Anthony Bourdain A Cooks Tour Season 1 Episode 15: Tamales Iguana Oaxacan Style

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(gentle music) Welcome to my world. (upbeat music) Two escargots, plantain, frisee. Two green salads, Okay plan the sauce here. Lamb chops, steak frite. Shouldn't you be doing something? Two smoked fillet and a pepper steak. Come on make the desserts. Chocolate tart please. As a cook, tastes and smells are my memories. And now I'm in search of new ones. So I'm leaving New York City in hope to have a few epiphanies around the world. And I'm willing to go to some lengths to do that. I'm looking for extremes of emotions and experience. I'll try anything, I'll risk everything, I have nothing to lose. God help us, what we think of in America when we talk about Mexican food is again and again you know tomatoes, cilantro, a little jalapeño a squirt of lime, gobs of sour cream, cheddar and maybe Monterrey jack cheese sprinkled on top. Some crappy refried beans. It ain't like that at all. There's a whole spectrum of flavors and textures and ingredients that most of us wouldn't know about. I came to Mexico to find this real Mexican food. Some places I can tell I'm going to like immediately. I'm going to like this place. I'm on my way to Oaxaca. A beautiful town with a very sophisticated maybe the most sophisticated cuisine in Mexico. We're going to the mercado right? The central market. Food market and grocery market. [Anthony] I've enlisted Martin, my driver to show me the authentic side of Oaxaca cuisine. He's from Mexico City, so he's a city boy like me. We can buy some food and maybe buy a breakfast. And come chapulines too. What's a chapuline? Grasshoppers. Grasshopper, I don't know if I'm read for that for breakfast, why not. The Oaxacan market is filled with really gorgeous surprisingly fresh stuff. It's a market that smells good. With a real variety of things going on. And like all the best markets, it's notable for it's cool food stalls where there's great stuff to eat. And this place is no exception. [Martin] Eat here? [Anthony] Right here, sure. [Martin] They have everything good. [Anthony] Chocolate con agua chocolate con leche. Chocolate atole is basically hot chocolate with a sort of cornmeal texture. Sort of like tapioca, but not as thick. It's almost like a breakfast porridge. And the bread's kind of like a kind of like a brioche. That's a sweet bread. I'm kind of liking this with the corn. Cause it's thicker. I tell you if you stand in here long enough, you'll take on that original smokehouse flavor yourself. There's even a whole butcher section where there's meat available right then and there for grilling. You got sausages like chorizo and morcilla and they'll grill it right up for you. Now this is pretty cool. This is very cool. Now what's going on here? [Martin] You buy by a quarter, by a half, by a pound, by a kilo. And they can start grilling it for you. [Anthony] Right. Now I see over here somebody's got some looks like some big skimpy green onions going. [Martin] Yeah, big onions. That's a chorizo there? This is the chorizo. Just beef. This is chimigo tripa da tripes. I've eaten a lot of tripes on this trip. I don't know. Okay, we'll be back for this. Oh the hell with it, let's get a couple of chorizos. You can pick up your own vegetables and tortillas, whatever else you want to grill right by the butcher station. So it's sort of a build your own sandwich joint. Many many options open to you as far as which butcher you want to go to, which products you want to bring. It's fun. Sort of a kooky concept. Now what should we do with these? Should we get something to eat with that or just snack on? [Martin] No, we can have a tortilla or just snack on. I think just a snack. I want to get a little light eating this morning. So that corn hot chocolate. Oh yeah, that looks good. Look at a all that nice red sauce coming out there. Oh, that's really good. Spicy wonderful, oily, greasy, smokey. That's really good. What do we owe them? 12 pesos. [Anthony] I need a little time to regain my appetite so we take a moment to check out the goods. I've pictured my floor staff many a time in exactly this position. Oh yeah, okay. Here's where I'm really getting turned on, The chili section. Chili molato. Chilaquiles Nero chile pasilla mixe chile guajillo. [Anthony] You could do an entire 22 episodes