A Picky Eater's Guide to Dining in Oaxaca,Mexico

I come from a long line of picky eaters. My father does not eat melted cheese, which means no pizza, no lasagna, and by under no circumstances can the Crazy Bread from Little Caesars have any melted butter with that fake parmesan cheese sprinkled on it - he'll take it plain, thankyouverymuch. It also means he wants a "chicken parm without the parm," or simply a breaded chicken cutlet. C'est la vie.

My mother, on the other hand, is totally fine eating melted cheese, but has a long list of her own no fly foods: no cooked fruits, no chocolate or vanilla ice cream, no curry or anything "exotic" (whatever that means), no venison (there's a story about being tricked as a kid at a relative's house somewhere far from her house that has turned her off the meat for all time) or turkey, and a whole litany of other things that randomly pop up any time we're about to go out to eat somewhere interesting. She only tried garlic for the first time long past her 40th birthday, and is now pretty on board the garlic is good train. Baby steps.

As you can imagine, growing up in a household with lots of "do nots," I also entered the adult world with my own list of things to avoid. I'm famous in small groups for my past avoidance of seafood and personal motto: "If it comes from the sea, it's not for me." My long running and somewhat arbitrary disdain for mayonaise is also well documented, including the abandoning of a sandwich which happened to sneak it on to the bread, even if that sandwich used mayo as one of its main ingredients, like egg salad or chicken curry salad. I used to hate tomatoes so much (except for ketchup, obvs) that I would put dry breadcrumbs on spaghetti in my childhood.

Yet, somehow I made it to middle age with a somewhat adventurous palate. This was not an easy journey, and my husband deserves a huge amount of credit. Himself not a picky eater, unless you include avoiding celery as being picky, and lord knows I'm with him on that one, he has gently guided me and my strange eating ways away from things like chicken fingers to chicken liver paté. Granted, I don't order the chicken liver paté myself, but if a friend or co-worker does, I will try it, and begrudgingly enjoy it.

All of this is to say that one can actually become less picky over time. I try to tell my parents this, and they scoff - it's been working for them for so long, they see no need to change their ways. And yet, as a recovering picky eater myself, I feel sad that they will never get the pure sense of gluttonous pleasure after eating something as deliciously joyful (and pretty unadventurous, all things considered) as a heaping bowl of Pho Ga (chicken pho). Lord knows I tried to convince my mom that it was more or less chicken noodle soup, just with basil and lime in it and a different type of noodle, and she could avoid those ingredients if she wanted to. But that was a steadfast no. Plain chicken for her, please.

Breakfast pho in Hanoi

Which brings me to my culinary tour of Oaxaca with Ben and my mother in tow. In the recent years, my mother and I have traveled a bit more together to the places she wants to see, and some that Ben and I want to visit. She had a debilitating car accident a few years ago, the second of her life actually, and has been on disability due to cognitive and physical issues that prevent her from working. After not seeing her for over a year due to COVID-19, we asked if she wanted to join us on a trip to Mexico, where Ben and I had planned to visit as a scaled down 40th birthday/15th anniversary trip. However, we picked our two destinations - San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca - for their culinary offerings. How could we possibly thread the needle of eating our way around one of the world's most famous culinary destinations with a picky eater in tow?

To prepare for the trip, I began to read The Food of Oaxaca by chef Alexandro Ruiz, who operates Casa Oaxaca, an upscale restaurant in the eponymous city. This was on our itinerary as a place we must sample, and I wanted to know if my mom would be interested. To guage her interest, I first looked through the menu to see if there would be some things she would try, and found a few. However, she'd have to wade through a bunch of dishes that would initially turn her off, but would she be able to notice the appealing ones?

I texted her the menu then called her. Look through it, I told her, see if there's something you might like. Predictably, she noticed all the things I knew would standout, and had the exact reaction I had anticipated in the appetizer section. "Octopus? EWWWWWW. Rabbit???!? Aye yai yai." I could mentally imagine the contortions her face was making, having seen it in person so many times before.

But then she spotted something different. "Ooh, squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta cheese?" Bingo. She eats lightly breaded and fried squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta at our favorite Jersey Shore Italian restaurant. Here there would be no marinara sauce to dip them into, but I hoped that wouldn't distract her. She continued down the page, saw the salads and seemed appeased.

Until she dipped into the entrées section, and again was confronted by more octopus and rabbit, and more exclamations of disgust followed. But then, more appeasement - ribeye and short ribs. All acceptable options. Never mind all the random, unknown accoutrements - the main star of the dish was something that was approachable, known, and not heartrendingly scary. Progress, I thought. She agreed that she would join us, and to not worry about her.

