Why is Mexican cuisine in mourning

On Tuesday, Mexico lost something: an irreplaceable hearth has been extinguished forever. Yuri de Gortari, one of the great researchers and promoters of Mexican cuisine, has departed from this earthly plane. Some were fortunate enough to call him master. I was not. Every year I thought that this would be the year I would take the Diploma in Mexican Culture and Gastronomy, but it never happened. At least I am left with the memory of his calm voice and sharp comments from when I had the opportunity to interview him. Yuri de Gortari was a highly literate figure in Mexican culture who wielded the sword for a cuisine that many were ashamed of before the UNESCO declaration and the media boom: before the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, before Enrique Olvera, before Jorge Vallejo. He had to confront figures who called Mexican cuisine ‘a trivial matter’ and referred to a taco as a vulgar culinary gesture. Yuri was passionate about the minutiae of the step-by-step process, endemic ingredients, the personalities that guarded culinary knowledge, the recipes that are transmitted like sacred DNA. Under the battle cry #let'sbuildthecountry, he and his partner Edmundo Escamilla recruited students, housewives, and cooks who, like them, had the conviction to save Mexican cuisine from disuse, from the ‘Mexican curious.’ In the institution they founded, the Escuela de Gastronomía Mexicana (ESGAMEX), they taught about what needed a large magnifying glass in the national kitchen: they dissected its techniques, regions, and preparations, its historical periods. Claudio Poblete, journalist, director, and founder of Culinaria Mexicana, points out that “Yuri and Edmundo, by founding ESGAMEX, laid the first stone in the formal study plans of Mexican cuisine.” What could be more significant than that? Claudio also comments that the best way to preserve his legacy would be for “the Yuri de Gortari chair to be established in all culinary universities in Mexico and to have at least one year of classes in Mexican cuisine with his teaching method.” Some lost a source of beloved flavors on Tuesday. His friend Alejandro Cabral claims that alongside Yuri, he not only tasted the best cochinita of his life but also had a moment of revelation: “He made the tortillas and then added a bit of lard. The tortillas were stacked to keep them warm, and the lard melted over them. I ate them with refried beans – the ones he made with lard until they dried out –. The flavor of the beans combined with the corn and lard made me cry.” People who knew Yuri say that no one defended Mexican cuisine from clichés and fleeting trends like he did. They speak of his coherence in the way he viewed, expressed, and practiced cooking, always aimed at preserving traditions. His firm ideas earned him supporters and detractors. “Yuri and Edmundo were true to their principles and did not compromise their vision of national cuisine for any commercial view,” comments Claudio Poblete.Since Tuesday, those who took classes with him and those who didn’t will remember Yuri for his incredibly interesting programs on Canal Once, for his knowledge in books such as El maíz de boca en boca, Recuerdos de chocolate, and Guisos y golosos del barroco, for being the great scholar of Mexican gastronomy, and for dignifying our heritage. We will remember him because when we were free and traveled, there was someone who already knew that Mexico did not only live on nachos and chimichangas. Promoters like him make us wear the shirt, the apron, and the huipil with pride.Photos: Bertha Herrera