MEXICO MEETS THE U.S. SOUTH
Chef Eddie Hernandez pays homage to his homelands
Eddie Hernandez dreamt of travelling the world as a rock ’n’ roll musician. Long before he made his name as a chef — renowned for his unique approach to meshing Mexican and Southern U.S. cuisines — he was a drummer.
A self-described “born-again Southern boy,” Hernandez left his hometown of Monterrey, Mexico for Texas at age 17. Intent on securing a record deal, he found his way into the kitchen instead.
“It’s a blessing to know how to cook,” says Hernandez. “If you don’t have a college degree and you can cook, you can always fend for yourself and you can always make a living. And you will always eat really well on top of that.”
Now a James Beard-nominated chef and co-owner of Taqueria del Sol — a chain of restaurants with seven locations throughout the Southern U.S. — Hernandez and co-writer Susan Puckett highlight his Mex-American ethos in his first cookbook, Turnip Greens & Tortillas (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018).
Rather than being concerned with “authenticity,” he improvises and adapts dishes as he sees fit — applying Mexican techniques to accessible ingredients — and challenges expectations by presenting familiar foods in unexpected ways.
“I really like what Southern food is all about and how much it resembles Mexican cuisine. We use tons of the same ingredients and spices, but the cooking techniques are different,” Hernandez says.
He prepares his wildly popular turnip greens the same way his family in Mexico would lamb’s quarters (quelites) or other wild greens: stewed in a chicken stock scented with chili de árbol, sautéed onion, garlic and fresh tomato instead of the traditional ham hock.
But in true Southern style, he serves the mess of greens with “potlikker” (the juice left behind after boiling greens) and admits that they’re just as good with corn bread as tortillas. “I enjoy explaining to people … how wonderful the cuisine in Mexico is, but also how wonderful the food in the South is, and how good it is to be able to mash up cuisines and create something different,” he says. “I’m able to create these different ideas of food that people (recognize). But what they don’t expect is the flavours and that’s when I get ’em.”
Recipes excerpted from Turnip Greens & Tortillas by Eddie Hernandez and Susan Puckett, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.