by Jorge Ramos
The celebrated chef René Redzepi, from Copenhagen’s Noma—a restaurant that leading food critics consider one of the world’s best—came to Tulum this spring and opened a pop-up restaurant for seven weeks. (Previously Redzepi had opened pop-ups in Sydney and Tokyo.) Last December, he offered seven thousand reservations to Noma Mexico at $600 each. All of them were snatched up within two hours.
The stakes were as high as the price tag.
Redzepi had to transform a parking lot in Tulum’s tourist zone into a laboratory of gastronomic experimentation. Understandably, he didn’t come to Mexico alone—he brought along his family and about one hundred employees from Noma in Copenhagen.
Redzepi and his assistants spent months exploring the traditional dishes and ingredients of the Yucatán Peninsula. They built an open kitchen and set up an outdoor dining room on the sand, under the palm trees. Then they launched a culinary revolution.
This whole experiment was about reimagining Mexican cuisine—tasting Mexico in a whole new way. What sort of experience could a renowned foreign chef create while using the local ingredients available to Mexicans?
The result was truly an epiphany. Redzepi and his team tasted the same food I grew up with in Mexico, but they saw it with a fresh perspective. They deconstructed it, rethought it, and reassembled it precisely.
In the process they introduced us to new sensations. For instance, Redzepi served a lot of flowers, in soup and as an entrée. Before that meal, I had only seen those flowers used as décor. After that first course, I gobbled up a salbute (or puffed tortilla) with grasshoppers, and a seaweed dish infused with michelada (a beer-based cocktail). I tried a ceviche prepared with broiled, marinated bananas. I had never tasted a softer octopus than Redzepi’s dzikilpak, cooked for hours in maize dough inside a clay vase.
When a dish featuring escamoles, or ant eggs, arrived, my five dinner companions were a little intimidated. But the dish, whose history stretches back to Mexico’s pre-Columbian times, was a delight—served on a tostada and surrounded by miniature local greens.
I ate young coconut with a pulp as soft as jelly, transformed into a tropical-Nordic hybrid with a garnish of Scandinavian caviar that Redzepi brought to Mexico.
A black mole sauce, traditionally served with chicken, was placed upon a baked hoja santa, a large-leafed Mexican herb. More recognizable were small tacos of “bald pig,” a mix of crunchy and soft pork—a tribute to cochinita pibil, a slow-roasted pork dish. For dessert, we were served grilled avocado ice cream and chocolate with chile.
I’m no food critic, and after three surgeries on my nose, I have little sense of smell. But each of those delightful dishes had its own unique, complex story that could be experienced by all the senses.
We diners could hear enthusiastic cheers from the kitchen every time a dish was served. Four Yucatecan women were making tortillas by hand. The restaurant’s young servers, aware that they were part of something special, were meticulous in their description of the dishes—a sign that they loved the food.
Asked why he liked working with Redzepi, one server said: “Because he forces us to strive for excellence.”
I happened to be there for the last supper—the night that Noma was closing its doors in Tulum. Once the final dessert was brought out of the kitchen, toasts and laughter followed. “We did it,” said Redzepi.
In the end, Mexico demonstrated that it was the best country in the world for this great experiment. With the same foods available to everyone, these foreigners were able to create something entirely different. When they speak about Mexico, they aren’t thinking of mass graves, election rigging, spying, or corruption. No, they think of endless possibilities and resources—a joyful, almost magical place with solidarity and “the prettiest service in the world,” as an American hotelier put it.
I wish every Mexican could see their country with the same optimism, respect, and hope with which Redzepi and his associates did. When the meal was over, I hugged the chef and told him: “Thanks for letting me see my country in a different way.”
A Mexican Childhood
There is a particular photograph that makes me very uneasy: one of my dad carrying me in his arms. I would have been just a few months old. He looks very serious, almost distant, as if I weren’t really there. I’m dressed all in blue, probably wool, with my mouth open and a little wave of blond hair parting my head in half. It might just be the first picture ever taken of me. But it’s also the only picture I have of my dad and me.
