Oaxacan foods.
Hugo Saynes grew up in a large family in Mexico. They didn’t have much money, but they had plenty of fresh produce, and his mother’s creative cooking meant they always ate well.
Sharing those traditional tastes with Milwaukee, Saynes and his wife, Janet, run Jalapeño Loco, 5067 S. Howell Ave. The couple met and married in New York, then moved to Janet’s hometown in 1991 to raise their family.
In 1995, they opened their restaurant on Packard Ave., and Saynes’ mother stayed with them for months teaching them recipes and techniques.
They also regularly traveled to Mexico to bring back new ideas. In 2000, they moved to the current location across from Mitchell International Airport, where they serve lunch and dinner seven days a week.
If he could introduce you to one dish from his native Oaxaca, Saynes would choose mole. There’s always at least one variation on his menu.
How he started
I come from a family of 10 brothers and sisters, my mom and dad. When I was 13, my mom went to work to get some extra cash for the family. My dad was a schoolteacher. My mom had to do some work like laundry by hand for the neighbors. I had to help my mom in the kitchen.
The first dish I cooked was chicken and rice, arroz con pollo. My mom used to keep chickens on the patio, and we’d feed them corn. That was (my) first approach to the kitchen and cooking.
Professionally, I moved to New York in 1984. The plan I had was just for five or six months to learn the language and know the country and culture. Thirtywere three years later, here I am in Milwaukee.
First date food
Janet and I met in a restaurant in New York. She was a waitress and I was a bus boy or starting to be a waiter. The first date we had, I said “I’ll cook for you.” I love Italian cuisine, French cuisine. I said I’ll cook pasta, no Mexican. It was going to be pasta Alfredo.
I didn’t have heavy cream, no halfand-half. The only thing I had was milk. When I finished the sauce with milk instead of cream, it looked like a soup. In the end, we ate in a Chinese restaurant.
Mole a must
Mole is absolutely part of the Mexican tradition, especially in Oaxaca, where we’re known for seven types of moles.
One mole I really like a lot, not wellknown outside Mexico, is chichilo. We able to find the peppers, chilhuacle peppers, which are essential. It comes in colors of black, yellow and red. Unfortunately, this chilhuacle is harvested in mountain regions of Oaxaca and in the last 10 years, we’ve had difficulties getting this pepper. It has been scarce.
Always on the menu
Mole. When I started in 1995, we had seven moles on the menu. It was hard, but my favorite dried pepper, the chilhuacle pepper is such a unique pepper. At that point, it was not difficult to find.
Now, we still have the moles, but as specials. We make all our moles from scratch. We don’t buy pastes. Most everything we do is from scratch.
In the kitchen
Janet has been more in charge in the last 20 years, of course. When we moved to Howell Ave., I moved more to the front and the bar. I love people. I love all of it. Being in the restaurant industry, you have to love it. You have to spend a lot of time there.
For us, it’s our social life, too. We have met so many wonderful people in the last quarter century — now we travel with some of these people to Mexico.
Taste of tradition
When I travel, I love to go to the places where you see the ladies cooking in the clay pots making stews. I love to see that. That’s what I grew up with and what I started cooking. I love that tradition.
Meals from mom
Whenever she came to Milwaukee, she’d make roasted corn mole soup with pork. I always loved that.
Best breakfast
We were very poor, one room for all of us, but outside we had fruit trees, avocados, everything. It was like paradise for us.
I used to walk 45 minutes to go to school. My mom would make corn tortillas and I’d grab an avocado from the tree, a lime from the lime tree and onions from the plant in the home. Peppers grew wild on the patio. We’d make a beautiful fresh guacamole right there, then grab some oranges from the trees for orange juice.
That’s what I’d eat before school every morning. We didn’t have money, but we had all these ingredients.
Food, family, focus
We cook daily at home, too. I sit down, have a shot of tequila, that’s for sure, and I cook something just for us. It keeps the momentum going, and I always think about what I could have done better today and what can I bring tomorrow.
Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email nstohs@journalsentinel.com.