Eighteen renowned chefs from different parts of the world such as Japan, Korea, Portugal, Italy, France, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, as well as Mexican cities such as Guadalajara, responded to the invitation to participate in the third edition of the event called Hokol Vuh “Gastronomic Journey with a Mayan Soul”, which is held in partnership with the Haciendas del Mundo Maya Foundation and Traspatio Maya.
(Punto Medio).- The chefs started arriving in Yucatan since Monday, October 17th, where they were welcomed by the founder of this initiative, chef Roberto Solis, who was their guide through markets and milpas of various communities, learning about local ancestral flavors, as well as exploring archaeological sites and interacting with the inhabitants of the Maya communities.
On Saturday, October 22nd, at Hacienda Temozón Sur, before international and local media, the organizers of this Gastronomic Route and the participating chefs detailed their last activity in Yucatán, which was a charity dinner offered at the Hacienda de San Lorenzo Aké.
Before the head of the Secretariat of Tourism Development (Sefotur), Michelle Friedman Hirsch, chef Roberto Solís emphasized that the first objective of the Hokol Vuh journey is to project Yucatán as a tourist destination, but also to establish commercial alliances with respect to the products that interest chefs and the food & drink industry in general.
It is worth mentioning that some of these 100% Yucatecan products are regularly used in Michelin-star rated restaurants in Europe and the US, or mentioned in the 50 best restaurants in the world.
“The second goal is social, and consists of supporting with the proceeds from the dinner, the conservation of native corn for the benefit of 180 families who depend on the cornfield in 23 rural communities in the state, but the most important thing was the coexistence that was generated with the people who received the chefs in their homes to cook with local ingredients,” he explained.
The dinner that was prepared consisted of nine dishes inspired by these experiences, using vegetables and products from the cornfields such as beans, squash, corn and chili, as well as pork, fish, lobster and Mayan octopus, and something important is that, as a symbol of friendship and cooperation, they worked as a team.
For example, chef Isaac Mc Hale, originally from Scotland and who works at The Cave Club restaurant in London, teamed up with chef Sergio Herman from Belgium to prepare a dish they called “Lobster with a Yucatán flavor”.
To enjoy this dinner, which was served with the Aké Ruins as the setting, and which, according to Chef Solis, “is only a pretext to do a greater good”, the 200 diners, many of them American Express cardholders, paid 1,500 dollars, which, as mentioned above, will be used for the conservation of native corn.
In this sense, it was recalled that in the previous edition of Hokol Vuh, in 2019, 35 thousand dollars were raised, which after the tropical storms that hit the state in 2020, were used to buy more tons of corn, which were donated as seed to the affected farming families.
The evening was also the setting in which the restorer, plastic artist and museologist Luciano Cedillo presented Aké 2022, made up of 25 large format works, measuring 2 by 1.50 meters, in which he depicts the forms of expression of the most ancient groups, from the cave paintings of 10,000 years ago to the pre-Hispanic era.
The interesting thing about this collection is that local materials were used in its elaboration, such as henequen canvas, the Mayan blue color that was used since the 5th century, as well as clays such as kankab, sascab, lime and the black color taken from charcoal.
Master Cedillo worked for more than 40 years in restoration activities of archaeological pieces in the Palacio Canton Anthropology Museum, and also in a large number of different archaeological sites.
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