LA Cocina de Gloria Molina celebrates Mexican and Mexican American cuisine through cooking classes and more.
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Sara P. Mijares grew up watching her mother make dishes like Cochinita Pibil, a slow-cooked pork dish with red achiote that originated in Yucatán. Unsure on how to make it, she stayed away from from the recipe until taking classes at LA Cocina de Gloria Molina.
It was at that teaching kitchen in downtown L.A. where she met gourmet street food chefs Alex and Elvia Garcia of Evil Cooks — instructors and specialists in making recado negro, a mixture of chiles, onion, garlic, spices, tortillas and cacao that the class charred until it was black, then ground into a paste.
“I was always a little hesitant to try the black one,” said Mijares, referring to recado negro. “I didn’t quite understand it and that’s one of the reasons I came today, to understand what went into it and unlock a little bit of the mystery.”
So how was the recado negro mixed with pulled pork and served on a warm corn tortilla made fresh on LA Cocina’s comal?
“It’s quite special and delicious,” she said. “I’m really glad I pushed out of my Yucatecan comfort zone to try it.”
That’s what LA Cocina is about. The 2,500-square-foot space, cultural center and recipe room is part of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes and named after the late political powerhouse instrumental in creating La Plaza, Gloria Molina. The community hub hosts local chefs, authors and community members for cooking classes, tastings and talks that celebrate the history and culture of Mexican and Mexican American cuisine. Local celebrity chefs like Danielle Duran Zecca of Amiga Amore and “The Chori-man” Humberto Raygoza have taught classes.
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Events vary from a historical exploration of Afro-Latin cuisine presented by the Afro-Latino Education and Arts Collective and include cooking classes on making “flower” tortillas with different varieties of corn and pressed flowers.
“One of the key components, alongside learning how to cook, and what makes a difference, is that we provide cultural notes in everything we do,” said Ximena Martin, La Plaza director of Programs and Culinary Arts. “We make sure all our classes are presented by the community for the community.”
Educating the public about Mexican and Mexican American authors, chefs and culinary history is only part of LA Cocina’s mission in addition to preparing the next generation of chefs. The Culinary Youth Training Program is free to high school students and young adults ages 16 to 24.
During a recent class, chef Wendy Centeno cut a red onion in half, then thinly sliced it for a cauliflower ceviche she was teaching a group to make.
“Have you been to a taquero and you get a really big piece of onion?” she asked. “Who wants to eat that?”
Students, who apply to be part of the bilingual program, learn everything from basic knife skills to poaching an egg to deboning a chicken. They come from Los Angeles and most of them know they want to cook but they don’t know where to start, Centeno said.
Jonathan Tirado, 19, likes to make sourdough bread and create dishes from whatever he has on hand at his Boyle Heights home. He thinks he might want to be a chef, which makes his mother happy that he’s enrolled in the program that could lead to a career.
“My mom is probably going to disapprove of this, the cauliflower, but I’m going to have her try it anyway,” Tirado said.
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Centeno introduces culturally relevant dishes that may or may not be how students and their families are used to seeing them made.
At the end of the course, students work with the Institute of Culinary Education. They write a resume and get invited to a networking event with local chefs, business owners and cooking schools to get career advice about the food industry and landing a job.
The first time she saw one of her former students working at Porto’s Bakery, Centeno said, she wanted to cry.
“Seeing them out there in the wild, we know we’re doing something right,” the chef said. “It’s awesome.”
LA Cocina, across the street from La Plaza in La Plaza Village, had its second anniversary in April by replacing the gift shop with Raíces Culinarias: A Recipe Reading Room. The space is filled with Mexican cookbooks donated by the family of the late journalist and author Barbara Hansen, the celebrated L.A. Times food writer who left her job at The Times in 2006 but continued writing articles for the paper through 2017.
The cookbook collection inspired an exhibit curated by local food historian, podcaster and ArtBites founder Maite Gomez-Rejón about Mexican cookbook author Josefina Velázquez de León (1899-1968). De León was the first woman in Mexico to open a cooking school and offer correspondence courses to help women become part of the Mexican economy.
“Josefina was an amazing entrepreneur of her time,” Martin said. “She started collecting recipes from local women and regional women and started her own publishing house.”
The programs at LA Cocina offer the community much more than simply learning how to cook. For Centeno, it’s the self-assuredness of the students that makes her especially proud.
“The most important thing we teach here is for them to have confidence,” she said. “I want them to be able to walk into a kitchen and feel like, ‘Yes, I know how to do whatever the chef wants me to do.’”
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