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By Alfredo Espinola
Mexican gastronomy is famous today worldwide, but it wasn’t always well known. Some of its fame is due to the efforts of two men, Yuri de Gortari and Edmundo Escamilla, who founded the School of Mexican Gastronomy, History, Art and Culture (Escuela de Gastronomía Mexicana, historia, arte y cultura -- ESGAMEX) to research, disseminate and teach about traditional Mexican cuisine.
Yuri de Gortari y Edmundo Escamilla
Today, ESGAMEX, located in Mexico City, continues to train chefs and others interested in Mexican cuisine. It offers online and in-person courses, ranging from single-session classes to intensive programs lasting four weeks or more.
Spreading the Cuisine
Gortari, a chef and cookbook author, and Escamilla, a cultural historian, noticed a lack of knowledge about Mexican cuisine in the 1980s. They sought government support to fund their research; their request was rejected as it was not considered a relevant topic at that time. They nevertheless dedicated themselves to investigate Mexican food and spread it throughout the world, and traveled to countries such as Spain, Greece and Czechoslovakia. Their work began to draw attention in Mexico, where people began to seek them out as consultants.
In 2007 the men founded ESGAMEX, based on their interest in transmitting knowledge of Mexican gastronomy and defending its traditions.
Edgar Salgado
“Food is part of a historical process, a cultural process that we have in our veins and not only in our belly,” says Edgar Salgado, general director of the school. Salgado, a television journalist, met Gortari when the latter was filming his famous cooking shows, including “En la cocina tradicional mexicana.” Gortari invited him to participate in the ESGAMEX project.
ESGAMEX was created to train cooks to be ambassadors and disseminate Mexican food. At the beginning, it only received culinary students and/or cooks, but later began teaching journalists and others interested in Mexican food.
In 2010, UNESCO named Mexican food an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which made the world want to know more about Mexican gastronomy. As of 2014, 70 percent of the students in ESGAMEX's specialization programs are foreigners.
ESGAMEX opened an online option during the pandemic. Almost all of the online students come from other countries, such as the United States, Spain, Singapore, Arab Emirates, China, Japan and the European countries.
Four Modules
The most intensive program at ESGAMEX is the Mexican Gastronomy Diploma. Its education is 80 percent practical and 20 percent theoretical, and is divided into the following modules:
I. History of Mexican cuisine, from its pre-Hispanic origins based on corn, beans, chili, squash, cactus and maguey.
II. Viceroyal cuisine, 300 years after the arrival of the Spaniards, including new ingredients, techniques, materials and utensils.
III. The 19th century, when independent Mexico incorporated French, English, Oriental and Arab influences, giving the cuisine a very national personality. Moles and the consumption of pulque emerge during this century.
IV. 20th and 21st century, including emblematic regional dishes, exploiting the food from Oaxaca, Puebla, Veracruz, Michoacan, among others.
Shorter Programs
ESGAMEX also offers less intensive courses and workshops that can last from one session of 4 hours to workshops of 7 or 8 sessions. Topics include healthy food from the perspective of Mexican cuisine, as well as specialties on specific cuisines, such as Oaxacan tamales or Yucatecan cuisine.
And the school has another academic program that is totally theoretical, on the history and evolution of Mexican cuisine. Its students are historians, anthropologists and journalists dedicated to disseminating the culture of gastronomy in Mexico.
“Mexican cuisine is the regional identity of the country, because each state is a cuisine in itself, but it is also the sum of our family customs and festive customs to feed us,” Salgado says.
Escamilla passed away in 2018, and Gortari died two years later. But their legacy continues through the thousands of students who have spread Mexico’s cusine around the world.
To learn more about ESGAMEX, click here.
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