The only one.
I’ve been looking through my albums and on my computer for other pictures, and I just can’t find any. There are some of the whole family together, but none of just my dad and me.
My relationship with my dad wasn’t an easy one. It didn’t flow naturally. It seemed to get caught up in the individual moments. I can only remember playing with him once: he tried to kick a soccer ball, and I tried to make him believe that everything was going great. But in fact he struck the ball poorly, with the toe of his shoe instead of the instep, and the attempt at some father-son bonding ended after only a few seconds. There must have been other occasions where we played together, but I can’t remember them.
It is true, though, that he taught me how to play chess, which is a game I still enjoy to this very day. But our matches were never simply games: they were scenes of confrontation between father and son. He always beat me, except for one occasion when I caught him in checkmate after a careless move on his part. Never again did he make that mistake.
He once took my siblings and me to a bounce house, but mostly he liked to bring pastries with him when he came home from work, especially rayaditos, which are a kind of Mexican madeleine.
I didn’t see much of him from Monday to Friday, and on the weekends I mostly saw the back of his head as he drove us to visit my grandparents. Maybe his own father hadn’t played much with him, and he’d never thought to alter that behavior.
We didn’t talk often. The sex conversation took place during a quick drive from the house to the mall. What he said amounted to “Let me know if you need help.” Of course, I didn’t let him know about anything.
My dad had a strict set of rules for the household. When will you be home? Don’t leave without some money in your pocket. Call if you’re running late. Do your homework. When I was younger, I was afraid of him. If I saw him reading the newspaper in the living room, I would go somewhere else. Every once in a while he would scream and shout, but as I grew older I came to understand that that’s just how he was, that the shouting was harmless, that he was never going to change, and that setting up rules was just his way of loving and protecting us.
In his mind, there were only four legitimate professions: an architect (like him), an engineer, a lawyer, or a doctor. None of these interested me. When I informed him that I was going to major in communications, his response was simply, “Well, what are you going to do with that?”
It was a fairly disparaging reaction to my career choice. I have to admit that there was a joyful bit of rebellious intent behind making a decision that upset my dad. If he didn’t approve, then it must be a good idea. Now, of course, I understand that his only concern was for my own financial welfare, so that I wouldn’t have to struggle through life the way he did when he was younger.
So in spite of my dad’s protests, I studied the subjects that I enjoyed the most. He hadn’t, and it showed. Ramos the architect was also a great magician, and he loved performing tricks for us. I always thought it might have been his true vocation in life, but my grandfather forced him into something he didn’t enjoy.
Despite everything to the contrary, this story has a happy ending.
After I moved to the United States, I was able to make peace with my dad. The tension and detachment that we felt when we were younger had blossomed into a warm and loving relationship. When I left, I broke the precast mold of what, for him, the father-son relationship should be like. Once he was able to free himself from this obligation, he
began to see me through a new set of eyes…as I was able to do with him.
We were finally able to embrace. Whenever I went back to Mexico, we would spend some time together. Sometimes it was in silence, as the Ramos family is wont to do, but we enjoyed and appreciated it a lot. And I would always say goodbye with a hug and a kiss that I knew was for both of us.
Television sealed the deal. From his apartment in Mexico City, he could watch me deliver the news in Miami. Afterward, I would call him on the phone to see what he thought about it all. “I didn’t pay much attention to the news,” he would say. “I just wanted to see you.”
He usually commented on the ties I wore. He loved wearing boldly designed ties himself, and knowing that, I would try to wear something that he would enjoy. And when I would hear him mention my corbatita—my little tie—over the phone, I knew that I had succeeded.
One of the greatest tragedies any immigrant can experience is not being with your loved ones when they die. I knew that my father was ill—he had been through a couple of heart attacks—but I never expected my mother to call me one night with the news that things had become quite serious. The next call was to let me know that he had passed away.
I was in the newsroom, about to give the nightly broadcast, and—in a state of total denial—I went through with it. Fortunately my colleagues were with me, and they sent me home to Mexico City the next morning so I could attend the funeral.
