The Makings of the Maya

Pat Reed and Emily Swantner | The New Mexican

8/19/2008 - 8/20/08

Daniel Hoyer had been touring the Mayan regions of southern Mexico by bus, researching a cookbook on Mayan food, when on a hot day in 2006 he arrived in Ocosingo, a town of about 35,000 people in the state of Chiapas.

He had planned to stay a night at Hospedaje y Restaurant Esmeralda, a guesthouse near the Maya ruins of Tonina, he says. Instead, he remained for four days. While Hoyer was sharing a beer with Glen Wersch, the American who had opened the guesthouse, the two decided the Northern New Mexico chef should prepare a meal at Esmeralda.

Hoyer says he agreed somewhat reluctantly to feed what he thought might be a couple of dozen people — guests at the hospedaje, staff and maybe a few others. Instead, he eventually learned, he would be feeding half the town. Or at least it seemed that way.


Hoyer, who lives near Pilar, had traveled by bus through Mexico several years earlier while working on two other cookbooks, Culinary Mexico: Authentic Recipes and Traditions and Fiesta on the Grill, also about Mexican cooking.

He says the time he spent as the sous chef at Santa Fe's Coyote Cafe — when Mark Miller owned it — influenced his interest in Mexican and Latin American foods.

Hoyer speaks some Spanish — learned in restaurant kitchens — and on his cookbook research trips in Latin America, he mainly traveled by bus, talked with people about the food they prepared and read books on the country's cuisine, including a series of regional cookbooks prepared by the Mexican government.

Eventually, he began leading what he calls "gastronomic adventure tours" to Mexico and Vietnam, his new passion, through his company, The Well Eaten Path. And he has just finished a new cookbook, this one on Vietnamese cuisine, scheduled to be published next year.


Wersch and his wife, Ellen Jones, had learned to grow macadamia nuts in the Dominican Republic, where both had been Peace Corps volunteers. So in 1994 they bought 26 acres near Ocosingo, planning to grow macadamia trees. The couple told a Dallas newspaper they'd had a lifelong love affair with Mexico.

But macadamia trees take almost 10 years to produce their first nuts. So Wersch and Jones built rustic cabins and outhouses on their acreage to attract tourists interested in a rustic experience. They called their place Rancho Esmeralda and charged about $30 a night for an ecotourism experience. In 2002, a Lonely Planet guidebook ranked Rancho Esmeralda one of the 10 best places to stay in Mexico.

But in 2003, just as their first macadamia harvest was coming in, the couple lost the guest ranch to Zapatista rebels, a group made up mostly of Maya Indians, who took over the place, claiming the rancho was on their ancestral land, and forced Wersch, Jones and their employees to leave. By the time they were forced off the land, the couple had hosted 13,000 guests.

Wersch then opened the guesthouse in Ocosingo a few months later so Rancho Esmeralda's employees would have new jobs, he says. The following year, the couple gave Hospedaje Esmeralda to the employees and, as Wersch wrote in an e-mail, they "sadly left Ocosingo." They returned to Idaho, where he started a construction and management company, he says, and Jones now works for Idaho State University.

Today, he says, he and his wife help the guesthouse with its accounting and reservations, and are its cheerleaders.


Wersch was simply visiting Ocosingo, he says, when Hoyer arrived there in 2006. Nevertheless, he talked the New Mexico chef into preparing a meal at the guesthouse. "I kept trying to bow out," Hoyer says, "but I decided I could do this."

With 500 pesos the guesthouse gave him, Hoyer went to the indigenous market to buy the food he was going to cook that night, including things like pumpkin seeds from "a little lady" in her huipil, the hand-crafted blouse many Mayan women wear.

Back at Hospedaje Esmeralda, where three people had been assigned to help him, he was asked if he had bought enough groceries. "I can feed 24 or 25 people," he said.

But the staff told him they thought Wersch had invited many of the town's residents: all the local hotel owners, all the local people who took tourists on treks, most of the Mexicans, etc. "We ran out and bought more food," Hoyer says. "One of the reception guys went home and got a grill."

As he cooked that day, "a little gal in the kitchen asked me about the postre," as dessert is called in Spanish, Hoyer says. "I hadn't even thought of it."

"I had to scramble to produce something impressive, and quickly," he writes in Mayan Cuisine.

The kitchen had "some small, sweet, yellow Manila mangoes that we had not used in the salad as previously planned," Hoyer writes. He suggested mango flan, but his assistants told him the guesthouse's ovens were not working. "I had fresh milk and condensed milk. I can make crema, I said. I caramelized the sugar and put rum from the bar in it. It was like mango eggnog."

