The tomato ranch my father started
Thirty minutes north of the city, on the way to our cooking school in the Etla valley, my father started a tomato ranch twenty-five years ago.
In 2022, the year my dad got sick, my brother Jesse and I took it over.
Growing a vegetable, a fruit, anything at all, is something we tend to take for granted. We bring you here on our Oaxaca tours. On this day at the ranch we learn everything, from the seed to the actual tomato that is ready to eat and the entire process from vine to box. Beginning with a walkthrough the greenhouses and the sorting line where everything is weighed and packed before it leaves for sale.
Jesse made the changes that needed to happen. A new sorting machine. A new warehouse. A new irrigation system that opened the door to more greenhouses, so we could grow more tomatoes year round. All these changes for the better of the tomato farm. He created a great team with the existing core growers and hired more people a total of 35. Today the ranch produces 30 to 40 tons of tomatoes a week, every week of the year.
When the second warehouse went up, with a kitchen and a long table where the team sits down for lunch, we had the idea: a tomato-forward lunch for the tour, after a walk through the fields.
What we serve is Oaxacan beef barbacoa. It's often eaten in Oaxaca for breakfast, for lunch, sometimes for dinner. The meat is rubbed with an adobo of chile guajillo, vinegar, garlic and spices, then wrapped in heirloom avocado leaves and cooked for 14 hours until it's fork tender. We serve it as a taco, with a consomé made from the barbacoa's own drippings and three different salsas. And of course, a tomato salad from our very own farm.
To drink we serve, champurrado. A pre-Hispanic corn beverage cooked until the starch of the corn thickens. Chocolate is added until it dissolves making it a unique drink. Two sacred ingredients that are part of the cooking class of that day.
When you come on a tour with us, the focus is food, culture and craftspeople. But it's also the story of my family and how Jesse and me as the second generation are committed to carry on with what they started. It’s an honor to continue my mom's legacy. I'm proud of my brother for continuing my dad's.
And nothing makes us more happy than sharing it with you.
Un abrazo, Kaelin
