Austin-born James Beard Awardee Chef Rick Martinez “didn’t grow up in México. But I felt it in the smell of stewed pork and chiles, in the tamales we made every Christmas, in the pride in my grandfather’s handwriting and the mariachi songs he’d sing when he drank.”
To better understand his México roots, Rick drove more than 30,000 miles across all 32 states of México visiting tianguis and mercados and discovered he “fell in love with the land, the ingredients, the generosity of the people, the poetry of a culture that has survived and thrived through centuries of change. I fell in love with a place that told me, ‘Tu corazón es Méxicano’ (‘Your heart is Mexican’).”