Who would have thought it? Television—the career my father never would have wanted for me—was what ended up bringing us together in the end.
But I grew up rebelling against him.
And against the abusive Catholic priests who ran my elementary school and high school.
And against the prevailing antidemocratic system in Mexico.
So when faced with an authoritarian father, authoritarian teachers, and an authoritarian country, I had no choice but to become a journalist.
* * *
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Immigrants don’t remember abstractions. In my case, I don’t formulate a generic image of Mexico like you might find in a library book. No. I think very concrete things: specific moments that, over time, have surely been transformed into memories that are very different from the events that actually happened.
* * *
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I remember spending the day in the street playing soccer with my brothers, Alejandro, Eduardo, and Gerardo. We were only about a year apart from one another. We shared clothes and two carpeted rooms, and we grew together like a band, which was perfect when picking teams. We played in the street, forming the goal with two large stones that we had to move aside whenever a car wanted to pass. We played with our neighbors, making up Olympic and World Cup championships and all sorts of other competitions, whether it was on foot or on a bicycle. My knees were perpetually covered in scabs. When we got bored with running around, we would go to houses still under construction and set up in our fort—something of a bat cave—until the masons showed up and ran us off. My sister, Lourdes, discovered the fort one day after having returned home from a long trip to Canada. She was the youngest of the family and spent her time with her friends playing at home with their dolls while my brothers and I were hanging out in the street. Much, much later we would become very close friends and confidants.
* * *
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Every morning we would hop on a bus that would take us to the school located on the outskirts of the city. But sometimes for me it seemed as if they were ferrying us off to hell. It was a Catholic school run by Benedictine priests, who were, in my childish mind, the closest thing to the devil incarnate. Padre William, Padre Rafael, and Padre Hildebrando pulled us by the hair and beat us on the hands and buttocks with their shoes, but by far their most sadistic form of punishment was to make the student/victim stand in the middle of the patio with his arms extended in the form of a cross while holding stacks of books in his hands. I remember that physical and psychological abuse being quite frequent. To them, it was a matter of discipline; for us, it was a matter of fear. One day, Padre Hildebrando was upset about some trouble we were causing and said, “The storm is coming, so you’d better get on your knees and pray.” Mockingly, we got on our knees. The punishment lasted for several days, and they forced us to confess each and every Friday. But the priests to whom we were confessing our sins were the same ones who were responsible for imposing discipline at the school. So of course, we all learned to lie. I was terrified of the story of hell. They told us that if we died without confessing, we would be condemned to spend all eternity with the devil himself. Around that same time I went to see the movie The Exorcist, which proved to be a grave mistake. The terrible images haunted me for years, whether I was awake or asleep in my dreams. That was supposedly why we had to confess? Creating something of a bank account with heaven, I would make up sins to confess on Fridays, on the off chance that I would commit a sin the next week and die before I had a chance to confess again. To me, Padre William was the most menacing of the three. His eyes always seemed to be filled with hatred, and the little acts of torture to which he subjected us seemed to give him some sense of pleasure. To my young, frightened (terrified, really) eyes, he was a sadistic priest. He carried a neolite shoe sole—the kind he used to beat us with—in his back pocket as a constant warning. Once, I told him that I had to leave school early for some athletic training. My goal was to compete in the Olympics one day. His response was “You’re no Superman.” Maybe not, but I wasn’t dumb, either. I suffered through this ordeal for ten years until one day I told my parents I couldn’t take it anymore and I left. I did this the year before I was supposed to finish. I didn’t want to give them the pleasure of graduating from their high school. I was no longer worried about going to hell: I was already there, and I had to get out. For all these reasons, it should come as no surprise that I ended up leaving the church and becoming suspicious of all organized religion. I was baptized as a Catholic, I took my First Communion, and I was forced to attend Mass on Sundays. But as soon as I was old enough to live on my own, I stopped going. Without even realizing it, I became an agnostic. I do not believe in divine justice, or that someone up in heaven determines what we do, or that things happen for a reason. People forge their own destiny, period. Padres Rafael, William, and Hildebrando were the least godly men I have ever known. The world is a very unfair place. As a journalist, I have seen some horrible things. If God exists, why would He allow this? We must be good people even if we are not assured of a prize in the end. I would love to have faith. It would be a great source of tranquility, particularly in my later years. But I simply do not. I do not know what will happen when I die. Nothing would make me happier than to be again with the ones I love the most. And if, in the end, I am wrong—if God indeed exists and there is a heaven where everyone can be happy for all eternity—well, I hope you will forgive me and still invite me to the party.
