“In Mexico, it’s very normal,” Chef Mauricio Deveza says. “You’re a kid, 2 or 3 years old, you’re in the kitchen.”
Deveza could be alluding to the carne asada or the fresh salsa he puts together daily in the kitchen of the newly opened Lily’s Restaurant & Grill—he’s been making it from scratch his whole life. But he’s specifically talking about agua fresca, a beverage made by blending flowers, seeds, fruit or cereal with sugar and water.
|
|
It’s nothing, Deveza says, to be soaking hibiscus flowers by age 3, poking around the kitchen while your mother prepares a jug for serving.
Now he serves Agua de Jamaica (made with hibiscus) and Agua de Tamarindo (made with tamarind), proudly proclaiming both to be all-natural. He boils the flowers to rid them of pulp, peels tamarind pods by hand, and patiently strains and blends each mixture until it’s smooth and sweet.
Read on for the full story, with places to try agua fresca, from the June issue of 225.