Andrew Guckes | Staff Writer
Pati Jinich’s list of accomplishments as a chef, author, journalist and TV star are numerous. Whether it’s a James Beard award, Daytime Emmy nomination or invitation to cook at the White House, Jinich has made a name for herself both locally, where she is based, and internationally with the world’s premier chefs and critics.
With a resume that impressive, one might mistake Jinich for a food snob; however, her newest series, “Pati Jinich Explores PanAmericana” dispels any of those ideas nearly immediately.
“In Halibut Cove, Alaska, they were putting a reindeer sausage inside of a flour tortilla with ketchup and calling it a burrito,” Jinich said of one scene from an episode in the new season. “If you had told me that I would [be served that], I would have said, ‘hell, no.’ But instead I was eating it, asking, ‘Can I have another one with mustard, too?’”
For Jinich, a member of Adas Israel Congregation, food can best be explained in context. This gets to the heart of what Jinich’s show is about, and why it is a slight departure from her more cooking-focused programs. In “Pati Jinich Explores PanAmericana,” Jinich looks to tell the stories of those who came here from elsewhere, not just the dishes they eat.
As the granddaughter of Polish refugees who escaped pogroms and the Holocaust, the stories of Mexicans, Americans and others who had a tough road to freedom matters a lot to her.
“My hope [with this show] was to take my personal connection [of] being a Mexican immigrant in the U.S. and coming from a long line of refugees to connecting with peoples in the Americas that have these [same] stories,” she said.
Jinich was born and raised in Mexico City, a fact abundantly clear to this day thanks to her thick accent. Her father’s parents were Polish farmers who fled pogroms and ended up in Mexico, while her mother’s parents came later in an attempt to escape the Holocaust. Both sets of Eastern Europeans ended up in Mexico. Jinich was raised with an appreciation for Jewish and Ashkenazi culture, but she is also passionately Mexican.
She said that a beautiful struggle comes from people being displaced from their homeland, and it often yields little moments that the show aims to highlight. In Canada, during one episode, Jinich met with other Eastern European refugees who came to North America much later than her family but for similar reasons.
“We were meeting with some Ukrainian families in Edmonton, and the newcomers who have come fleeing the war realized that there were Ukrainian families from three generations ago that were making dumplings and singing songs that had been banned in Ukraine under the Communist rule,” she said.
Jinich lives in Chevy Chase now and is based professionally in the D.C. area. While she spends as much time here, at home, as she can, the job demands that she is always on and always moving. Jinich said that some might not realize how much work it is to create a program like this.
“I come back home after these filming trips and I am completely exhausted,” she said. “I am drained from really opening up and connecting so much. You’re absorbing the stories and emotions, but mostly I feel a deep responsibility to do right by their trust.”
Jinich shared a number of touching examples from her time in Alaska, which was highlighted in the first episode of the show. One First Nations, or indigenous, woman who had worked in law enforcement for two decades told Jinich about her change to charity work.
“She said she realized that [she] was just putting her own people in jail, not healing,” Jinich said. “She got out of the system and now she has a nonprofit where she’s helping people start businesses that have to do with their culture.”
These connections are often forged via food. Jinich said that, yes, this show is about more than that, but that eating together serves as a jumping off point. Case in point: As an Ashkenazi Jew, Jinich loves nothing more than a good bagel — except a good bialy. In Alaska, bialys formed an exemplary anecdote for Jinich.
“I used to eat bialys with my Polish grandfather in Mexico City when I was really young. In Mexico, we would eat them with cheese and sometimes some mashed avocado. I was sitting there [in Alaska] eating the most perfect bialys … overlooking the mountains,” she said. “I was just thinking about if my grandfather were alive and I were to tell him that I am taking a bite of a bialy in Alaska with a man whose [grandfather] comes from the town next to my grandfather’s town … we could have been neighbors in Poland.”
Jinich loves the work she does, and moments like this remind her of the power of storytelling and the importance of preserving Jewish history.
“It’s just so humbling,” she said.
