Pati Jinich was a political analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, D.C., before she became a Emmy-nominated chef and cookbook author. So her primetime PBS culinary docuseries "La Frontera with Pati Jinich," which uses food to showcase stories of the "fronterizos" who live on the U.S.-Mexico border, seems a natural progression.
Yet it was what the Mexico City native didn't know about her homeland that actually inspired the TV series, which was to premiere its second season April 3.
The official chef of the Mexican Cultural Institute since 2007, Jinich has always been intrigued by the history and politics of the Mexican people. Still, it was only after several years of doing her PBS show, "Pati's Mexican Table," and writing three cookbooks that she recognized how much more she still had to learn about the country she grew up in.
Each season of "Pati's Mexican Table," which premiered in 2011 and airs locally on WQED, features food from a different region of Mexico, with new ingredients, techniques and dishes that shine a light on traditional home cooking. The goal: to dispel some Americans' notion that tacos, burritos and spicy salsas are the only foods served south of the border.
"I wanted to share the Mexico I love and am so nostalgic about and people don't know about," Jinich says by phone from her home in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Yet the more she traveled for work, and visited places she'd never seen, "I realized how little we know of the richness and diversity of this country."
It was during a 2016 book tour in San Antonio that the seeds for "La Frontera" were sown.
Book store employees took Jinich to the northern banks of the Rio Grande, the river dividing Texas from Mexico, to meet some of the tight-knit families who live and work in the busy port town of Laredo. (Some $800 million worth of goods pass through the city every day.)
"I felt this crazy energy I had never felt before and can't describe," she says. "You feel all that happened there — the good and bad, and see people on both sides."
A little while later, she found herself again on the Mexican border following a speaking engagement in Tucson, Arizona. She was struck by how "obsessed" U.S. and Mexican citizens who live on the border are with living binational lives.
"They try to leave, and then come back because it's such a special place."
The usual narrative is that they have to choose one or the other — Mexican or American. There's even a saying for it: No ser ni de aquí ni de allá, which translates to "be neither from here nor there." Consequently, borderlanders often have more in common with one another than with citizens of their native countries
Jinich, who moved to the U.S. with her husband, Daniel, in 1997, knows exactly how that feels; as the years have gone by, she's become more of two things than one — three, if you also count her Jewish heritage.
"My roots to Mexico have nothing by deep ends," she says, "But I have also grown such deep roots in this country. My kids were born here and their eyes water when they hear the [American] anthem. ... I can feel the change in the different generations."
When people think about the Mexican border, very often it's about political issues like undocumented migration, drugs or the recent kidnap and murder of American tourists on the Mexican border city of Matamoros. But it's also a magnet for people looking for opportunities.
"There is serious business happening at the border," Jinich says, with everything from wine, produce and meat crossing over. And it's not just Mexicans and Americans putting their unique stamp on commerce. It's an international community with Asians, Syrians, Ukrainians and even high German-speaking Mennonites from Canada.
Being on the border, she says, and seeing Americans who were fluent in both the Spanish language and Mexican foodways and culture, "the bug bit me, and I wanted to do something about it."
That "something" was pitching PBS on a culinary docuseries that would explore the fascinating and often misunderstood towns dotting the 1,951-mile border — and the resourcefulness, collaboration, resiliency and creativity that make them special.
'Fascinating stories'
It took a few years, but eventually Jinich and her team were able to put together a proposal and budget. In October 2021, season one of "La Frontera with Pati Jinich" premiered in two parts. Through stories from both sides of the Texas-Mexico border from El Paso and Juarez to Big Bend National Park, she introduced viewers to the history and traditions behind dishes such as rolled tacos and menudo, a traditional Mexican soup with beef stomach and a red chili pepper base.
In season two, Jinich dips her toes a little deeper — and with less fear — in stories from the western border straddling the Mexican regions of Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua and California, Arizona and New Mexico. Told with her trademark warmth and enthusiasm, the episodes were filmed over about five weeks just before Thanksgiving.
In episode 1 on the Golden Coast, the chef explores Mexico's thriving Ruta del Vino with French-trained winemaker Hugo D'Acosta, who is aging wine under water in a mussels farm off the coast of Ensenada; travels to a restaurant in Tijuana where Caesar salad was invented in the 1920s; gets in a ring with world champion boxer Jackie Nava; and explores La Chinesca, the country's largest underground Chinatown.
Episode 2 finds her in the Sonoran Desert, where a group of Samaritans leave water and other supplies for immigrants crossing the border, and meets with members of the Tohono O'odham Nation that has grown the fiery, pea-sized chiltepin pepper for thousands of years. She also visits Los Algodones in Baja California, where thousands of Americans go each year for dental work.
