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Anthony Bourdain on America's love-hate relationship with Mexico
http://www.cnn.com/video/shows/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown/season-3/mexico/index.html#autoplay=trueAmericans love Mexican food. We consume nachos, tacos, burritos, tortas, enchiladas, tamales and anything resembling Mexican in enormous quantities. We love Mexican beverages, happily knocking back huge amounts of tequila, mezcal and Mexican beer every year. We love Mexican peopleas we sure employ a lot of them. Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes towards immigration, we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our lawns, wash our dishes, look after our children. As any chef will tell you, our entire service economythe restaurant business as we know itin most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers. Some, of course, like to claim that Mexicans are stealing American jobs. But in two decades as a chef and employer, I never had ONE American kid walk in my door and apply for a dishwashing job, a porters positionor even a job as prep cook. Mexicans do much of the work in this country that Americans, provably, simply wont do.
We love Mexican drugs. Maybe not you personally, but we, as a nation, certainly consume titanic amounts of themand go to extraordinary lengths and expense to acquire them. We love Mexican music, Mexican beaches, Mexican architecture, interior design, Mexican films.
So, why dont we love Mexico?
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Anthony Bourdain on America's love-hate relationship with Mexico (Original Post)
LuckyLib
Aug 2014
OP
BeyondGeography
(39,369 posts)1. He's great, and sincere, on the topic
More:
And as much as we think we know and love it, we have barely scratched the surface of what Mexican food really is. It is NOT melted cheese over a tortilla chip. It is not simple, or easy. It is not simply 'bro food' halftime. It is in fact, old -- older even than the great cuisines of Europe and often deeply complex, refined, subtle, and sophisticated. A true mole sauce, for instance, can take DAYS to make, a balance of freshly (always fresh) ingredients, painstakingly prepared by hand. It could be, should be, one of the most exciting cuisines on the planet. If we paid attention.
The old school cooks of Oaxaca make some of the more difficult to make and nuanced sauces in gastronomy. And some of the new generation, many of whom have trained in the kitchens of America and Europe have returned home to take Mexican food to new and thrilling new heights.
It's a country I feel particularly attached to and grateful for.
The old school cooks of Oaxaca make some of the more difficult to make and nuanced sauces in gastronomy. And some of the new generation, many of whom have trained in the kitchens of America and Europe have returned home to take Mexican food to new and thrilling new heights.
It's a country I feel particularly attached to and grateful for.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)2. Maybe if people in his industry paid a living wage.
He would find American to do the work. I am sure if the Mexicans he claims to love wanted to unionize to get decent pay he wouldn't say this.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)3. I would bet dollars to donuts he supports based on his programs
He himself does not own a restaurant or work at one anymore (he is listed as a chef-at-large at one fancy restaurant as kind of a emeritus position).