Aída’s Peppery Watercress
and Nopales Salad

Aída Pineda is a backstrap loom artisan from San Bartolo Yautepec.
Her work preserves the stories, plants, animals, and agricultural life of her community. Her relationship with food and her relationship with weaving come from the same place: knowing, using, and passing on to the next generation what the land and the community have given her.

See recipe

Listen to Aída’s Story

Aída learned to weave because she needed to buy shoes for her children. What began as an act of necessity became her livelihood, her independence, and a way to keep a disappearing tradition alive. Today, she makes a living from her craft, teaches it to others, and uses it to give her children the opportunities she never had. Her story is about what we lose when traditional knowledge disappears—and what becomes possible when we choose to keep it alive.

"We’re in San Bartolo Yautepec, in southern Oaxaca. We’re known for our crafts and for maguey, which we use to make mezcal."

"There’s a river that runs through the town, where we find medicinal and edible plants like chepil, chepiche and watercress. We grow our own corn, beans, nopales, chayote and squash, and we make aguas frescas with the fruit that grows here."

"Watercress is one of our favourite ingredientes for salads. We roast nopales, dice tomato, onion, cilantro and a squirt of lime and eat it with totopos".

"The nopales, tomatoes, onion and lime came from my neighbor’s garden, the watercress from the river, and my mother-in-law made the totopos. Together we made a really good meal.

"I get up at four in the morning and work on my loom until ten or eleven at night. It’s hard work and it takes a long time, but with practice and necessity, you learn to work from sunrise to sunset."

"The designs I weave come from our community—the furrows, the corn, the animals we raise. There are hawks and chickens, deer, foxes, pigs and roosters. They are all part of our life here. That’s why I say our loom is a story of life."

"I wanted to study accounting, but my father didn’t let me. He told me education was for men, not for women. Sometimes he asks me why I work so much, and I tell him, “If you had let me study, maybe I would have a paycheck every two weeks and I wouldn’t be sitting here working.”

"I learned from my wedding godmother. The tradition was already disappearing here in San Bartolo, but I learned it, and now the work from my loom has allowed me to support my family and give my children opportunities I never had. And that makes me proud.

Listen to Aída’s Story

Aída learned to weave because she needed to buy shoes for her children. What began as an act of necessity became her livelihood, her independence, and a way to keep a disappearing tradition alive. Today, she makes a living from her craft, teaches it to others, and uses it to give her children the opportunities she never had. Her story is about what we lose when traditional knowledge disappears—and what becomes possible when we choose to keep it alive.

Peppery Watercress and Nopales Salad

By Aída Pineda

INGREDIENTS

2 cups fresh watercress, washed and trimmed
2–3 nopales, cleaned and sliced
2 tomatoes, chopped
½ small onion, thinly sliced
Juice of 1–2 limes
½ cup cilantro, chopped
Salt, to taste
Totopos, for serving

PREPARATION

Step 1
Clean the nopales, removing any spines, charr them on a comal until they’re cooked through and slice them into small cubes.

Step 2
Combine the nopales, watercress, tomatoes, cilantro and onion in a bowl.

Step 3
Add fresh lime juice and salt to taste. Toss gently to combine.

Step 4
Serve immediately with totopos.

Aída’s Peppery Watercress
and Nopales Salad

Listen to Aída’s Story

"We’re in San Bartolo Yautepec, in southern Oaxaca. We’re known for our crafts and for maguey, which we use to make mezcal."

"There’s a river that runs through the town, where we find medicinal and edible plants like chepil, chepiche and watercress. We grow our own corn, beans, nopales, chayote and squash, and we make aguas frescas with the fruit that grows here."

"Watercress is one of our favourite ingredientes for salads. We roast nopales, dice tomato, onion, cilantro and a squirt of lime and eat it with totopos".

"The nopales, tomatoes, onion and lime came from my neighbor’s garden, the watercress from the river, and my mother-in-law made the totopos. Together we made a really good meal.

"I get up at four in the morning and work on my loom until ten or eleven at night. It’s hard work and it takes a long time, but with practice and necessity, you learn to work from sunrise to sunset."

"The designs I weave come from our community—the furrows, the corn, the animals we raise. There are hawks and chickens, deer, foxes, pigs and roosters. They are all part of our life here. That’s why I say our loom is a story of life."

"I wanted to study accounting, but my father didn’t let me. He told me education was for men, not for women. Sometimes he asks me why I work so much, and I tell him, “If you had let me study, maybe I would have a paycheck every two weeks and I wouldn’t be sitting here working.”

"I learned from my wedding godmother. The tradition was already disappearing here in San Bartolo, but I learned it, and now the work from my loom has allowed me to support my family and give my children opportunities I never had. And that makes me proud.

Listen to Aída’s Story

Peppery Watercress and Nopales Salad

INGREDIENTS

PREPARATION

Cooks in their Kitchens: A Quest to Solve a Mexican Culinary Paradox

gabrielalendo@gmail.com

Aída’s Peppery Watercress and Nopales Salad

Listen to Aída’s Story

"We’re in San Bartolo Yautepec, in southern Oaxaca. We’re known for our crafts and for maguey, which we use to make mezcal."

"There’s a river that runs through the town, where we find medicinal and edible plants like chepil, chepiche and watercress. We grow our own corn, beans, nopales, chayote and squash, and we make aguas frescas with the fruit that grows here."

"Watercress is one of our favourite ingredientes for salads. We roast nopales, dice tomato, onion, cilantro and a squirt of lime and eat it with totopos".

"The nopales, tomatoes, onion and lime came from my neighbor’s garden, the watercress from the river, and my mother-in-law made the totopos. Together we made a really good meal.

"I get up at four in the morning and work on my loom until ten or eleven at night. It’s hard work and it takes a long time, but with practice and necessity, you learn to work from sunrise to sunset."

"The designs I weave come from our community—the furrows, the corn, the animals we raise. There are hawks and chickens, deer, foxes, pigs and roosters. They are all part of our life here. That’s why I say our loom is a story of life."

"I wanted to study accounting, but my father didn’t let me. He told me education was for men, not for women. Sometimes he asks me why I work so much, and I tell him, “If you had let me study, maybe I would have a paycheck every two weeks and I wouldn’t be sitting here working.”

"I learned from my wedding godmother. The tradition was already disappearing here in San Bartolo, but I learned it, and now the work from my loom has allowed me to support my family and give my children opportunities I never had. And that makes me proud.

Listen to Aída’s Story

Peppery Watercress and Nopales Salad

INGREDIENTS

PREPARATION

Lorenza and Magdalena's Thyme and Black Bean Tamales

Cooks in their Kitchens: A Quest to Solve a Mexican Culinary Paradox

gabrielalendo@gmail.com

Aída’s Peppery Watercress
and Nopales Salad