t dry, and the clothes stayed in the clothes line for a week, that’s when we went out to gather nanacates. After three days of rain, the little yellow worms would come out and create clusters—and that’s where the nanacates would grow.

• Do the nanacates grow where the worms go?
  Uh-huh. We used to go out to the fields, follow the little worm, and instead of putting meat in the food, we’d add some nanacates. That’s like meat and even healthier. And like I said, my grandma Chelo used to cook only with lard, and now everyone wants oil.

• Tell me more about the beginning of your restaurant.
  At first, we had nothing—we grew over time. That wall you see over there wasn’t there; it was just a row of cacti, and you could see people passing by. But we built the wall for people’s comfort. Back then, folks would come and ask my father-in-law for nopalitos. He’d tell them to cut them themselves. But some people have acidic hands, or cold hands. If you cut a nopal with an acidic hand, it tastes sour.

• What does it mean to have an acidic hand?
  They say your nopal turns sour because you have bitter hands. As us cooks say, when you make green mole, if your hands are warm, you dilute the mole. Even if you added masa, when you serve it, it looks like water instead of being thick.

• How do you know if someone has acidic hands?
  You notice when they cook. Even beating an egg—some people can’t get it fluffy like a meringue. Or when they knead masa, sometimes it works fast, sometimes it doesn’t. One time they asked me to bring a mixer, and I said, “I oughta pull your ear—we can make up to a thousand tamales without a mixer”.

• Do you have a blender in your restaurant?
  Yes, I do.

• But it’s not a replacement for the metate.
  No, not the same at all. A green mole made on a metate tastes very different from one made in a blender. And then people ask me how to eat with a tortilla. They ask for cutlery for mole and I tell them mole is meant to get your hands dirty—that’s how it is in the village.

• As a cook, do you prefer to keep recipes intact or are you open to experimenting with them?
  Recently I went to Veracruz to cook with a chef at his restaurant. And well, they’re chefs, they know how to plate things nicely. But to present my dishes at his restaurant, I had to innovate. For example, with a green mole, I respect the fancy pipirisnais presentations, but I wouldn’t do that at my restaurant. When it’s a wedding tasting, I do it because it’s a special occasion. But here at my restaurant, the concept is to feed the people, to satisfy the hunger they bring. I serve so they can fill their stomachs and hearts. My people eat five or six tortillas, a bowl of consomé, a plate of masa, and maybe two more tacos. I can’t plate barbacoa—I just serve the meat and masa. Not long ago we served about 1,000 plates: mole, chicken, and a plate of rice. At smaller meals or for funerals, same thing—your chicken, your mole, tortillas, and soup. That’s how we eat here, and that’s how I’ll serve it. With a stuffed chile, I serve the chile, beans, rice, and a slice of avocado. I’ll always serve how my people want to eat. 

• What are the essential ingredients of Oaxacan cuisine?
  I’d say chiles and corn: guajillo, poblano, árbol, serrano, chile de agua, habanero, and salsas. For us, it’s essential to always have salsas in the kitchen—even if Sunday salsas are spicy. If I make beans with pig’s feet, I serve them with onion strips, lime, and chile. The herbs too—oh boy, I need cilantro, parsley, hierba santa. Just yesterday, my friend brought me a bunch of yerba santa because she trimmed her plant—it was covering the others.

• What are some lesser-known ingredients in Oaxacan cooking?
  With my grandma Chelo, we’d go to the pingüinales that had pingüitas—a small apple-like fruit we prepared with chile canario. You could boil it or eat it raw, but it had tiny seeds, and if you had cavities, they’d get stuck. We’d grind the pingüita with the chile canario in the chilmolera to make a sauce. It was delicious, but you don’t see pingüitas anymore.

• Why are they gone?
  Back then, you had to walk far into the fields to find many things. Once supermarkets opened, people didn’t want to walk anymore. Nanacates don’t grow as much either. When people started selling them, they disappeared. The land stopped producing them. We had nanacates at the health center in Soledad, but now it’s full of rooms and trees, and they don’t grow in the rainy season anymore. In June and early July, it’s nice to go gather azucenas. We used to bring back bags full of green and red chiles—now we don’t as much.

