For a limited time, we are now welcoming priority applications for Day of the Dead 2016 and Winter/Spring 2017 (and a few other spots in Fall 2016).E-mail Chris ASAP at info@arquetopia.org
With master instruction, learn the rich culinary tradition of Mexico’s cuisine in the majestic central historic district of Puebla, Mexico. Extendable 4-week terms during Autumn 2015 and throughout 2016.
Apply Now Through Sunday, November 15, 2015.
Early applications receive priority consideration and immediate processing.
This unique instructional residency offers competitive professional opportunities for emerging and mid-career, national and international chefs, cooks, food stylists, food historians, and culinary professionals in general as well as culinary students age 25 and over.
With a history that spans 30 centuries, Mexican cuisine is at the core of Mexico’s diverse cultures and identities. Mexican cuisine is a comprehensive cultural model that comprises complex relationships with the environment, ritual practices, culinary techniques, collective memory and knowledge, including ancestral community customs and manners. Regarded by UNESCO as a world treasure, it was inscribed in 2010 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The Mexican Culinary Arts Instructional Residency explores the rich culinary tradition of Mexico’s baroque cuisine, from its roots, ritual functions, fusion and contemporary expressions through its ancestral techniques, culinary history within Catholic convents, and its role in magnificent celebrations such as the Day of the Dead ofrendas (altars).
This gastronomic residency includes 4 weeks of instruction (48 hours total; 12 hours per week) by a prominent local chef in several diverse traditional and contemporary Mexican techniques using local ingredients and resources. Instruction is in Spanish or English. For this residency, participants will learn, practice, and collaborate with our culinary partner restaurant Moyuelo – Contemporary Poblano Cuisine located on Avenida Juárez in the heart of Puebla’s upscale dining district. Moyuelo offers a professional kitchen and dining room as a platform that facilitates the process of learning and exchanging food experiences. Residency participants are invited to experience the complexity of Mexican cuisine and the richness of local ingredients while understanding the context, history and tradition of pre-Columbian, Novohispanic, traditional, and contemporary Mexican recipes and techniques. They learn the basis of Mexican cuisine, founded on corn, beans, chiles, and squashes, including techniques such as nixtamalization (lime-hulling maize, which increases its nutritional value), and the essential tamales and moles as well as the diversity in use of utensils and materials including stones, wood, and ceramics.
Our residency programs are process-oriented, and the core of the residency is a critical approach to cooking, learning, and research. Our staff and board of directors have designed a curriculum for the residency programs that facilitates a critical dialogue between the culinary resident’s practice and the context encountered. In order to challenge stereotypes and preconceived notions of Latin America, all programs include an introduction to the complexity of Mexican identities, and this particular program focuses on the history of gastronomy and ingredients.
CULINARY ARTS INSTRUCTIONAL RESIDENCY INCLUSIONS
The residency fee covers instruction, ingredients, accommodation, meals, utilities and housekeeping, weekly meetings with guidance and assistance from our staff, studio space, some tools, and basic materials and supplies for the instructional course.
Staff Support:
All Arquetopia residencies include weekly individual meetings with our staff for research assistance, residency guidance and discussions.
Accommodation and Meals:
Furnished, private bedrooms and use of Arquetopia’s residency space including wireless Internet, lounge areas, kitchen, dining room, outdoor terraces, and shared bathrooms with modern fixtures and showers are provided. Meals, open access to the kitchen, and housekeeping are included.
Studio Workspace and Materials:
Large and bright, shared art studio with natural light is provided with personal workspace, large tables, some tools, and materials and supplies for the instructional course. Materials and supplies for additional project production are not included but are available for purchase locally. Access to special facilities (such as our culinary partner restaurant) is also provided.
RESIDENCY FEE, DATES, AND TERMS
Term Length: 4 weeks. Dates are not preset but are nominated by the applicant.
Fee: USD $795 per week.
Payment Deadlines: Option 1: Deposit of 20% of Residency Fee due within 2 weeks of selection. Balance of Residency Fee due by 60 days prior to residency start date. Option 2: Deposit of 10% of Residency Fee due within 2 weeks of selection. Balance of Residency Fee due by 90 days prior to residency start date.
HOW TO APPLY
Visit the Arquetopia website at www.arquetopia.org
Complete and submit the Arquetopia Artist-in-Residence Online Application Form, following the instructions on the web page.
Following selection, applicants are notified immediately via e-mail.
Above: the superb Chile en Nogada at Restaurante El Balcón, at 7 Sur #1301 in Puebla’s central historic district.
Summers in southern Mexico bring not only the lush, green monsoon season. Each year from late July to mid-September, the long-awaited signature dish of Puebla –the famous Chile en Nogada– makes its triumphant return. This brilliant combination of sweet and savory is comprised of a large Poblano chile that is battered and stuffed with a unique “picadillo” combination of meats, fruits, and nuts. Deep-fried and sometimes roasted, it is then generously dressed with a rich sauce of pureed walnuts, cream, and sherry. The whole presentation is not complete without a big handful of pomegranate seeds and a sprig of parsley, giving it the three colors (white walnut sauce, green chile, and red seeds) of the Mexican flag.
The Chile en Nogada has been associated with the independence of Mexico since it was prepared for the first time to entertain the emperor Agustín de Iturbide when he came to the city after his naming as Agustín I. It is believed to have been invented by Monjas Clarisas, although some think they were the Madres Contemplativas Agustinas of the convent of Santa Monica, Puebla.
Above: Arquetopia Artists-in-Residence Jocelyn Salaz (USA) and Nancy Sausser (USA) enjoying their first Chiles en Nogada, at Restaurante El Balcón, at 7 Sur #1301 in Puebla’s central historic district.