And so we set out to Mexico, enjoying our first week of adventurous eating around Guanajuato and then San Miguel de Allende, before meeting up with my other in Oaxaca. Because she arrived later in the evening, I had found a Spanish tapas bar immediately next door to our AirBnb house and had Ben pick up a few things we thought would tempt her, namely the chicken and beef pinchos (skewers), and sure enough, night one's meal was a resounding success. She said she didn't want to think about what was on the meat (they were well seasoned with mostly herbs, salt and pepper), but she couldn't deny that she actually enjoyed them, so much so that we had another dinner there just for her later in the week.

The next day would be the real challenge, though, as we were off on a tour with our tour guide Gabriel Sanchez (highly recommend!) to the ~2000 year old ruins of Monte Alban, followed by a tour of some local artisan workshops, all with lunch thrown in somewhere in the middle. After working up an appetite, we arrived at a small road side stall, similar to ones we'd been at in other countries, that seem to operate just for tourists on their way to and from somewhere else. This one, Azucena Zapoteca, though, was more impressive than other tourist traps we'd seen, and the food really seemed to be cooked with love and care.

Convincing my mother that she should order a tlayuda (essentially a large version of a quesadilla), we hoped that it wouldn't be so scary after all. But first, we ordered some guacamole, a pretty innocuous dish, except for my mother, who swears she doesn't like avocado.

Yet, somehow we convinced her to just try a small bite - if she didn't like it, then no worries, she wouldn't have to try it again. Taking a piece of the crispy tortilla, she tentatively dipped it into the luscious guacamole, taking a bite and, in something of a surprise for all of us, she decided it "wasn't bad." Hmm, that's a pretty decent reaction for someone who has no problem saying when she doesn't like something. But then she went in for seconds, and then thirds, and before we knew it, she was a new found fan of guacamole. When we asked why she claimed she didn't like it, and where had she had it before, she said her friends usually got packages of it from Costco. Ben and I laughed. Obviously, a fresh, ripe avocado prepared in the food's home turf would be infinitely better than overly processed and old guacamole served at Costco and rolled out for large gatherings across the USA.

Feeling a little more confident, we were still slightly worried about the tlayuda, as we hadn't had one ourselves at this point to know for sure it wouldn't be something completely outside of her comfort zone. Yet, when it arrived, it didn't seem any more offensive than we could have imagined it, and she dug right in, declaring it to also be quite tasty.

Success! Two dishes she enjoyed in a row. Granted, you could argue these foods are not terribly adventurous, but when you've convinced yourself that anything different from what you're familiar with is scary, then even just familiar things presented in new and unusual ways can feel scary (as a recovering picky eater, I can attest to this).

The real test came later that same night, though, as we were off to dinner at the aforementioned Casa Oaxaca. The menu constantly changes, and when I went to recheck it at our house later in the day, the things I had seen previously were not there, or were prepared slightly differently. Would the menu be the same once at the restaurant? Would she still be able to find things that weren't too unapproachable?

Thankfully, once we arrived at the restaurant, we found that the same stuffed zucchini blossom dish was there, albeit with a few changes. It still had ricotta, but had more vanilla. It was still wrapped in a fried sweet potato, and thankfully, it had no chapulines (grasshoppers, which are incredibly popular in Oaxaca) anywhere near the dish (though the table-side prepared salsa did). I attempted to recall my mom's opinion on pumpkin seeds - had she ever shared a dislike towards them before? Had she even ever eaten them?

She and I both ordered that dish, and she had the ribeye for her main (sauce on the side, obvs). And again, success. She even tried some guacamole again at dinner, and then throughout the rest of the trip, solidifying a like for something she had been avoiding her entire life. Will she go back to NJ and continue to enjoy guacamole? The jury on that is still out, but perhaps if it is made with care and attention to good ingredients, I'm hopeful that she will.

The rest of the trip she continued to try new things. Again, nothing too adventurous (no chapulines, of course), but things like tortilla soup, black bean soup, and other dishes using ingredients she was familiar with, just prepared in new and different ways.

I'm not saying my mom is now more open to trying new foods in a general sense, but on this one week trip to a gastronomic mecca, this picky eater was able to step out of her comfort zone for a small time and find that there is something really tasty beyond the bounds of the familiar. All it takes are a few baby steps, and a whole new world of flavor awaits.

Bon appetit!

Enjoying the guacamole on our last dinner in town.