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 Entertainment | Restaurants & Dining | January 2005 
Latino Chefs Share Their Holiday Delicacies
 Hispanic Magazine
Roberto Santibáñez
by María Camacho
 Roberto Santibáñez remembers how, months before the holidays, his grandmother fed the turkey chestnuts, pumpkin seeds, corn, tortillas and milk-drenched oatmeal to improve the bird’s taste. Before the slaughter, she would get the animal drunk with brandy.
Along with turkey, the holiday feast often included tamales, shrimp patties, romeritos (a Mexican herb) and bacalao (salt cod). During posadas (celebrations held before Christmas Day), she served atoles (warm almost porridge-like drinks made thick with masa) or his family would visit other homes on chilly nights to enjoy steaming fruit punches made with guava, apples, brandy and cinnamon. “For me, that was Christmas,” Santibáñez says.
Today, the award-winning chef has had recipes published in Gourmet, Bon Appétit and Martha Stewart Living. Trained at the top culinary institutions in Paris, the Mexico City native is best known for using his classical French culinary education to create subtle, sophisticated and contemporary Mexican dishes.
“Roberto’s food is very authentic Mexican, tempered by an impeccable knowledge of technique,” says Nick Malgieri, director of the baking program at the Institute of Culinary Education. “He takes Mexican cuisine to a whole other level.”
Examples will be featured during the holidays at New York City’s Rosa Mexicano restaurant, where he has worked as the culinary director since May 2002. It includes special tamales and a white mole (sauce) made with almonds, capers and olives.
Santibañez, 41, is also writing a cookbook featuring the restaurant, due out next year. Named “Best Mexican” by New York Magazine, the restaurant was established in 1984 in New York City. It has two locations in New York City, one in Washington, D.C. and there are plans for a fourth in Atlanta.
But it was in his grandmother’s kitchen that Santibáñez first fell in love with food. His grandparents had a fondness for travel and his grandmother brought home foods from all over the world. She even gave informal cooking classes to friends. As a child, Santibañez was often assigned cooking tasks.
While in high school, he catered parties for friends and family serving canapés and other appetizers. After studying in Paris, he spent two years as the executive chef of the Henbury Estate in Cheshire, England. He returned to Mexico when offered a position at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
In 1985, he became the executive chef for El Oliva restaurant. That’s when he rediscovered Mexican cuisine and began melding it with French cuisine. In 1997, he left Mexico to become the executive chef at Fonda San Miguel in Austin, Texas. There he was named “Best Chef” by the Austin Chronicle and received a five-star review from the Austin American-Statesman.
Sandrina Range discovered Santibáñez’s cooking while helping her daughter settle in Austin. They dined at Fonda San Miguel and were delighted with the food’s taste and presentation. Range is such a fan that she drives three hours from her home in Albany to take one of his cooking classes.
“He is not your ordinary chef,” she says. “He’s done a great service to Mexican cuisine in this country.”
Gilberto Cetina
by Katharine A. Díaz
Los Angeles-based chef Gilberto Cetina grew up surrounded by the flavors and aromas of Yucatan. His mother cooked at home for workers in Colonia Yucatan, a town owned by a U.S. timber company in the Tizimin province of the state of Yucatan. As a young boy, Cetina remembers delivering meals to workers who could not go to his family’s home to eat. He also remembers that he and his brother had to clean the tripe for his mother’s mondongo kabic, a Yucatan-style menudo.
Later, when he and his brothers lived in Mérida while attending college, it was his duty to do all the cooking. He graduated with a degree in engineering and worked for several years as a civil engineer.
It wasn’t until he moved to the United States permanently in 1986 that he decided that the kitchen was where he belonged. Although Cetina has taken cooking courses and has worked with other chefs, he is largely self-taught with a skill in French cooking techniques.
While working for others, he catered on the side and dreamed of opening his own restaurant. That opportunity finally arrived in 2001 with the launching of Chichén Itzá, a restaurant that specializes in the cuisine of Yucatan. “People told us we could not be successful serving Yucatan food alone,” recalls Cetina, who refused to feature better known Mexican dishes on his menu. “The interesting thing is that our restaurant has awakened people’s interest in our food.”