• Has any seasonal vegetable disappeared?
  Not really. I have a chayotal planted, it’s still small, so we tied it to bamboo so it’ll grow upwards and hang. When the chayote squash plant stops producing, when it’s old, you pull the root and prepare a kind of cream that you can use in yellow mole. It’s delicious—chayocamote mole. We don’t have our own land, but my husband’s uncles always plant, thank God. A friend from San Juan de Dios brought us red corn, yellow corn, black corn. Beautiful!

• What kind of corn do you like to cook with the most?
  All of them. Right now we’re mixing red and black, from the last de-kernelling. I like to mix them so the tortillas come out in different colors. With black corn, the tortilla turns bluish-pink. Red corn makes pinkish tortillas. Yellow and red corn make tortillas with little dots. And the masa dries differently depending on the corn. Black masa needs more water, red even more when kneading to make tortillas. Yellow corn makes crunchier tortillas—they toast faster.

• Who do you think will continue your cooking legacy?
  I tell my daughter that if she wants to study gastronomy, she should—she already finished her degree. She could mix traditional and chef cooking, like Thalía does. Thalía is one of my best friends among the cooks—we get along really well. She’s always been there for me. Charlie also likes to cook. If I leave for an event, Charlie and my daughter stay in charge.

• What’s the most exciting thing you’ve tasted or seen cooked outside of your usual?
  Oh man, in Veracruz they cooked for us amazing seafood. In Japan they made for us stingray, ceviche, and sushi.

• Tell me how you got invited to cook in Japan.
  Chef Marco García came to eat and asked to speak with me. He’s from Monterrey but lives in Tokyo, Japan. He’s very famous, very humble, very down-to-earth. When he came, they asked for everything: on a tiny table they had mole, pipian, barbacoa, consomé, tacos, memelas, everything on the menu. When I went down to talk to him, he asked: “If there’s an opportunity to go to Japan, would you go”? Days later, he was messaging me at 4:30 a.m. saying the university approved the project for me to go cook in Japan. When we got off the plane, there were three chefs and two translators waiting for us. Marco said I must be hungry from the plane ride and took me to a restaurant at the airport. They brought out a board with twelve different sushis. I told my son to ask for pasta or something to start. They brought pasta, sake, and water. My husband ate first—he’ll eat anything and loves trying food you can’t find in Oaxaca. They also cooked stingray, squid, and really good fish. Tatao’s wife is a skilled hunter, and they went out and brought back a deer in 30 minutes. They invited Charlie to see how they tanned the skin. Here, tanning a sheep’s skin takes three or four months. There, they had the deer hide ready in 20 minutes. Marco asked if I wanted to take the antlers to Oaxaca, but I told him to take them to his restaurant instead. Luckily, our bags weren’t checked—we brought chiles, comales, chocolate, mole, mezcal, chapulines, chile puya—70 to 80 kg of goods to thank Marco. It was amazing—they let us build a barbacoa oven in Japan. Charlie made it with bricks and cement. We made barbacoa tacos, consomé, and blue corn quesadillas.

• It’s amazing how you went from selling flowers and cheese as a little girl to cooking traditional food across the world.
  Yes, yes. Only my staff knew we were in Japan. We opened the restaurant here with my nephew, Charlie’s cousin, in charge. We only opened by reservation so the team wouldn’t get overwhelmed. Sometimes we’re so full we have to hunt for tables. We even use our “VIP” table—which is just an old table from the back, it’s not really a VIP table, but to us it is. We pull out plastic stools we use for barbacoa, and it feels exciting. We brought the staff T-shirts and snacks from Japan. Some peanuts with little fish—they taste so good. Japan is super clean—no beat-up carts like ours. Master Yu from the university, my compadre now, told me, “Your food is spicy, Mimí, spicy (sniffling), but tasty”. I could tell they enjoyed it. We made red pozole and one of them had one, two, three, four servings. They eat at set hours: 7 a.m., 3 p.m., and 7 p.m. If only they knew we eat whenever we can!

