Tucson City of Gastronomy sent seven Chef Ambassadors around the globe last year, spreading the gospel of Tucson’s food and food heritage to other UNESCO Cities of Gastronomy.
On Jan. 26, chefs that were part of Tucson’s first cohort of trained Chef Ambassadors finished their two-year terms when the Tucson COG resurrected its pre-pandemic fundraiser “Chefs on a Global Stage.” The event raises money for the Chef Exchange Fund that covers chefs’ travel expenses.
The event also featured two of the 10 incoming Chef Ambassadors — Mat Cable, chef-owner of Fresco Pizzeria and Zio Peppe, who helped ambassador Devon Sanner in Parma, Italy, last fall; and Pablo Valencia, chef-owner of Scratching the Plate catering, who accompanied Travis Peters, formerly of The Parish, in Macao, China, last June.
Chef Ambassadors pose during an event at Pueblos del Maiz.
The China trip for the International Gastronomy Forum was the farthest the ambassadors traveled and it was the second time since Tucson landed the UNESCO designation in 2015 that Tucson COG had been invited. Only 30 of the world’s 56 Cities of Gastronomy make the cut, said Tucson COG Executive Director Jonathan Mabry.
Tucson stood out, Mabry said, because it is “one of only a few Cities of Gastronomy that really lean into food heritage.”
“It makes a difference,” he said.
Moody Elbarasi pictured in Gaziantep, Turkey.
Tucson’s food heritage, going back thousands of years and borrowing from our Mexican and Native American roots, is central to the six- to eight-week Chef Ambassador training program that Mabry launched just before the pandemic. The COG had been sending chefs to sister COGs since year two or three of the designation, when they started getting requests from around the globe.
The chefs had some informal training, but the idea was to equip them to be able to represent Tucson and tell its story, said longtime Tucson chef Janos Wilder, president of the Tucson COG board and the architect of the training program. Mabry said he thinks the Tucson program emphasizing the food heritage and history is unique among UNESCO-designated cities.
Casino del Sol baker Shuka Parker, left, talks with Tucson City of Gastronomy board president Janos Wilder after a training session to be a TCOG ambassador.
Chefs, sous chefs and pastry chefs are selected based on leadership skills, culinary excellence and creativity, and a demonstrated support for Southern Arizona food producers. They then go through weeks of kitchen demonstrations, taught by Wilder, and classroom instruction on Tucson’s food heritage products, practices and modern-day uses, led by Mabry.
“Everything we do is to prepare them to take this on the road and represent us well,” said Wilder, a longtime Tucson restaurateur and champion of Tucson’s heritage ingredients.
The goal is that the chefs will be able to talk about Tucson’s food history and heritage ingredients and convey how that history plays out on today’s plate. In addition to the kitchen demos, Wilder advises chefs on the practicalities of international travel: what to pack and ship ahead including what things — from foodstuffs and spices to kitchen equipment — are likely to be scrutinized by customs officials. Chefs also learn to investigate what ingredients they will need that won’t be readily available when they land.
Wilder leads the kitchen demonstrations at his downtown Studio Janos that he opened in fall 2023. Chefs are given 15 minutes to prepare the dish, explaining along the way what they are doing and sprinkling in tidbits about Tucson’s food heritage and scene.
Rod LeDesma pictured in Merida, Mexico.
Training is wrapped up last month for the second cohort of Chef Ambassadors: In addition to Cable and Valencia, Adolfo “Aris” Cabrera of Quail Creek Country Club; Mateo Cancio of Hacienda del Sol; Susan Fulton and Mary Steiger of Gourmet Girls Gluten Free Bakery/Bistro; Angela Garcia of Chulas Cocina; Jenna Grigalauski of A Culinary Inheritance; Robert Kowalske of Sunrise Senior Living; and Shuka Parker of Casino del Sol.
Over the past couple of weeks, Wilder and Mabry have been conducting the final kitchen demonstrations with the incoming Chef Ambassadors. At the studio in January, Cancio, chef de cuisine at Hacienda del Sol Resort, and Parker, a baker and pastry chef at Casino del Sol, made their final presentations while the cameras rolled.
Cancio came with colorful produce from the resort’s garden, including peppers, greens and citrus. In a clay bowl, he poured flour and water for the scratch-made blue and white corn tortillas; a plate next to the bowl had a dozen or so balls of dough ready to be pressed and a plate of pre-pressed tortillas in parchment paper. Several of the tortillas stuck to the paper when he went to demonstrate how to cook them in a preheated pan.
Lesson learned: Pressing tortillas takes so little time that there’s no need to prepare in advance unless you are cooking for a large group, the veteran James Beard Award-winning Wilder advised him.
Hacienda del Sol chef de cuisine Mateo Cancio wrote a script with talking points for his presentation during a training session to be a Tucson City of Gastronomy ambassador.
During his presentation, Cancio consulted notes outside of the camera’s view to pepper his presentation with details of Tucson’s food heritage and Hacienda del Sol’s on-site garden.
In their post-demonstration observations, Wilder and Mabry advised Cancio to put more emphasis on Tucson’s heritage ingredients and offered tips on addressing an audience while cooking.
Casino del Sol baker Shuka Parker talks about saguaro fruit during a training session to be a Tucson City of Gastronomy ambassador.
Parker, who moved to the U.S. from her native Japan around 20 years ago, brought a bowl of small dates, a small bag of White Sonoran Wheat flour and ramekins filled with other ingredients she uses to make date empanadas. She also brought a half dozen golden brown empanadas.
Her discussion included personal details about discovering heritage ingredients, including the flour, which she said is her favorite for making breads and pastries.
In their comments afterward, Mabry and Wilder emphasized the need to incorporate more details about Tucson’s food history and culture and offered advice on how she could demonstrate the baking process in the allotted time.
Parker took notes as they spoke and nodded at their suggestions, and when they were finished, she passed the bowl of treats around the room.
Lesson learned: Parker’s date empanadas were impeccable.
Casino del Sol baker Shuka Parker made empanadas with a date filling for her presentation during a training session to be a Tucson City of Gastronomy ambassador.
