Ancient Seeds & Desert Ghosts | La Frontera | Season 2

Chef and James Beard Award winner Pati Jinich travels along both sides of the Arizona-Sonora border through some of the most wild, untouched places in North America. She starts from where she left off, at the very edge of Baja California in Los Algodones, where perhaps we’ve found the most wild place of all: a town of dentists.

Moving across the Sonoran Desert into Arizona and Sonora, she finds herself in a land steeped in legend and tradition. First through meeting the Tucson Samaritans, a presbyterian group who are known to leave water for immigrants crossing the border, Pati shares a story of human need and survival which has meaning beyond its political story.

Then Pati meets artist Luis Sotero, a painter who unsuccessfully crossed the border. He took up painting at a shelter where he expresses his emotions of his experiences and is now an art teacher. His art is currently being displayed in shows within the United States, which he cannot attend because of his previous deportation. The harsh conditions of the desert also offer an opportunity to study growing resilient foods in ever climbing global temperatures.

Pati meets with the Tohono O’odham Nation that has for thousands of years grown the chiltepin – the mother of all chiles – which has recently grown in popularity amongst local chefs. Pati receives a lesson on why the chiltepin economics are good for local farmers, their nutritional and medicinal properties, and why they are considered the crop of the future.