• Mimí, do you dream at night?
  Depends. Sometimes I dream of snakes.

• Nightmares?
  Not really. Not like when ‘the dead sits on you’. I tell my husband, “I heard this, I dreamt about this person—maybe they’re going to visit”.

• Do you dream about your family?
  Some days yes, some days no. I once dreamt of my dad, told my husband, and he said, “You must be neglecting to do something”. Sometimes I dream of clients who haven’t come in a while—and then they show up.

• How would you like to spend the last years of your life?
  Oh boy, peacefully, happily. My husband’s turning 54. I’m turning 49. I tell my son, “We have to save for old age, we’re not getting younger. One day you’re here, the next you’re gone”. Three years ago, on Charlie’s birthday, a young man dropped off a box of avocados, a watermelon, and other things. Charlie invited him to his party. That night, around 10 p.m., there were fireworks—it was November 26, the day of the female muerteada. I saw cars and a hearse. Turned out that the young man who brought the groceries had passed away. He was 16. He hit a bump on his motorcycle, skidded, and hit the ditch. He died during surgery. I told Charlie, “How fortunate if that hadn’t happened that way”. His name was also Carlos. That day, Mexico was playing soccer too.

• Mimí. As a woman, wife, and daughter, what did you have to sacrifice, and what parts of yourself did you discover with joy?
  I feel grateful for what I have. My dad didn’t let us go out and play that much. Then my husband started courting me. I remember the first time he came to talk—he was with my brother and had to hurry so my dad wouldn’t see us. My dad caught us and my husband told him not to scold or hit me. My dad said he had to come the next day to ask permission. And he did. We were able to go out without fear. That’s when I started discovering things. My husband loved drawing. One day his cousin came and my husband said he wanted to go to the U.S. to save money so we could marry. Months later, instead of going to the U.S., we got married at the courthouse—there wasn’t money for a church wedding. In May, they bought my dress. My husband always liked animals—we had pigs. He said, “When the piglets are born, why don’t we get married”? There were group weddings, so that’s what we did. I feel grateful because he’s always been a good man. Maybe I had a rough childhood, but I learned a lot. I learned that you can achieve things in life. My dad was tough, always pushing forward—but if he drank, he wouldn’t work for a month. But my mom never left him. I married at 16, and my dad said, “You’re getting married, but don’t go jumping from one man to another. You marry him, and that’s it”. Thank God, we’ve been married 30 years. I’m grateful I have three children. Maybe when you become a young mom, you learn as you go. You learn when your kid is sick, when they need shoes—you buy shoes for them instead of yourself. You learn to change and wash diapers by hand. How beautiful it looks to see a clothesline full of tiny clothes and white diapers! I’m thankful that necessity taught me to cook. I don’t even like pizza—I’d rather have head tacos or mashed garbanzos, because I know I’ll be full. I’m grateful my kids are finishing their degrees and reaching their goals. One of my husband’s cousins jokes that I act proud like a turkey because Charlie finished school. I tell him no, I feel like a royal peacock. When we were little, we’d make candileja (oil lamp) balloons and chase them through the cornfields. It was beautiful to catch them mid-flight. Now you can’t wander freely—you might leave and not come back. I remember cleaning the floor on my knees once, and my brother walked in with muddy shoes from the field. He left tracks everywhere—I threw the rag at him. He threw it back. We started slapping each other. My dad showed up, smacked us both, and tied us facing each other until we apologized.

• How long were you tied up?
  About half an hour.

• How do you feel today?
  I feel happy, content with what we have—it’s thanks to so much effort and hardship. When you grow, you feel embraced by your accomplishments. This is our home—I don’t have another place. We work and live in this house. Barbacoa gave us what we needed. There’s a little girl who comes every Sunday to eat. She calls them her barbacoa Sundays. She’s ten or eleven now and has been coming since she was three. She used to order four tacos—now she gets six or even one pound just for herself. She came to celebrate her birthday recently. I tell my husband: “With effort, things get done—bit by bit, with enthusiasm and lots of love. You always offer a plate of food. Maybe we can’t give money, but we can offer a plate of food, blessed because we give it with pleasure.