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.

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.

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.

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