series just on the chilies. There's so many of them. Each has their own characteristics, some of which are very subtle. You know various stages of one particular chile you could get going a big discussion on that alone. I don't have the time or the knowledge to pursue that subject as fully as it deserves. What's the hottest pepper here? These are dried habaneros. [Martin] Dried habaneros. [Anthony] Okay, I need a bag of those. My old friend Steven has some pain on the way. Ah, grasshoppers. [Martin] Okay, now you have to put them in your mouth. There's little grasshopper, big grasshopper. Big grasshopper, top rated? You just go like that. These are good. Where's the flavor coming from? They put spices? Garlic, lemon, and salt. [Anthony] More bugs, grasshoppers, big deal. Been there, done that. It's so last week. I have a few grasshoppers at this point, it's like eating potato chips. Crunchy. Mucho gracious. [Anthony] As if I haven't gorged on enough odd food already, Martin tells me the market has a place known for it's menudo, or tripe soup. I think I need a bowl. [Martin] It's everything inside. [Anthony] Make you strong? [Martin] Very strong, special for hangovers. That's one for you. That's belly, eye. Good. [Martin] Heart. [Anthony] Oh yeah. Extra heart. Leg. The leg, right. Lech. Leg? Lech. Mouth. Good, lips, lips. [Martin] Belly, liver, and head. [Anthony] Menudo's a lot like peasant dishes in other countries. It's strange bits of meat, some crunchy vegetables, and some hot broth to warm it up. Wow, oh yeah. There you go. That's a meal. That's good. Add this and a little lime, a little more chilies, I like it spicy. This nuclear. I don't know if there's a hoof or a snout. The menudo is incredible. It may look like something from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but the dramatic variety of textures tastes great floating around in the spicy meaty broth. That singing group of adorable tikes is named after a big heap of steaming guts. It's true. I can't be within 500 miles of sun and sand and not spend a day at the beach. So I begged Martin to take me to the coastal town of Puerto Angel. (festive music) Looks like a swordfish cause it has the head cut off. Puerto Angel is a fishing community. Cleaned up, ready to go. Looks good to me. Lunch. As in so many fishing communities, people recognize the boats from way out. Soon as a boat comes in, they come in quick and everybody runs to get the best fish. Some of this goes to the market for wholesale. A lot of it is just bought by the locals to bring home and take care of their own fish needs. Since I was at the beach, I decided to go snorkeling. Which seemed like a good idea at the time. In case we need to cook something, we need a lighter. [Anthony] I got one. But now, looking back it was just another pointless venture in television entertainment. The plan was to have the buff, brown and studly. Chef Bourdain go diving in the water and come up with a snapping monster sized fish. Followed by a photogenic scene of me grilling fish in a woolly sweater on the beach over an open fire. In fact it was a spinally, pencil necked, flabby assed and semi nauseated chef Bourdain tenuously waiting in the freezing water with a wirey Mexican guy named Leo. He basically line fishes while snorkeling. He dives down, finds a big one and then tries to sucker him in. We're out there in our snorkels, and he dives like 25 feet down. He's down there for a long time. I get around half way down before my ears are going nuts and I've got to come up and get some air. Two and a half packs a day. As so often is the case that debacles like this, after 20 rip roaring minutes of pointless idiocy, we wrapped up this exercise and ran over to the nearest beach bar. Where we ordered up the fabulous fiesta of frozen fish. At this point, I don't care if I'm eating. Mrs. Paul's fish sticks. Food always tastes good when you've got sand between your toes. Okay, I'm ready for the hot tub scene. So Leo's telling me that the iguana is actually everyday food. He says every third day of his life he goes hunting with a dog. The dog roots out an iguana for him. Grabs one of these suckers, I guess grills them up. I don't know we're going to have to get this story over again. So I decide to take Leo's recommendation and ask the host of our hotel to serve up this specialty. [Host] He wants to die. I mean look