We Flew to OAXACA MEXICO for the Food 

Buenos días from Oaxaca City, Mexico! This has been a BIG item on Eva's bucket list. What place should we travel to next in order to try the food?

I’m impressed by Eva’s Spanish skills. Really goes to show that the Spanish and Italian languages are close cousins.

In rural Washington where I grew up, the local Mexican community was primarily from Oaxaca, and I loved their food. When I moved to San Diego, I discovered Baja Mexican, which is so entirely different, and now that I live in Texas, the local Mexicans in my area come mostly from Hidalgo. Each of these cuisines are so different, they don't use the same cheeses, the same cuts of meat, the same salsas, or the same breads, and they are all delicious... that said, I am homesick for Oaxacan food.

That plate of tomatoes looked amazing! We Italians have Mexico to thank for the tomato since domestication of the wild plant points to the Aztecs and other peoples in Mesoamerica. Grazie Messico!

I am sobbing just seeing you guys enjoy Mexican food… every Mexican culture appreciation makes me really happy

I heard someone say once that the key to romance is finding someone you enjoy eating with. I wasn’t sure what they meant but looking at Harper and Eva flying to Mexico just to try the food together, now I get it.

I love Eva’s enthusiasm, open mind, and excitement when she discovers new and great food. She made me smile all through the video. 🥰

It warms my heart that you two focus more on the heart of the culture rather than the flash. Brava!!!

Can I just say you guys are probably my favorite RU-vid creators.

This is very timely and I salute you for showing the wonderful people culture, and food in Oaxaca! Edit: the stuff you called “lye” is not lye. It is lime, or “cal”. It is used for a lot of things, and it’s what was put on the comal (the white, floury looking stuff) to help keep the tortillas from sticking when you cook. The process of using the cal for making the dried corn edible is called nixtamalization, and is super important to reduce mycotoxins and to free up stores of niacin (B3), which in turn prevents a disease called pellagra.

I LOVE OAXACA! One of the best Italian meals I've ever had I had in Oaxaca, cooked by an Italian ExPat. A grilled octopus with some sort of amazing sauce! Everyone should have the opportunity to experience this wonderful city at least once in their lives. It is SAFE, culturally interesting and wonderful beyond belief in so many ways! The markets, the arts, everything just exceeds the imagination!!!

Having an Italian American background on my mom's side of the family and growing up in an area with a large Hispanic population I've always noted that the two cultures are pretty similar in a lot of ways especially in terms of the importance of food, approach to festivities, religion, family and language. So I'm really excited to see Eva experience the culture and food on this video !!! Thank you for sharing 💓

THANK YOU so much for paying respect to Mexican food, especially the rich culture of the state of Oaxaca! Watching your videos I always draw comparisons between southern Italy and aspects of Mexican culture, so I love seeing you both experience our cuisine! Eva’s Spanish is excellent! Also, cafe de olla is very delicious, sweetened with piloncillo (sugar cane), and worth trying!

I know this is supposed to be an Italian themed channel, but this is by far Eva and Harpers best video yet!

I’m Salvadoran and we share many dishes and traditions with the rest of Mesoamérica, including Gigantonas (those big dancing street puppets), tamales, chocolate, quesillo, chiles rellenos, the use of pumpkin seeds and many other things.

Los felicito por este bellísimo video. Gracias por apreciar las costumbres y la comida autóctonas de Oaxaca. Gracias por su respeto.

Now that you live in Arizona, more Mexican content would be cool. Eva would likely really enjoy exploring more regional foods, and it would be fun to watch.

The watery hot chocolate made me think of the book "Like Water for Chocolate" a Mexican novel. The emotions of the sister who cooks for the family are transmitted in her dishes to those who eat them. A great corollary to Pasta Grammar.

It warms my heart to see Eva appreciating Mexican culture and cuisine. I'm telling you, Mexico and Italy are long-lost siblings, and they're finding each other on this channel. Eva speaks Spanish so naturally. It was nice to see her find Italian traces here and there; the festival, the sausages... Mexicans and Italians need to come together more often. Thank you for this wonderful video. What a wonderful coming together of cultures! Even the flags are similar! 🇮🇹🇲🇽

I was born in Oaxaca, but now live in Texas. I’ve always loved Italian food, but I was always specially drawn to the spicier southern Italian flavors. A few years ago I found out my father’s family originated from Sicily, so it makes sense why I was drawn to it. I am happy that Eva enjoys my home state’s cuisine, as a southern Italian herself, just how I, a native Oaxacan enjoy her region’s cuisine. Much love from Texas

Am watching this in Oaxaca & am so pleased to see you enjoying our food. Mexican culture is so diverse & that is reflected in our cuisine. The last time I was in the United States, a friend took me out to eat at what she called the BEST Mexican restaurant around....I almost wept at what passed for Mexican food there. I imagine my feelings were much as yours are when you see what passes for Italian food there😪

Soy Mexicana. Thank you for going and appreciating the people, culture and the food. This actually made me emotional. ❤️

The joy in Eva's face with each bite. Me gusto mucho!