His trip to Tianguis Campesino, the indigenous market — and the woman, young but with a weathered face, in her embroidered huipil — also inspired Hoyer to create his own salsa for the impending meal. "The bright fruity taste of the habanero chiles and the smoky sweetness of the charred vegetables are balanced by the earthy richness of the pumpkin seeds, resulting in a full-flavored salsa that is not too spicy for most people," he writes in his Mayan cookbook.

In an e-mail, Wersch says the locals saw the invitation to dinner as an opportunity to visit with him — he had not been back to the town for several years.

Hoyer says Wersch told him the Ocosingo residents would show up early. "They don't know you are going to feed them a good meal, so they think if you don't, they can go someplace else to eat," Wersch said.

"At 7, no one had shown up," Hoyer says. "So we fed the guests (at the hospedaje). Then everyone showed up." In fact, so many people arrived, Hoyer had to raid the refrigerator and freezer. Wersch says he isn't certain how many people were at the dinner, but estimated 50.

Hoyer's cooking was a success. And as he was going from table to table, "there were a lot of compliments, and people were drinking a lot," he says. A local distributor donated beer as a thank you present, Wersch says. When Rancho Esmeralda had existed, it had been one of the beer distributor's biggest customers.

Then Hoyer arrived at the table of a man he calls El Patron, a principal in another hotel. He was holding Hoyer's Culinary Mexico in his hand. "Who are you to tell us how to cook Mexican food?" El Patron demanded in Spanish.

"I was stumbling with my Spanish," Hoyer says. He suspected El Patron could speak English but was refusing to use it. He gave his honest answer in the best Spanish he could manage. He was an outsider, Hoyer told El Patron, but he loved Mexico and its food. "I've had the good fortune to travel all over the country and can communicate what I've learned."

"Sientese," El Patron replied. "Toma una tequila." Sit down. Drink some tequila.

"Then he starts speaking English to me." Hoyer says. "It was quite an experience."

Hoyer says the salsa he created for the guesthouse meal — a green salsa with pumpkinseeds, now called Salsa Esmeralda — was so popular, it became the signature dish of the guesthouse.

But, he adds, his Mango-Rum Cream — "a simple and tasty concoction" — was the hit of the night.



Daniel Hoyer created this salsa in Ocosingo, Mexico, at Hospedaje y Restaurant Esmeralda, a guesthouse in the central part of Chiapas near the Maya ruins of Tonina. The dish was so popular that it was included in the guesthouse's menu as a signature dish.

To pan-roast the rinsed and husked tomatillos, onion, garlic and chiles, put a heavy pan or comal over medium-low to medium heat and dry roast, rotating and turning often, until the desired degree of blackness is achieved over about 80 percent of the ingredient. You may have to do this in batches.

To toast the pumpkin seeds, put in a 350-degree oven and roast until light golden, about
10 minutes.

SALSA ESMERALDA
Green Salsa with Pumpkinseeds
(Makes about 2-1/2 cups)

1-1/2 pounds tomatillos, husked, rinsed and well charred
1 medium white onion, peeled, sliced in thirds and pan roasted
8 unpeeled garlic cloves, pan roasted, then peeled
1 or 2 habanero chiles, well-charred, stemmed and seeded (jalapeño, serrano or poblano chiles may be used for a milder salsa)
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
Leaves from 1 bunch cilantro
1 cup pumpkin seeds, toasted and finely ground
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Water, as needed
Salt, to taste

After the toasted ingredients have cooled, place everything except the pumpkinseeds, oil, water and salt in a blender and purée well.

Add the pumpkinseeds and oil and blend until smooth, adding only enough water to free the blades of the blender.

Taste and adjust for salt.

Serve at room temperature, but store in the refrigerator.

Daniel Hoyer created this dessert at the last minute when he was preparing a feast for some local luminaries at the Hospedaje y Restaurant Esmeralda in Ocosingo, Chiapas.

CREMA DE MANGO CON ROM
Mango-Rum Cream
(Serves 8)

3 egg yolks
1 (12-ounce) can evaporated milk
1-1/2 pounds sweet, ripe mangoes, peeled and seeded
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup whipping cream or half-and-half
Juice of 1 sweet orange, about 1/2 cup
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup dark or anejo rum
Ground canela, allspice and cloves, for garnish

Mix the egg yolks with the evaporated milk and cook in a double boiler for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring steadily. Put in a blender and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Add all the other ingredients, except the garnish, to the blender and purée until smooth.

Put in serving cups or dishes and chill.

Sprinkle with the garnish before serving.



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