One of Rick Bayless’ first stops upon his arrival on Oahu was Papahana Kuaola, home to Hawaiian cultural and educational programs focused on environmental restoration and a sustainable future.
What Hawaiian cultural practitioners at the institution didn’t know was that the Oklahoma-born chef was about to teach them a thing or two he’d learned from years of trekking through Mexico, experience that fully prepared him for the tasks of poi-pounding and imu-cooking.
He compared poi-pounding to the use of mortar and pestle in Mexico, being told, “Hey, you’re pretty good at this,” after besting his instructor at the task of finishing his poi to the perfect consistency.
“It was one of the best experiences I’d ever had. I didn’t know where I was going when I arrived here. I was afraid that I was just going to be in hotel and school kitchens that are the same all around the world,” said the chef, known for his extensive culinary explorations of the cities and villages of Mexico.
For his championing of sustainable agriculture and culinary education since introducing traditional Mexican cuisine to a Tex Mex-eating America in the 1980s, the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival honored Bayless at its second Culinary Heroes dinner Thursday. The event, at Kapiolani Community College’s Ka ‘Ikena Laua‘e restaurant, matched Bayless with Hawaii chefs George Mavrothalassitis, Alan Wong and Roy Yamaguchi in preparing a five-course menu with wine pairings.
The dinner included Bayless’ renowned Oaxacan mole negro, a chocolate sauce comprising 30 ingredients that takes three days to make. The process took him a decade to master before he felt confident enough to put it on one of his menus. It runs from crushing spices to frying and roasting ingredients to intensify their flavors until they achieve an alchemy in which no one item stands out.
“If someone tells you, ‘I love the cinnamon in this,’ that’s not a good thing,” Bayless said. “There’s so much subtlety in such a bold sauce.”
A second event Friday at the Kahala Hotel & Resort featured Bayless and nine other chefs.
For that event he basted a pig with a classic achiote sauce, to be roasted. Describing the dish brought to mind the imu at Papahana Kuaola, and another link to Mexican cuisine. Bayless compared the round imu pit to those used to roast agave for mezcal. Smaller rectangular pits are used to roast animals smaller than the pig he prepared here, he said.
With his sincere, low-key Midwestern style and an enthusiasm that comes from living his dream, Bayless has made the art of traditional Mexican cookery accessible to mainstream America for four decades. He takes all that he has learned through years of travels through diverse regions of Mexico and distills that knowledge into cookbooks and television shows.
His YouTube channel includes Taco Tuesday lessons, using methods home cooks can replicate, such as remaking Oaxacan lamb barbacoa, traditionally cooked in a pit, for the charcoal grill.
His Chicago restaurants include two that have won James Beard Award Foundation awards — Frontera Grill, founded in 1987, and Toplobampo, opened in 1991.
Bayless understood early the importance of preserving food traditions. He hails from a family of barbecue restauranteurs in Oklahoma, and said he saw how important his family’s role was in maintaining a regional culinary history and tradition.
That understanding of traditional foodways was transferred to Mexican cuisine as soon as Bayless set foot across our nation’s southern border as a 14-year-old in 1967.
“I wasn’t on the ground for an hour when I felt I had somehow come home,” he said. He moved to Mexico in 1980 with his wife, traveling from region to region and writing his first book, “Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico.”
At the time, the idea of Mexican food was misunderstood even in Mexico, by a population that associated the old ways with “poor people or their grandmothers,” he said.
In 1986 he returned to the United States “to bring my passion for that cuisine to a place that didn’t understand much about the flavors of our next-door neighbor.”
He said that French cuisine and cooking techniques were celebrated and became the default language of kitchens around the world “because the French codified all that stuff. What it means is that we can use the same vocabulary and have a conversation quickly, but it shouldn’t stay there.”
He had a vision of winning diners over “One Plate at a Time,” which became the title of his public TV series, now in its 12th season. He said it was odd that food aficionados he spoke to in this country are better versed on the regional cuisines of China and Japan than Mexico, our closest neighbor.
Through the years he has championed farming in urban Chicago, establishing the Frontera Farmer Foundation in 2003 to support small Midwestern farms with grants to encourage greater production and profitability. He has some farmers growing chilies that can generally be found only in distinct regions of Mexico, for use in his restaurants.
The government of Mexico has also noted his efforts, bestowing on Bayless the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest recogntion that can be given a foreigner and is typically reserved for heads of state.
He said he is heartened by changes he’s seen in Mexico in recent years, as old methods of cooking are being reclaimed by a younger generation of artisan food producers, on par with the artisanal movement in this country.
“There’s so much going on with younger chefs who are going back to the old methods, but reimagining the way we think about Mexican food.”
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Tickets on sale
Last week’s events with Rick Bayless marked the official launch of the Hawai‘i Food & Wine Festival’s ninth annual fall showcase.
Tickets are on sale for the 17 events on Oahu, Maui and Hawaii Island Oct. 5 to 27.
On Oahu, events begin with “Brews & BBQ,” 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Oct. 23 at Ward Village, which is on the low end of general admission ticket prices at $85. The event will feature island meats cooked by eight chefs.
Tickets are $250 to $275 for such signature events as “Crazy Rich Cocktails” at the Alohilani Resort, 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 24; “Swirl,” 6 to 9 p.m. Oct. 25 at the Hawaii Convention Center; and “Life’s a Beach,” 6 to 9:30 p.m. Oct. 26 at Ko Olina Resort.
The festival’s capstone event is the $1,000-per-seat Culinary Masters Gala, which this year will feature chefs who have worked in Michelin-star restaurants, among them Jessica Carreira of Adega, Calif., and La Mer’s Alexandre Trancher.
To purchase tickets and view the full list of events and participating chefs, visit HFWF.me.
