The Doyenne of fine living – Martha Stewart cooks in Mexico

Martha Stewart spent a day with Chef David cooking at his amazing cooking school in Mérida, Yucatan where crews filmed the event for the daytime program “Martha”.

With only two weeks’ notice before filming was to begin, Chef David worked long distance with producers of the show in New York to map out the shoot, and to plan which recipes the two would prepare on-air.

Sterling sent over 20 different recipe and menu concepts, and was surprised when Martha chose three dishes: for an appetizer, the ancient Maya fritter Polkanes; a main course of Pavo en Relleno Negro, the labour-intensive but satisfying meat-stuffed turkey cooked in charred chile sauce; and for dessert Caballeros Pobres, the Yucatecan version of bread pudding.

During the first day, the film crew shot B-roll footage of a typical cookery course at the cooking school. The cooking day began at Mérida’s colourful central market, where Chef David gave Martha a tour of the endless aisles full of exotic produce, spices and condiments.

Back in the kitchen, Martha and Chef David concentrated on cooking the main dish: Pavo en Relleno Negro. And the ‘here’s one I prepared earlier’ you often see came into play as three turkeys were prepared in all – one to be baking during the filming and ready for presentation; one to illustrate how it is poached in the black chile stock; and the last one for a demonstration of the initial preparation and stuffing.

Martha enjoyed making and eating these ancient Maya fritters and showed fine “patty cake” skills as she gave shape to their traditional Mexican snakehead form.

During her tour of Yucatán, the crew also filmed Martha with the Maas family in the tiny pueblo of Santa Elena, where the mission was to explore the solar, or kitchen garden, where the family grows many food plants and maintains domesticated animals for their own consumption. The solar is an extremely important feature of traditional Maya life, and is a major thematic point in each cooking class course held here each week.

While courses no longer run in the same kitchen as Martha Stewart used, you can join another Mexican cookery holiday in the beautiful Tepoztlan region.

Cooking courses last 6 hours and start with a visit to the bustling market before heading into the kitchen to learn to cook traditional Mexican recipes to tantalise your taste buds.