Thomasina Miers is no Diana Kennedy
My nice niece came from Mexico an hour ago bringing sackfuls of goodies with her, most of which are not available here. This is why Mexican cooking will not take off in the UK. Every day I eat a variant on Mexican food at home because we have, squirreled away, dried chiles, achiote, cans of this, bottles of that. But the most basic ingredient of Mexican food is the tortilla and you can't buy them here in retail outlets.
In Thomasina's kitschy Mexican kitchen they use this staple of Mexican cooking, the tortilla, in odd little rounds - such as I have never seen the like of in Mexico. And yes I know what a 'sope' is Thomasina. The mole in her snack bar comes from a bottle, it's not made in-house, and on top of the mini tortilla, with bottled mole, is a little dribble of sweet cream - not even sour Mexican cream. There shouldn't even be cream on Mole!I've written about Mole for the Guardian blog.
Now this is an interpretation of Mexican cuisine - quite a creative one, but not the real McCoy, not by a long shot. This is boef bourguignon made with pork and cider. This is nonsense. And I know boef bourguignon, my grandmother made the best boef bouguignon in the world.
Thomasina Miers is no Diana Kennedy. Diana Kennedy, British by birth, is one of Mexico's greatest food heroes and she is unknown in this country except by the cognoscenti like Paul Levy and Prince Charles. Diana Kennedy has written tome upon tome on the regional cooking of Mexico. She respects it and treasures Mexican food, she doesn't just exploit it. Diana Kennedy is an authentic Elizabeth David for our times, but sadly, unlike Elizabeth David, she is a prophet without honour in her own land.
Instead we have the likable Thomasina - TV is full of likables - and the ersatz Mexican fusion continues. Of course it's no fault of Thomasina's. There simply aren't the ingredients here. Nope. Not here. Not even in shops selling Caribean vegetables. And yes Thomasina I know you can buy Chayote here, but can you buy chaya? Have you even heard of chaya, a staple of the Yucatan?
Mexico is the fourth most biologically diverse country in the world and its civilisations produced the crops that feed much of the world: corn, beans, squash, chocolate, vanilla, avocado, tomato, chili and on and on. But this means that if you go to a Mexican market for month after month you will notice ingredients that simply aren't available here and probably never will unless there is a massive wave of Mexican immigration to the UK.
Of course Mexican food in LA and Chicago and New York is almost as good - almost - as it is in Mexico City Guadalajara or Monterrey. Guess why.
So. I'll give you an example. It illustrates my point perfectly. Now I do love Allegra McEvedy, but like Thomasina she sometimes pulls the wool over our eyes. Read this recipe by Allegra.
Sopa de Lima (Allegra's version)
‘I'm just back from a trip around Mexico, and this simple standard from the Yucatan made me very happy at lunchtime with an ice-cold Corona. A super-fresh broth finished with lime and crunchy fried tortillas. Takes two hours to prepare, but with minimal action on your part. You can make this way ahead of time as it just keeps getting better - but don't add the lime juice and tortillas till you're just about to eat. Taste, and feel the sunshine. [says Allegra]
For the broth:
1 free-range chicken minus the legs (ask the butcher to take the breasts off so you have them separately)
Half a tsp ground allspice or 6 whole allspice
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 stick cinnamon
5 cloves
2 heads garlic, halved horizontally
1 tbsp sunflower oil, or something equally light
2 onions, peeled and quartered
Quarter tsp ground cumin, or 10 seeds
To make the soup:
The chicken breasts
2 limes
3 vine-ripened tomatoes
1 chili - Habanero if you dare, otherwise regular red, chopped (plus an extra chili if you like it hot)
1 tbsp sunflower oil (about 100ml more if you're frying your own tortillas)
Handful of coriander
4 small, round corn tortillas, ideally raw, but bagged and cooked tortillas would do: just break the triangles in half
Salt
OK let's gloss over the rest of the ingredients. An odd and inauthentic assemblage. Instead, let's focus on the culinary crime. The technical word for it is fraud.
My response to her article was to say that the whole point of Sopa de Lima, Allegra, is that it uses lima. Where's the lima Allegra? To which she responded rather curtly, I think, saying of course she knew that it used lima and not lime but that she was adapting the recipe for use in the UK.
In fact I am not sure if she did know the difference between lima and lime. Perhaps she did. She's a cook after all. But the whole point of the soup is that it tastes like perfume. Like Eau de Cologne, in fact. Without that taste you don't have sopa de lima and yet here Allegra touted her recipe unapologetically as authentic Sopa de Lima. Perhaps she was confused by the slice of lime sometimes added to the soup as an after thought. The comment trail on her blog seems to have evaporated.
Now perhaps I labour a point. But I don't think I do. We just can't buy lima here, or tortillas, or green tomatoes, or the right dried chillies or achiote or chipotle, in meaningful quantities, the list goes on. But even if we could the ingredients would have to be bottled or vacuum packed. I know. I have a real Mexican wife who cooks like a dream and tries to make Mexican food for us. Even she has problems doing this here so, of course, there is no hope for a dilettante like Miers.
So what is the point of Thomasina's programme? is it food porn? Is it just designed to get us to go along and eat the ersatz, but tasty food at her restaurant? Is it designed to make us want to go and visit Mexico? Who knows.Her cooking is certainly not authentic. It's good TV perhaps. Jaimie Oliver stylie, Nigella stylie.
Stylie stylie stylie.