Enrique Olvarez’s episode of Chef’s Table was one of the most interesting episodes I have watched from the series. Though I had heard of mole before, I had never seen it or understood what it was. The complete blackness of the mole was shocking to me, because it is not something that I normally see in the foods that I eat. I was intrigued by the food critic saying that Mexican food is generally regarded as cheap, mainly street food – I hadn’t thought of this before, but I have never been to an upscale Mexican restaurant, neither have I heard of one before Pujol.

The diversity of Mexican food was striking to me, especially the mention of chicatana ants being used in cooking and only being available in the Oaxacan coast for less than a week per year. However, this should not have been so shocking, as I knew that the food was UNESCO-designated. This is a fundamental antithesis to the type of Western food system that provides low-quality ingredients all year round. The respect and passion that Olvarez has for all the ingredients he works with show how important they are to Mexican, Mesoamerican culture. This tied into the podcast lecture, that was very informative in terms of cultural habits and the reasons why corn is so sacred to the Mesoamerican peoples. The mention of milpa (sustainable Indigenous corn agriculture) in Chef’s Table was probably one of the most important parts of the show, because it shows that there is hope in conserving traditional practices in Mexico, whilst modernizing them.