It’s not every day that a meal is as delicious as it is revelatory. Yet Fogones Mx, located in Mexico City’s Roma Norte, manages to serve this kind of experience every weekend. Sprung from the Centro Nacional de Investigación y Difusión de la Cocina Tradicional Mexicana (CENAIN) project (the National Center for the Research and Dissemination of Traditional Mexican Cuisine), Fogones is the result of a partnership between Sulema Vega and Luis Alberto Llanos, whose passion for traditional Mexican cooking inspired them to travel across the country’s 32 states in search for those flavors, recipes, techniques, and traditions that make up the foundations of Mexico’s rich and complex culinary landscape.
“The original idea for CENAIN was born in Cabo San Lucas as a festival with 32 traditional cooks,” says Sulema. After a few bumps in the road, Luis Alberto, who remained at the head of the project, decided to embark on an epic trip across the country, and Sulema joined as a partner along the way. The journey began in 2019 and continued until September 2020, right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was not without its challenges. “The greatest one was to find traditional cooks in some states that lack culinary promotion,” recalls Sulema. “You ask locals and they say ‘Oh, there’s no traditional cuisine here.’” Finding resources presented difficulties as well, as the team had to fund the trip and its resulting book themselves.
“We completed the tour and published the book Sabores de México, which showcases a small piece of each state,” recalls Sulema. Shortly after, the duo came up with the idea for Fogones MX, where each weekend, they welcome traditional cooks from all over the country. “Each culinary experience consists of seven courses served by a guest traditional cook and three courses by our home cooks,” says Sulema. The tasting menu includes water and atole, a traditional masa-based drink, and is priced at 490 pesos. Other drinks, like wine and beer, are available at an additional cost.
On the first weekend that we visited, the spotlight was on Chiapas, with cooks Luz Elva García and Lucero Aguilar at the helm. While we’ve been lucky enough to visit this southern state, we’re thrilled to take a deeper dive into its cuisine right here in the city, straight from the hands (and hearts) of two women who have devoted their careers to sharing Chiapas’s unique cuisine.
The feast starts with a saffron tamal, a festive dish which, according to the night’s guest chefs, was originally created for a local bishop using sacramental wine – luckily, the current iteration calls for red wine. Packed with chicken and pork, and topped with capers, almonds, and peppers, it’s a true surprise – not to mention Sulema’s personal favorite. “I can’t talk about one favorite dish I’ve eaten throughout our trips, but I can talk about tamales,” she says, adding that she’s eaten countless tamales over the past years: steamed, grilled, boiled, and fried, with all sorts of fillings and sauces. “The saffron tamal I tried in Chiapas is amazing. It’s truly an explosion of flavors.”
Next comes a cream of roasted pepper, a house specialty so delightful that we named it one of our Best Bites of 2024. Made with tomato, garlic, and a touch of sour cream, it’s comforting and lightly smoky – so good it makes us wish the bowl was larger, but we know we’re only getting started here. After a Chiapas chimiljuah – a pumpkin tortilla stuffed with black beans – comes another tamal, this one courtesy of the Fogones team. Made with nixtamalized corn, it’s stuffed with rich mushrooms and wrapped in chard, meaning “you can eat the wrapping,” says Lucero. We obediently comply, leaving no trace behind.
Each dish is served with a visit from Lucero or Luz Elva, who are eager to share the knowledge they’ve accumulated over the years and continue to search for every day. That’s how we learn that sopa de fiesta (or “party soup”), a surprisingly sweet noodle soup prepared with raisins, plantains, and egg, honors its name by being served as an appetizer at community celebrations, or that olla podrida (“rotten pot”), a red bean-based stew with chorizo, longaniza, and pig’s trotters, was born from necessity more than culinary inspiration – a “cook with what’s available” kind of dish. Luz Elva also shares that the state’s Asian population is to thank for some of its gastronomic influences, resulting in dishes like rice with shrimp and chipilín, a meatless classic usually served on the Fridays before Holy Week, and coastal chicken, a flavorful creation with sweet-and-sour notes.
As our meal comes to a close, we’re already planning to return – our curiosity piqued, we’re dying to try more dishes from around the country. The next dinner we had the pleasure of attending was hosted by guest chef Benedicta Alejo from Michoacan. This master of traditional cooking hails from the Purépecha Indigenous community in San Lorenzo. She has become something of an ambassador for Michoacan’s cuisine, traveling around the world to cook – she was even invited to Rome to cook for Pope Benedict XVI, for whom she prepared corundas – yet another type of tamal.
We got to try a corunda as part of Benedicta’s menu at Fogones MX, impressed by its distinctive shape – as it’s shaped and filled, the tamal ends up as a sort of edible polyhedron. The night’s dishes also included a traditional pipian, a red sauce similar to mole with a base of pumpkin seeds, and atápakua, a nutritious green stew of Purépecha origin.
As for Sulema and her team, they’re ready to continue their mission – both at the Roma and Coyoacán locations – to promote the culinary traditions from all over the country, be it from food meccas like Michoacán and Oaxaca to yet-to-be-discovered corners of Mexico. “I dare say that there are unexplored regions all across Mexico, but generally speaking, some states that have less awareness are Tamaulipas, Nuevo León, Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, Sonora, Nayarit, and Colima,” says Sulema. We hope to be back soon to try all of the dishes that these places have to offer.
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