In a Colombian seaside town, a world-renowned chef is adding poetry to a schmear.
Leonor Espinosa has just been named the best female chef of 2022 by World’s 50 Best, an influential ranking group owned by a British media giant. It’s just taste, and soon I’ll know why.
I went to Rincón del Mar, a three-hour drive southwest of Cartagena, to meet Ms. Espinosa on her home turf. True, Ms. Espinosa now lives in Bogotá, where her restaurant Leo has won accolades. But her roots go back to the country’s Caribbean region, where she spent most of her childhood.
Now, she regularly returns to the lab to lead workshops: sponsored by her foundation, FUNLEO, these workshops bring together chefs from often forgotten and under-resourced communities to prepare local dishes while sorting and preserving as many traditional ingredients, recipes and techniques as possible.
I wasn’t there to participate (the workshops are open to invited community chefs only), but to ask Ms. Espinosa for some direction. Since her widely reported ascension to the culinary throne, I realized how little I knew about where she came from: a part of the Caribbean far off the beaten track in the Cartagena-Balanquilla corridor. So I contacted the foundation, and after speaking with its director, I hatched a plan: meet the chef during a workshop in the region, get her perspective on the region, and then spend a few days exploring and tasting with them.
Respecting the octopus
As the aroma of grilled food and Ms. Espinosa’s distinctive piercing voice wafted in from the beach, I knew I had arrived in time for her workshop at Hostal Arrecife in Rincón del Mar.
“Notice how intact the octopus looks,” she said in Spanish to several bystanders on a shady stretch of beach that has become her beachfront demonstration kitchen. I recognized her voice from the video clip, though I had never met her in person. A few moments later, I was right next to her and the octopus. “If you take the tentacle off,” she continued, “you’re slaughtering it.”
Considering the animal was apparently dead, I wondered what I had missed, but the mystery didn’t last long. Bowing to the octopus in deep respect for the ingredients, she said, “We must honor them. We can’t slaughter them by depriving them of their flavor.” Her enthusiasm bordered on the religious.
So it was no surprise to me, during our first one-on-one conversation, when the group took a break, to hear Ms. Espinosa recall the flavors of her youth with the kind of reverence and rhythm usually reserved for mantras. ” Ají dulce …… yuca …… name,” she chanted, conjuring up images of chili, cassava and yam. Dressed in a cream suit, she projects an almost convent-like image against the lime-green hammock that surrounds her.
I happened to have just tasted some local yucca in a coconut cheesecake – a savory-sweet revelation. However, as Ms. Espinosa went on to tell me about her favorite local foods, few others sounded familiar, and most sounded amazing – none more so than ajonjolí. the name alone struck me, but so did the idea of toasted sesame seeds in the zone that ” says Ms. Espinoza.
