Martha Ortiz's Last Supper

Chef Martha Ortiz has two gourmet restaurants in Mexico City, Mexico called Barroco and Dulce Patria.  The restaurants celebrate Mexico's gastronomic traditions at its finest.

What would be your last meal on Earth?

For my last supper, I would love to taste and feel “day and night”, the flavor of the sun and the flavor of the moon - that is, a fresh handmade tortilla with the magnanimous black mole. Tortillas remind me of the communion with the sun and black mole represents the depth of the dark skies. That way, the flight through Mexico’s history, which I love and am delighted by, would be complete - life and death, joy and sorrow, love and lack of sentiment, but always with the most important ingredient: passion.

What would be the setting for the meal?

I would love to sit in a Mexican country chair painted in bright colors, to be reminded of how festive, beautiful, and profound my country is, at a simple wooden table mounted on a barge in Xochimilco, full of flowers. It would be at sunset, with the mystical aroma of my land, and I would observe the movement, the candlelight, the multicoloured skies imbibed with clouds.

What would you drink with your meal?

Mexican elixir: Dragones white tequila with the mystical and elegant taste of the maguey’s core. Sensuousness to be enjoyed in sips, giving away “winks” to the palate.

Would there be music?

I would listen to the Oaxacan song “La Llorona” (“The Weeping Woman”) repeatedly, with verses that have been added to it over time, reminding me that in this life, I was loved.

Who would be your dining companions?

I would like to be alone with my unfathomable thoughts and a smile, thanking God for its benevolent presence in the world and existence through beautiful and sensitive things.  I’d be grateful for the blessing of being able to taste beauty.

Who would prepare the meal?

A traditional Mexican cook from a lineage of women who share our cuisine, to which I feel proudly connected. Anonymous heroines whose hands caress the ingredients and blend them with mastery and magic as they touch the stone, heating them by fire, together with the bountiful goodness of the wind and voluptuousness of water, always yielding the taste of the sun.