Oaxaca has the BEST food in Mexico, no doubt, so glad you tried it ❤🇲🇽

The food looked amazing... great move on getting a local guide that gave you the experience of a local... and that tortilla press looked insane...

I am from El Salvador and I remember going across the street where we lived there was a woman who cooked tortillas the same way Minerva cooked hers, the flavor is unforgettable.

Yeeeeei! I loved this video! I really enjoyed how you guys went for the real food. Of all México, Oaxaca has one of the most diverse, intense, beautiful, tasty, surprising and colorful foods. Also, if you go to Puebla, yo can have another famous mole "mole poblano", that has peanuts and chocolate in it; and also lots of baroque dishes and also lots of bread. And in Yucatán the food is totally different, but equally diverse, fresh, spiced (with spices and with chile) and funky. We really have good food all over this country. 💖

Eva is holding her laughter and smile because she is very impressed and likes it. It's a form of stubbornness of admitting it's really good.

Water and LYE…Oh my!!! These are my favorite types of travel and food videos - when you meet the indigenous local people. Another excellently produced video!

Your value is the food qualities that you represent for the rest of us to learn. Well done!

I saw "Oaxaca" and automatically had to click and watch this video! I'm from another state but I grew up in Oaxaca! And yes, there's a lot of great food there... quesillo, chorizo, memelas, tlayudas, chapulines, literally everything.

That "pizza" from the street vendor looks absolutely delicious! Wow.

Great vid! Tomatoes were introduced to Italy in 1548. The Mesoamericans had them about 500 B.C. or 2000 years before since they are native there. The original species had fruit varying from the size of a pea to a small grape, far smaller than even our cherry tomatoes today. Their flavor was more concentrated and tart. They did not milk any animals in the earliest times so there is pretty much zero chance they had any pizza-like dishes, having no dairy-type cheese. And we remember our history, Naples-type Margarhita, tricolor pizza dates only to 1889 while New York pizza is just 16 years younger from 1905.

I believe that simple foods are often the most satisfying. Great video, nice to see you two enjoying other cultures.

VIVA MEXICO!!!!..Love it there..and food A++++....lots to do every day!..Thanks for the video.

you two have such magnetic personalities and your mutual respect and love of pure delicious food of all kinds is just perfection in a cooking show. really - i have never come across such a fascinating duo on youtube. you are top tier and your videos are interesting, informative, fun and char. thank you SO much for your channel and the work you put out!

OAXACA IS AWESOME!!! So glad y'all made the trip, so worth it!!

It was such a treat to see you guys in my home country 🇲🇽 You chose one of the best places for Mexican food. 💜

Dios mio! Thank you Sr. Harper y Sra. Eva. Am from Morelos, Mexico, I have been here many many years. By far You folks have given the RU-vid world True authentic southern Mexican food, pozole, atole, chocolate verdadero, and masa de molino para tortillas, just like My grandmother made for us at her house. Again thank You so much for this video of food I us to eat as a child.

We grilled at work today. I work construction in Arizona. It was Carne Asada, and pollo. rice and beans. All the side salsas.... Pico, roja, verde, and guacamole. Grilled onions and fresh sliced radishes. Corn and flour tortillas. Grilled corn. I ate 2 large plates and when that was accomplished had a quesadilla with Oaxacan cheese that was handed to me hot off a comal...its a great cheese, perfect for quesadillas for those who don't know.

I am glad you guys did it. I am sure being an american and an italian our food in Mexico was totally unsuspected, unpredictable and it is simply AMAZING for foreigners. My favorite one is the oaxacan chorizo you tried at the market and of course the mole variety you tried. The comment you made about the tlayuda spot in that corner makes me believe you truly got what mexican food is all about: honesty, flavour, simplicity, rawness and richness.

Thanks for appreciating Oaxaca. I'm from Mexico and it's delightful that foreigners get interested in my country! 💫

Su siguiente parada debe ser Yucatán. La comida yucateca también es deliciosa. Gracias por visitar México 🇲🇽

My aunt is from Oaxaca. I love coming over for dinner.

Looks like Eva feels quite at home in Mexico😁

I remember hunting for chapulines in Puebla when I first started dating my now wife. I really need to go back. The tears just started flowing remembering the Mercado in Amozoc. I'm so glad you enjoyed your trip to Oaxaca, please announce your next trips to the Tierra del Sol!

Love, love this episode. While in nursing school, I spent one semester in Oaxaca with a wonderful host family. This brought back so many special memories.❤

I'm so glad y'all got to go to Oaxaca. The food and the people are really hermoso.

I love that you guys are starting to do this and eating foods that are other than just Italian! There’s so many wonderful cultures and food ways in the world!

Oaxaca food is amazing but Mexico in general has some of the best food in the world and it varies by region, every state has a different gastronomy in Mexico. Mexico it’s a world on its own. Great video!

What a fantastic video!!! I sit in London on a very grey day and watch you enjoying all those lovely delicacies. I would love to go to Mexico but at 67 years old feel it is out of my reach. However, I am very pleased you both had such an enjoyable time. Thanks for sharing.

