Chasing Traditions was a workshop lead by the Recipe Hunters (Anthony and Lela). Before going into the food stories of Mexico as advertised, they explained who they were and how they came to be the Recipe Hunters. After quitting their day jobs, they traveled the world using Workaway. Workaway is an online website where you can offer your time for volunteer work in exchange for free room and board. The goal was to live like the locals and learn from them. Before leaving, they would leave their host with a parting gift of homemade gelato made with a local flavor.
As time went on, they started the Culinary Heritage Corporation non-profit; through the non-profit they gave lectures, taught cooking classes, and cooked pop-up dinners. Also they made videos about the places they visited and the recipes the locals taught them how to make. Posting these videos on their Youtube channel was important, because it showed how beautiful and kind people were.
After doing this for awhile and gaining popularity, the two often received sponsorships; recently this included Wales and Baluartes Slow Food. Slow Food employed Recipe Hunters to take on the task of ‘prisidia’, which is the ‘protection of process’. So they journeyed to 3 different parts of Mexico in order to know the process behind three endangered ingredients.
Maguey de Altiplano is agave from the plateau of Mexico; it is a fermented sap that has been consistently made the same way forever. The extraction method is actually more sustainable to the plant and more pure in the long run. Next they focused on the Tiaola Serrano Chili Peppers that are used to make a dry salsa. The salsa is prepared by the women in the region and is a source of empowerment for them. The final ingredient were the heirloom beans of Tebetlixpa, which were being re-cultivated into the land.
After presenting, they opened the floor for questions and feedback from the audience. One extremely important critique was that they needed to incorporate more of the culture, landscape, and language into their videos; the full story was not being told with many of these key factors missing. The Recipe Hunters seemed flustered, but responded by acknowledging this needs to be done, although it is difficult to incorporate everything into such a short amount of time. All in all, the Recipe Hunters strive to educate viewers about indigenous people and their traditional recipes that have been handed down over generations.