Traditional ingredients in Yucatecan dishes are tomatoes, onions, chile dulce (a kind of bell pepper), naranja agria (sour orange), lima agria (sour lime), achiote (annatto), recados (chile pastes), and banana leaves. Wild game is still very popular, too.
Some ingredients are easy to find, others are not. “I get my lima agria from friends who have trees in their yards,” says Cetina. He also has a special supplier for the achiote paste and a special brand of baby Edam cheese that is made only for the Yucatecan market.
Some typical dishes from Yucatan, which Cetina prepares in his casual restaurant, include cochinita pibil (seasoned pork steamed in banana leaves), panuchos (tasty corn meal cakes with toppings), puchero (a hearty soup), various tamales steamed in banana leaves, and txic de venado (a chilled dish of shredded venison).
As expected, special dishes are reserved for the holiday season. Cetina explains that for Christmas, families in Yucatán gather after misa de gallo (midnight Mass) for the traditional meal of pavo asado (an achiote-rubbed, charbroiled turkey that is first boiled); sopa de pasta (a pasta dish sprinkled with baby Edam cheese); a dressed salad of boiled potatoes, carrots, and beets; and queso napolitano (a flan). Sometimes the turkey is served as pavo en escabeche de pueblo. It is prepared the same way as the pavo asado but is served with pickled red onions.
“The next day,” adds Cetina, “everyone eats the leftovers—a noodle soup, using the broth from the boiled turkey, and turkey sandwiches.” Chichén Itzá is located in the Mercado La Paloma at 3655 South Grand Avenue in Los Angeles. For more information, call 213-741-1075.
Michael Cordúa
by Ambar Hernández
In Nicaragua, the Day of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated on December 8, marks the onset of the holiday season, much like Thanksgiving does for Americans. Chef, restaurateur and entrepreneur Michael Cordúa remembers this well.
“This day marks the holiday eating season in Nicaragua,” he says. “The kids eat caramels and other treats all day, and then come the aromas of Christmas.” Cordúa’s father, an American, met and married in Nicaragua so Michael was raised with the best from both worlds. His family, following Nicaraguan tradition, would have a sitdown midnight feast on Christmas Eve. His mother would set up a Nativity scene next to the Christmas tree. After a hearty meal representative of both cultures, with the very American honey-roasted ham, roasted turkey and a Nicaraguan-style stuffing made with bread and raisins soaked in milk.
As much as food was an integral part of Cordúa’s childhood, it was never a planned career path for him. He came to the United States in 1976 to study economics and finance at Texas A&M University. Then what began as a simple pact among friends (Michael would cook, if the roommates would clean) turned into a successful business.
After college, his first job in the maritime shipping business required traveling often, which helped expand his palate, incorporating ideas and ingredients from other countries to the recipes he learned from his mother and grandmother. In 1988, he opened Churrascos in River Oaks, Texas, and since then has opened another Churrascos locale, Américas, two Amazón Grill locations and Artista. All these restaurants celebrate Latin American cuisine by combining the excitement of ingredients, like peppers and cilantro, with disciplined European cooking techniques. The restaurants have all received recognition by some of the top gastronomic magazines in the nation, including Food and Wine and Bon Appétit.
Michael has also won many awards for his culinary abilities and business sense, including being named 2004 “Male Entrepreneur of the Year” by the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
But just because there is an award-winning chef in the Cordúa family does not mean he does all the work. His wife, Lucía, and their four children partake in the preparation as well as the feasting on Christmas Eve. A typical dinner for the family includes mashed potatoes, homemade desserts (Lucía’s specialty), the honey-roasted ham and, of course, the roasted turkey.
“It’s all about sharing. You can’t have a whole turkey by yourself. You have to invite your family and eat it together. It brings people together. That’s what Christmas is about,” Cordúa says.
And he is a pro at sharing, too. He often volunteers and donates to Casa de Esperanza, a nonprofit organization for HIV-positive children under 6. In total, Cordúa has raised more than $2 million for this and other organizations to date. Michael equates family with food. To him, dinnertime is the best time of day when they can sit together, discuss the day and enjoy each other’s company. “Food, for me, for Hispanics all over, is an expression of love and family. “We cook because we want to show love.” |
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