at how peaceful he is. [Anthony] Let me describe eating an iguana to you. First of all you look at this leathery, wrinkled, nasty old thing and you're thinking you know that can't taste good. So he hands it off to his sister in law to cook. Maybe the worst thing I've eaten in my life. After stabbing it in the brain and roasting it in a flame so she can peel the skin off. They boil it in this scummy water. In one hour it gets cooked. We can start making the tamales. And then they put it inside a tamale. (festive music) and I mean, it's like I unwrap this thing and it's like what the f♪♪♪ is that? What part do I eat? It's very tough. It's covered with skin. You can feel the little bones inside there and the meat is sort of rubbery but chicken like. It tasted exactly the way you would think, if you've ever kept fish and you know you clean your tank after nine years, that sort of nasty greasy sludge at the bottom of the tank, that's kind of how iguana tastes. It was under cooked and when I finally managed to suck a few strands of meat out, I'm sorry I did. It tastes like chicken. Unbelievably horrible. Worst episode ever. The corn meal gets iguana taste. I just want to die. I mean really really bad. I want to dip my head into a bucket of lye after this meal. You know pull my eyes out of their sockets and jump off a cliff. We're going to visit this woman, Dominga. Who's famous for her traditional oaxacan tamales made with banana leaves instead of corn husks. (rooster crowing) You walk in and the first thing I notice are the smells. The smell of incredible food cooking al fresco competes with livestock and animal dung. Flies are everywhere. There are chickens running around my feet. And I'm thinking great what have I gotten myself into. Perhaps to ease my nervousness, she allows me to taste her mole negro that's been simmering all morning. Oh, that's really good. Wow I'm looking forward to this. That's fantastic. Dominga then gets ready to toast the banana leaves on a small portable stove called a comal. The comal is the flat surface they toast peppers, herbs, and things like that on. There are two ways of making the leaves, you can boil them in the water, or grilled in the comal. I have banana leaves in my restaurant in New York. These are for garnish. If you don't do this, they don't work. You cannot bend them, they break. You toast them a little first. [Martin] You toast them, yeah. [Anthony] So we watch Dominga make about a zillion of these toasted banana leaves. Next was the arduous task of preparing the corn for a trip to the much anticipated molena. [Martin] That's the corn cold mixed tamale. You have to wash it very well. [Anthony] Okay, we're going to the mill. This more than anything else is the reason, that Oaxacans point to as the most visible reason why their region is special, because this is still a really powerful tradition. They bring their own chocolate, their own corn, coffee other dry ingredients and even wet ingredients to the mill and grind it up, old style. This dates back to pre Hispanic times. The mill is an essential facet of village life in rural Mexico. It's a big stone wheel grinding against another big stone wheel until the stuff is ground into a very smooth paste. The paste is added slowly to stock and simmers to make the final mole sauce. There are usually two mills, one for wet ingredients such as peppers to make mole, and another for dry ingredient, like corn to make cornmeal. We watched Dominga grind her freshly washed corn into cornmeal. Dominga came earlier this morning to have her own peppers ground into paste for the mole we tasted just a few moments ago. Gracias. [Anthony] So once Dominga gets back from the mill with her freshly ground cornmeal, she places it in a mixing bowl, adds some rendered pork fat and water, and mixes it by hand. So I heard chimas and maise, same? It's the same, it's the same. [Anthony] Once again, she checks the mole. Chicken which has been simmering with fresh garlic and and egg is now ready to be shredded. The smells are incredible. Next she pats dry each of the toasted banana leaves. And prepares the fire in her little shed to steam the tamales. I can recognize a steamer when I see one. Finally she's able to assemble the tamales with all of these amazingly fresh ingredients she's been preparing all morning. Fist a little of the corn meal paste, the masa. Then a little