Words by Matt Dursum
Photography by Samantha Demangate
Oaxaca, Mexico, is a land that preserves its past as a bright future awaits it. Life here revolves around a fusion of traditions that originated thousands of years ago. Like any region on earth, the best introduction to this complex land is through its food. In Oaxaca, food goes beyond nourishment. It’s a sacred and respected art that carries traditions and stories passed down for generations. One of the most popular stewards of Oaxacan cuisine and its traditions is Mimi López.
Mimi López runs a restaurant in the town of Matadamas, 30 minutes north of Oaxaca’s capital, Oaxaca de Juárez. Her restaurant, Maíz Cocina Tradicional, is one of Oaxaca’s most respected restaurants and a favorite for hungry first time visitors and locals alike. Mrs. López, or Mimi, as she likes to be called, gives cooking lessons and runs her own YouTube channel which now has over 3,000 subscribers. Her Instagram is even more popular, with over 70,000 followers. In 2023, she appeared in Vogue Mexico, in a piece about her work preserving Oaxaca’s food traditions.
Meeting Mimi
On a summery January morning, Mimi greets her guests who arrive for one of her popular cooking classes. Green fields of corn, herbs, and vegetables surround her home restaurant Maíz, Cocina Tradicional. Dozens of fresh ingredients are laid out on the large wooden table. “Welcome to our home! Here is my mom. She’s been waiting for you,” says Mimi’s son, Charlie López.
The guests wash their hands and pull up a seat to share homemade bread and cheese over introductions. Mimi commits every single name in the room to memory and begins her class.
She is preparing four Oaxacan staples from scratch. First, fresh tortillas made from local corn (maíz). Then, Sopa de Guias de Calabaza, an indigenous vegetable soup made with young squash shoots. After that Chicken and Cheese Tamales and as the main dish, Mole Negro, one of Oaxaca’s gastronomic treasures.
The guests break up into groups. Mimi stays close, hovering like a loving military commander. She prepares the coals, distributing their heat over the comal—a stone griddle.
“You can’t preserve something just through pictures or videos, you have to live it. Like, if you want to preserve tortillas, you have to cook tortillas”
The groups seperates into stations. As two groups work on the soup and tamales, another starts the complex mole. Mimi and her students start by toasting the spices. Dried chile peppers, cloves, nuts, and other special ingredients go onto the comal until they’re perfectly toasted. Then, Mimi moves them to the metate, a long stone surface used in Oaxaca for grinding spices. Mimi demonstrates the correct pattern to grind the ingredients into the mole paste. Aromas of the toasted spices and the sweet fragrances of fruit, nuts, and chili oil fill the air.
As the groups clean and de-stem squash and herbs and sweat over grinding spices, another group follows Mimi’s lead in preparing the tamales and the tortillas. Mimi’s son Charlie arrives with a bottle of the local Mezcal. Its rich flavor overpowers the alcohol’s strength. Notes of smokey agave and flowers and a long finish lingers on the palate for minutes. Mimi and Charlie look at their guests assuredly, knowing the value of this experience.
“When I’m going to start cooking, I always start giving thanks to God. I bless myself and my cooking tools, that give the food a special taste. I think there’s an important connection between my kitchen and me. That’s why I like talking to my tools, telling them that everything must taste delicious for my family.”
After cooking, Mimi and her guests move to the table to eat, drink, and share stories. The conversations end immediatley as the first bites enter the guest’s mouths. The guests close their eyes and everyone starts to smile. “You grew up with this?” a guest asks Charlie. “Yes! And I never take it for granted.”
“I have always been learning from what surrounds me, from my Oaxaca”
“My story, of how I learned to cook is in two moments,” says Mimi. “I was the only woman among three brothers and my mother commissioned me to prepare the food. She gave me the ingredients and the procedure, but nothing else.”
The next step in her culinary evolution came after marrying her husband. Her mother-in-law Josefina began giving Mimi cooking lessons after seeing her natural talent for food. “Everything had more meaning because she loves the traditional cuisine.” Mimi’s mother-in-law taught her the techniques and traditions of Oaxacan cooking. “I have never had a formal education as a chef, but I have always been learning from what surrounds me, from my Oaxaca.”
