Washington Post :: Oaxaca al Gusto

Oaxaca al Gusto:
An Infinite Gastronomy

By Diana Kennedy
Buy It Now

Diana Kennedy to Jose Andres: Your tamales are “bloody awful”

By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, October 4

To listen to Kennedy is to listen to a woman obsessed. Tiny, impish and now 88 years old, the world’s recognized authority on Mexican cuisine still braves one-lane mud roads through Mexican mountains in search of cloistered delicacies and chilies rumored to be better/hotter/more complex than others.

“It’s tantalizing,” she said. “I know a trip to find a certain chili will take hours and hours and lots of gray hairs.”

Which is why she’s published only a half-dozen books during her 50 years of preserving Mexico’s culinary identity. That life’s work culminated in the publication of “Oaxaca al Gusto” last year. More astute culinary anthropology than cookbook, its recipes for huitlacoche (corn fungus) and wasp nest gravy are likely to go unmade by most readers. Ditto for beef brains and a sauce made of flying ants (which Kennedy insists tastes “like hazelnuts”).

But the book’s rich photographs — many taken by Kennedy — offer a lush look at the biodiversity of Oaxaca and it’s cooking that she has spent a lifetime protecting.

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