A Southern California native and graduate of the San Diego Culinary Institute, Jose Luis Hinostroza's passion for cooking has taken him all over the world – from Alinea in Chicago to El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, Spain and Maaemo in Oslo, Norway – learning from some of the best Chefs along the way.
Here and now, you arrive to Tulum to be curious, to touch things, to be touched by things. You are standing on calcareous rock, the colours are overwhelming, especially if you come from a low saturated part of the world. You become grounded and present, like a rock you are standing on.
There are rocks that make you heavier, there are rocks that make you lighter. The rocks you swallow here turn into a porous strainer inside your belly and sift things through.
It is a place full of stories and its often hard to understand who is telling the story: the invaded, the invaders, the rebels or others, unnamed yet. Huitlacoche or fungus or corn smut or Mexican truffle - one ingredient and too many names. Yesterday’s Aztec daily food. Today’s delicacy in one geography and pest in another.
Corn as a time travelling ship that evolved from domestication of jungle and through many species and timelines.
There is liquid in your mouth, a juice that came from pressing a rock with your tongue. Rock made from fungus, fungus that grows with corn, corn that all people are made from.
(1) From french amuse-bouche
(2) According to Popol Vuh: the Sacred Text of the Ancient Quiché Maya
