“I lead a simple life. I get up very early to make breakfast for my children, I prepare them and take them to school, I run out to take care of my pigs, I wash the nixtamal; I return home and cook what we are going to have for lunch, I leave the food in the boiler, I go to the mill; when I return, if everything is not yet cooked, I start to do my embroidery or carve little wooden monkeys with my husband, if he has already returned from the fields or from taking care of his bees”, this is how a day passes in the home of Rosalia’s Vegetarian Wishon Yaxunah, a small Mayan town in Yucatan where everyone wants to go to visit the traditional Yucatecan cook who, after having participated in a chapter of chef’s tableIt has become a celebrity and a benchmark that reminds us that ancestral gastronomic knowledge still flourishes, evolves and is shared from the most peculiar communities in our country.
/ Mayakoba Rosewood.
in the kitchen of rosalia there are no secrets, but there are memories, traditions, respect and praise for what was and what today struggles not to get lost in the abyss of technology and the lack of opportunities.
With a frank smile and dressed in a beautiful huipil, Rosalía sporadically leaves Yahunah to share what he knows, yes, never without his ka’, the Yucatecan limestone metate that is essential for seasoning the region with errands. “I feel that many Mayan traditions have been lost lately, fewer and fewer people believe in Hanal Pixán, the patron saint of the town, San Isidro Labrador, is no longer celebrated so much every May 15, nor is the Ka’ used so much. I rarely leave my town, I have not gone beyond Tabasco and, although I have seen the sea from afar, I have never been in it. Now I go to many places for the program of NetflixI like that people want to learn about my cuisine, that they are interested in it”, he comments Rosalía from the La Ceiba restaurant, inside the Rosewood Mayakoba hotel, where he arrived at the invitation of the director of culinary operations, chef Juan Pablo Loza, to offer a joint dinner and a master class on Yucatecan errands; all under the program I love Mexico whose purpose is to exalt Mexican talent and, in the specific case of Rosalía, rescue pre-Hispanic techniques and show the richness of the peninsula of Yucatan.
Photo: Bernardo Flores
/ Mayakoba Rosewood
Finding Rosalía is not an easy task, she has been jealously approaching technology, but only in 2020 did she get a cell phone, “my secret to doing so many things in the day is that I don’t have a phone, well, now I have, but In my town there is no signal, so it’s as if I didn’t have one. When I go to communicate with someone, especially chef Alejandra Kauachi -who through Mexico Lindo has supported her in organizing gastronomic experiences at her home-, I run to the archaeological zone that is about 1km away and I get on to the top of the pyramid and there I quickly make calls, we organize ourselves to receive the people who will come to Yaxuhah and that’s it”.
/ Mayakoba Rosewood
THE ENCOUNTER
Of course there was a before and after in Rosalía’s life after Netflixbut it all started with a friendship that was forged between her and the chef Roberto Solis in a market, “I met Roberto many years ago, one day when he was buying peccary meat for his restaurant, we talked, I invited him to eat at my house and he fell in love with my little pig. Little by little, I was taking more and more chefs like Ricardo Munoz Zuritauntil Rene Redzepi came to my house. It was funny because he came and went for my little pig, until one day he invited me to collaborate in his restaurant in Tulum, and I said yes, but that I was not going to cook in a hurry and in large quantities, because I only cook for my family and with my heart, in fact, before the program I only cooked for them”.
/ Mayakoba Rosewood
Months later, René was the one who nominated her with Cheff table and they went looking for her, “it was very difficult to find me because chef Redzepi only gave them my name and the name of the town. When they arrived I thought it would be like when chefs come; They come and go. I thought it would be the same, but a lot of people came, there were 12! And there my life changed. I had a lot of work, at first due to the pandemic the road was closed, but as soon as it opened, people began to arrive from all over the world. I did not cook for other people, only for my family, but I was very happy to receive them in my house. Now I receive tourists every Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.”
THE FUTURE
Although she has become very popular, Rosalía does not want to leave Yaxunah, “I am from here and from nowhere else. Everything I know I learned from my mother Lidia and my grandmother Libia, they taught me how to use the ka’, to prepare the tamales, the errand, the black stuffing, which is what I like to do the most, I like people to come and not lose tradition, I don’t need more with my people I have enough”.
/ Mayakoba Rosewood
MORE FROM ROSALIA
- ORIGIN. His town is Yaxunah, in Yucatan.
- FAME. He became popular for appearing on Netflix’s Chef’s Table.
- PRIDE. He lives a simple life and teaches cooking classes to tourists.
- MESSAGES. For her, they are the basis of Yucatecan cuisine.
- FUTURE. Stay close to your family and cook for love.