* * *
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Recess at that school took place in the jungle. Once you set foot outside the classroom, you had to protect yourself from the bullies, who back then were more of a school-yard mafia who sparked terror in the hearts of the bravest among us. My main concerns were the Peñafiel brothers and El Caballo, the Horse. One day, one of the Peñafiel brothers punched my brother Alejandro during a basketball game, and, terrified, I warned him not to do it again. I was expecting him to beat me up, but apparently he decided to take it easy on me and never did it again. El Caballo was a different sort of bully. He was much bigger than the rest of us at that age, and he laughed when he punched someone in the head or shoved someone out of line so they would get in trouble with the teachers. When facing El Caballo, I had no choice but to align myself with El Perro, the Dog, which is what we called Armando, a tough but loyal friend who protected us from El Caballo’s bullying. Lalo and Mario were my two best friends, and I mistakenly believed that they would be for life, because when you’re a child, you often think that everything is for life. Teachers and pr
iests all but disappeared during recess, so we had no choice but to defend ourselves as best we could. Virtually all the students had their break at the same time, and during a particularly rough patch, the older kids decided to play calzón on the playground. It was a brutal assault—I can’t call it a game—in which a whole group of kids would rip off your underwear without having removed your pants. Of course, the weakest and smallest among us were the usual victims. I was spared, but to this day I still have painful memories of a classmate who never returned to school after suffering such painful and public humiliation. But that’s how I learned to defend myself as a kid.
* * *
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My mom turned out to be a rebel. The first rebel and the first feminist I ever met. The first one I ever loved. And it all started with chocolate. Ever since he was a kid, my dad enjoyed hot chocolate. But not just any hot chocolate: there was one special way that my grandmother Raquel would warm up the milk, add the perfect amount of cocoa, and then whip it just enough to get a little layer of foam rising above the rim of the cup. Before getting married, my mom learned how to make this most blessed of chocolate drinks, and she did so for many years until one day, after yet another embarrassing incident in which my father returned his cup because the foam hadn’t risen to the proper height. After that, my mom decided she was done with making his hot chocolate. The rebellion had begun to brew. I now realize that an incident in Cuernavaca—where my mom suddenly got out of the car and refused to get back in while her husband and five children begged her to reconsider—was just a prelude. The war of independence in the Ramos household, which was indeed a feminist fight, was about to begin. With the money her grandfather had left her when he died, my mom bought a car of her own and shortly thereafter enrolled in college. Yes, it all happened in that order, and all because of my dad’s damn cup of hot chocolate. My mom had a lot to rebel about. She was never allowed to go to high school. Instead, she attended a finishing school to learn how to become a wife and a homemaker. But she was never satisfied with that. Years later, when she saw her five children attending college, she decided she wanted to do the same for herself. She enrolled in some humanities courses at the Universidad Iberoamericana—the same university that my siblings and I all attended—and we often ran into each other in the hallways on campus. “I did what I wanted to do,” she told me recently, her face a mixture of joy and determination. This was one of her great personal triumphs during a life that she dedicated to us, her children. Once, standing in the kitchen door, she started to tell me about happiness. I was just a kid and never had a talk with her like that, but she continued. Happiness is never permanent, she told me. It appears only at certain moments. And when it does, we must take advantage of it. And she knew what she was talking about. Her mother died of cancer the day she turned fifteen. She had been taken out of the room where her mother died, and no one bothered to tell her what had happened. They didn’t even wake her up to attend the funeral. To this very day, my mother the rebel is still marked by moments such as these.