Mimi continued to cook for her family. Her husband’s cheese company was doing well and everything was going normal. That was until 2019, when she won second place in the Meeting of Traditional Cooks of Oaxaca competition for her Pipian of Cactus dish. Mimi blew up. Recognition came, not only as an incredible cook but as an educator. “After that moment, I decided to open my restaurant Maíz Cocina Tradicional, start my YouTube channel, give conferences to university students, and offer traditional cooking experiences.”
Food, Culture, and Ingredients
To get an impression of how intertwined food and culture are in Oaxaca, Mimi sums it up perfectly. “In Oaxaca, everything has a meaning. The celebrations, the parties, the festivals in Oaxaca, everything has a reason to be. Every important moment has its own dish to prepare. Is it your wedding? Perfect! We have to prepare mole negro. Is it your birthday? Cool, you’re having mole estofado. Funeral? Ok, we must make mole coloradito.”
As important as technique is to Oaxacan cooking, ingredients are its backbone. Fresh, organic, and seasonal, everything has a purpose. Out of all the thousands of ingredients in Oaxacan cuisine, none is more important than corn. “Corn is the basis of food in Oaxaca and most of Mexico. You can find corn in different forms, in drinks, in tortillas, or in desserts,” says Mimi. Oaxaca is home to a variety of corn that dates back to over 4000 BCE. Communities pass down heirloom corn seeds through generations and each community has a communal grinder for grinding nixtamal—corn kernals soaked in mineral limewater, a practice that extracts the corns nutrients.
Wild herbs, organic produce, diverse fruits, and over 20 varieties of beans make up the next important tier of Oaxacan cuisine. Aromatic, bitter, and savory, wild herbs like hoja santa, poleo, avocado leaves, and purslane add an abundance of nutrients and flavor. Cactus pads and fruit are extensively used and require little water. Many recipes are vegetarian, making Oaxacan cuisine perfect for plant-based eaters.
“Corn is the basis of food in Oaxaca and most of Mexico. You can find corn in different forms, in drinks, in tortillas, or in desserts”
Like everywhere in Mexico, insects make up a good proportion of the local diet. “One of my cooking specialties are tamales with green sauce and maguey worms. It is a tamale that is fluffy, with a greasy texture because the maguey worms are very juicy.”
The last pillar of Oaxacan cuisine is cheese. The most famous being quesillo, a briny unpasteurized cheese similar to fresh mozzarella but more flavorful and fibrous.
The Land and its History
Oaxaca’s culinary diversity is the result of its landscape, one of the most diverse in North America. Starting on the coast, tropical forests meet rocky bays and inlets, providing rich fishing grounds and tropical plant life. Moving inland, interior valleys stretch within the Sierra Madre Del Sur and Sierra Madre de Oaxaca mountains. Here, high elevations and dry, sunny weather provide the perfect habitat for over 100 species of agave cactus and thousands of species of edible plants, fungi, and insects.
Over 10,000 villages with their own stories, traditions, and culinary legacies surround the state’s capital city. They inherited these traditions from the indigenous societies who called this land home for thousands of years. Zapotecs, Mixtecs, and other indigenous groups continue to guard the diverse landscape. These societies mastered agriculture, astronomy, writing, and architecture, creating vast cities like Monte Albán and Mitla.
“If people stop learning the traditional way of our cuisine, one day we will lose it. So we must stay motivated and always be proud of our people, our land and ancestors”
Even during the 300 years of Spanish colonization, people held onto their cultures and languages. Some ethnic groups remained free from European influence. Once Mexico won its independence, Oaxaca remained on the periphery of its control. On one hand, neglect from the Mexican government caused prevailing poverty, yet it also allowed independence and cultural preservation.
Today, Oaxaca is at a turning point. It’s a major tourism destination. Along with its beaches and waves, millions of people come here for its food. People like Mimi López have found a way to educate people about Oaxaca and its food while running a succesful business that preserves the knowledge of Oaxacan cooking for future generations. “If people stop learning the traditional way of our cuisine, one day we will lose it. So we must stay motivated and always be proud of our people, our land and ancestors”