of the chicken, topped with some of the mole, then tightly wrapped. [Martin] Tamales are used for breakfast or for supper. That's some serious eating there. Next Dominga steams the tamales for about 30 minutes. (guitar) Looks like the tamales have finished cooking. And finally ready to eat. Seems like Martin gets the first sample. Mm mm, wow. [Anthony] This is living. Okay that looks good. Yeah, that's not good, that's great. That's really good. That's really really fine. Good for hangovers. Got to be. This is fantastic. Like no tamale I've ever had. Light years better. Better than anything I've ever had in the past. Really good. Flies don't necessary mean bad food. In fact, sometimes flies seem to indicate really good food. You don't want to smell animal dung where you're cooking. But it's not an impediment to a good meal. Dominga's a good example of this. Forget about every Mexican restaurant you've ever eaten in, this is food. Fresh in maybe original old school way. I'm going to have to have another one of these. Little piece, missed a piece. Oh yeah. (energetic music) Posole, that's where we're going right? Posole right. Right, yeah. And this place is supposed to be really good. It's supposed to be good. [Anthony] Martin's heard about a great place for posole. It's pork and corn soup, which I love. Those tacos look good. Look I was going to have posole, but these tacos are looking really good. And that looks like chopped up ham. [Martin] Exactly. Cheeks, snout ears, all the good stuff. Clearly popular joint. Alright. Sometimes street food is the best food. Posole por senor. [Anthony] As you see, families flock here for a simple but hardy meal. This restaurant's got it all, this exactly the place I like to eat when going out to dinner. And just the type of companions I'm looking for. (crying) This guy makes tacos faster than I can say tequila. (foreign language) It's the texture, the meatiness, the intensity of the flavor and the freshness that make this the ultimate taco. The best pork taco I've ever had. It's wonderful. This is a good example actually of you go looking for one thing and you find another thing. I went looking for posole and found some really great tacos. And one more. Great. Martin's outdone himself. Shown me all the good spots. So it's only fair I treat him to some friendly shots of mezcal, a close cousin of tequila. No what's a chaser they call? Sangrita. Sangrita, little blood. So a little mezcal, a little blood, sounds like a nice mix. (Mariachi music) [Martin] Cuatro, sangritas cuatro. Mezcal has a worm you see. [Anthony] Does that really work? If you eat the worm? No, no no. [Anthony] No, that's highly overrated by the way. Never did anything for me. They say the worm at the bottom of the bottle of mezcal makes you hallucinate. Okay first the lime, little maguey worm, pepper? They don't just use salt, they use ground up maguey worms and salt as a condiment. Mmm good. A hot sauce chaser, or sangrita to kill the worm taste my stomach's saying what the hell. Let's do that again. Why am I drinking this? Uh, to get drunk. To take the pain away and the humiliation. I see where this evening's going. Will I never learn? Never challenge a native to the local fire water. If I start singing, hit me the nearest hit me with this and just drag me back to the hotel. You want another one, no, you want another one? Cuatro. [Anthony] I'm enjoying myself. Trading shot for shot with Martin. But I fear that this evening will end badly. Despite my unfortunate foray into the world of reptilian cuisine, this has been a real learning experience. Mexican cuisine, in particular Oaxacan cuisine, is complex and time consuming, but it's worth it.
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Channel: GoTraveler
Views: 247,760
Rating: 4.9028797 out of 5
Keywords: travel, gotraveler, anthony bourdain, bourdain, master chef, cooking show, a cook's tour, anthony bourdain japan, anthony bourdain a cook's tour, anthony bourdain food travel, Oaxaca, oaxaca food, oaxaca cheese, celebrity chef, bourdain fonda margarita, parts unknown, A Cook's Tour Season 1, Anthony Bourdain TV Show No Reservations, bourdain mexico, bourdain mexico city, culture, CNN TV
Id: uXlnlS5RrxU
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 21min 25sec (1285 seconds)
Published: Wed Jul 08 2020
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