I’m on my way to Oaxaca for a week to shoot restaurants and the process of making mescal for National Geographic. I know I’m going to have some downtime between shoots, so I also brought along a Soviet-era medium format film camera and an old 35mm camera I found in the back of my closet to shoot between assignments.
I take the overnight bus from Mexico City, splurging for a luxury ticket which buys you extra legroom, a bottle of water along with a series of exposed wires and an electrical socket hanging on for dear life. Six-and-a-half hours of shitty sleep later and I wake up to the sunrise in Oaxaca.
This first day feels a little overwhelming but I’m glad to be here. I drag my bags down the road to look for a coffee but nothing is open yet. I have to settle for a coffee from OXXO (Mexico’s answer to the 7-Eleven) and go sit in the park to drink it with a couple of cigarettes while I watch the city wake up. People are going for their morning run, parents are taking their kids to school, seniors are heading to dance class.
Later in the day, I shoot Thalia Barrios-Garcia of Levadura de Olla and La Cocina de Humo (Food and Wine magazine credits the chef with running two of Oaxaca’s most ambitious restaurants). I do my thing and say my goodbyes, thank yous, and mucho gustos. Before I can head out, Thalia invites me to join her the next morning at Mercado de Abastos, Oaxaca’s largest market, for some memelas (fried masa cakes). It’s not my first time here at the market, but it is my first with a local. Thalia points out a small section of the market and tells me these women bring their produce from nearby communities – most of it is foraged.
In my opinion, you haven’t truly experienced Oaxacan cuisine if you haven’t eaten in the markets. We stop by Doña Vale Memelas for some cafe de olla (Mexican spiced coffee served in an earthenware bowl) and tortillas heated on the comal slathered with pork lard, salsa, crumbled queso fresco, and a thin piece of salted beef. A simple, delicious breakfast. After we finish, Thalia invites me to go with her to Sierra Madre de Oaxaca on Sunday morning to visit the markets in the southernMexican mountain range.
I head to Santa Maria Velato to photograph the process of making an earthen pit oven to make mezcal. Jair Gudino Chavez, chef and owner of mezcal company Vientre, picks me up in the centre of Oaxaca and we drive several hours with a quick stop for micheladas (Mexican lagers mixed with salsa and lime, rimmed with chilli salt) along the way. We get to the cooking site at around 4.30pm with an hour and a half of sunlight left in the day and are greeted with little cups of mezcal and a giant hole in the ground. That hole will be used as an oven for cooking the hearts of the maguey – or agave – plants used for making mezcal.
The sun goes down and we hop in the back of a pickup truck to pick up beer for all the people involved in the cooking process. When we get to the store, everything is pitch black except the single street light and two guys playing some kind of Mexican slot machine. The store is locked up but the driver of the truck yells out and someone comes and opens it up for us. We have a quick beer in front of the shop in the back of the truck and then head back up the bumpy road to the cook site.
Beers. Mezcal. Quesadillas.
After that, I’m about ready to call it a night. It feels like it could be 1am but I know in my heart it’s closer to 10.30pm. The consistent early mornings have caught up with me. I lay out a palm mat and decide to give in to sleep only to be woken about an hour later by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake. I open my eyes and feel everything shaking. I’ve had my fair share of earthquake experiences in Mexico City, but something about not being surrounded by tall buildings while the ground is shaking makes it a much less frightening experience and I just let it rock me right back to sleep.
This is an excerpt from the latest issue of Swill. Want more? Order issue 5 today