In the final episode, Jinich hikes across the border to the Sky Islands, talks with a chile farmer in Hatch, New Mexico, visits a school whose Mexican students are bused in each day, and stops by a remote Mennonite community to see how they make their famous Chihuahua cheese.
"They're all fascinating stories," she says. "These are people thriving at the border and go there to take advantage of the opportunities."
Since "La Frontera" is a culinary docuseries, each story ends with Jinich tasting something authentic to the locale — a green chile burger in Hatch, pierogi-like boiled empanadas on a Mennonite farm, puffy rounds of bread baked in a domed horno at a shelter for migrants seeking asylum in Nogales, fried tofu stuffed with shrimp in Chinatown.
Did she worry she'd alienate a fan base accustomed to simply watching her cook? A little.
"But as my kids get older and we get older, I feel like I want to do things that are much more substantial," she says. "I love everything I've done before but I've gotten bolder."
Using her TV platform to showcase people who often aren't heard has allowed her to come full circle, she says. It's also why she loves PBS.
"They are for changing the narrative and sparking dialogue, and creating cracks so you can see other realities."
"La Frontera with Pati Jinich" airs at 9 p.m. Eastern Mondays, April 3-17, on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS app.
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TACOS BRAVOS DE TONO
(Shrimp and Cheese Tacos)
PG tested
"Tacos bravos is very much in the Sonoran tradition of super-dressed, super-sauced and super-cheesy shellfish dishes," writes Pati Jinich in her third cookbook, "Treasures of the Mexican Table."
Toño Contreras, the owner of Mariscos El Rey in Hermosillo, began his career selling seafood on the beach, then opened a little stand that grew into several restaurants. His tacos are irresistible.
The tortillas are dipped in a spicy tomato sauce, crisped on a griddle, covered with cheese, and then, just as the cheese begins to melt, stacked by twos and topped with buttery, seared shrimp. The sauce and oozing cheese form a crust on the tortilla stacks as they heat on the comal.
2 pounds ripe tomatoes or 1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 or 3 dried chiles de arbol, stemmed
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for seasoning shrimp
2 tablespoons vegetable oil, plus more for cooking tacos
2 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
16 corn tortillas
3 cups (12 ounces) grated melting cheese such as asadero, Oaxaca, Monterey jack or mozzarella
1 large ripe avocado, halved, pitted, and thinly sliced
Combine fresh tomatoes, if using, garlic, and chiles de árbol in a medium saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, until tomatoes, garlic and chiles are soft. Drain and transfer to a blender.
Add oregano, tomato paste and salt to the blender, add canned tomatoes, if using, and puree until smooth.
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Pour in tomato puree, using the lid to shield yourself from splatters. Cover partially and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5-6 minutes, until mixture has thickened and darkened. Remove from the heat.
Season shrimp with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon of butter with 1 tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over high heat. Once the butter melts and begins to foam, add half the shrimp and sear for a minute or so per side. They should be browned on the outside but just cooked through. Be careful not to overcook or they will be rubbery. Scrape into a bowl and repeat with the remaining butter, oil and shrimp.
Heat a comal or large skillet over medium heat for at least 5 minutes. Add a tablespoon or two of oil.
Briefly dip a tortilla into the sauce, making sure it is entirely coated (use a pair of rubber-tipped tongs or your hands), and lay on the pan. Dip a second tortilla into the sauce and lay in the pan next to the first one, making sure they do not overlap (see note).
Top each tortilla with about 2 tablespoons shredded cheese and cook for about 2 minutes, until the cheese begins to melt and the bottoms of the sauced tortillas begin to dry and brown a little. Then, using a spatula, pick up one tortilla and stack on top of the other one, cheese side up. Don't worry if the tortilla tears a little bit or does not sit evenly on top of the other one.
Spoon seared shrimp on top of the stack, gently fold the stack in half and cook for a couple of minutes, turning it over occasionally, until the cheese has begun to ooze and create a crust.
Top with slices of ripe avocado and serve (these are best straight out of the comal), or transfer to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm while you cook the remaining stacks.
Cook's note: If your pan isn't large enough to hold two tortillas without overlapping, dip and cook one tortilla, top it with cheese, remove from the pan, and dip and cook a second tortilla. Then stack them together, top with shrimp and finish cooking as above.
Makes 8 double tacos.
— "Pati Jinich Treasures of the Mexican Table: Classic Recipes, Local Secrets" by Pati Jinich (Mariner Books, $35)