I'm a half-Mexican-American guy who grew up in Southern California and the border region of Texas, so I'm most familiar with Northern Mexican and Tex-Mex, which were part of my daily diet. I currently live in Sri Lanka, and the thing I crave the most, that I miss the most, is Mexican food. Whenever I fly home, whomever picks me up at the airport knows that the very first thing I want to do, before going home and showering even, is have some Mexican food. Thus far none of my friends or family have dared to insist we do otherwise, and heaven help him/her who does so in the future. I'm able to do a little Mexican cooking here, as there are some ingredients in common, but some very basic ingredients (masa for example) can't be found. So I do my poor best here, but as soon as I board that first flight in Colombo, Mexican food is all I think about. I'm so happy that you guys enjoy the food so much, bu then again, I'm not surprised.

You two are precious honestly!! Also Eva speaking spanish was awesome!! Can't wait for your next trip, always a pleasure watching you!

The best mole I’ve had was in Oaxaca. I had this mole negro tamal that was huge I had to split it between my friends. Oaxaca was one of the best food places I’ve visited. Enjoy your trip!

This was a lot of fun to watch, learning different cultures and how they cook is so interesting. If you use good fresh ingredients it could be simple but taste amazing. Everything looked wonderful.

Thanks. I’m going to Oaxaca tomorrow. Great video. I wish you all the best life possible.

México hermoso I miss you 😭

I must share some of my memories of Oaxaca that this video brought back to me. I took my last Spanish class for Spanish, which was one of my majors, through a program at my college where you go to Mexico for a month with one of the professors who would teach whatever class you needed. We stayed in Mexico City for a week sight-seeing then went to Oaxaca where we stayed with local families. We would have classes in the morning, and then we would often go sight-seeing as a group, or we would roam the city. After the professor, I was the best Spanish-speaker on the trip so if you hung out with me, it was an adventure. 1. The grasshoppers/chapulines. The professor gave us a list of things of which he suggested we do as many of them as we could - take a taxi somewhere by yourself, haggle with a vendor, etc. I was often the first to do things including stuff not on the list like take the metro to the bus station to go to Puebla where I visited a family I stayed with during a high school interchange. In Oaxaca, it was try grasshoppers. In el Mercado Benito Juarez, there was a little girl with a big bowl of them that we could try free samples of. I joked that Oaxacans don't actually eat grasshopper - they just pretend they do, and the vendors would take bets on which gringos (Oaxaca has a lot of independent Spanish-language schools) would eat the grasshoppers first. (I also maintain this is true of escargot in France). 😁 I later felt somewhat validated in this because I found (and bought) a shirt that said in Spanish, "I Ate Grasshoppers in Oaxaca, Mexico." The shirt had a cartoon Americanized grasshopper on it - wearing expensive looking sneakers, a fanny pack, and ball cap. I was in fact wearing expensive sneakers, a fanny pack, and ball cap when I bought it. 2. We were there during the Guelaguetza - a city wide festival that has different things going on during the entire month of July including the titeres (large costumes/puppets). We first came across them at night about a block from the Santo Domingo church you showed. They were just practicing moving with no music, their steps echoing on the cobblestones bathed in eerie orange glow that came from light reflecting off of nearby walls. We got pictures with some of them, including an 8-year-old wearing a costume that was about five feet tall, which enabled us to give the costume bunny-ears like the Americans we are. 3. The one dish I wish you had gotten to try was chilies en nogada - essentially stuffed peppers but with a creamy walnut sauce with pomegranate seeds in it. I believe it's mostly in season during the Guelaguetza. I ate it as much as possible and up to a few years ago, I could still imagine the taste. I don't know why that has faded from my memory, but alas it has. 4. More than a quarter of a century later, I'm still good friends with the Mexican-American woman on the trip that I secretly was dating (we didn't want anyone to feel weird around us), and it was funny when we went out together because she looked like a native, and people would talk to her, and she would turn to me to translate. 5. We went to several archeological parks including Monte Alban, which had the best pyramids for the Slinky I brought on the trip with me. 😆 Thanks for this video, and I hope I didn't bore you with this love letter.

You need to checkout the beaches in Oaxaca. Puerto Escondido, Huatulco, Puerto Angel. The water is gorgeous and the people are amazing.

Street food and the local joints are almost always the memorable experiences in any culture.

Thank you for sharing your experiences in Oaxaca. If there was confusion about the tomatoes with Minerva it's because in Mexico, the red tomato = jitomate and tomatillos = tomate. And yes Eva, the freshly ground corn tortillas are so much better than what we typically find in the states.

Oaxacan here. The question about bread lol, we eat it for breakfast and dinner with coffee or hot cocoa. That’s why there’s a lot of it haha. Normally with Tlayudas they have more toppings and more meats but I’m glad you guys tried a form of it.

I live in LA-Los Angeles has the largest Oaxacan community in the U.S., I’m surprised you hadn’t tried crickets and moles while you lived here. This was a great video, thank you for sharing 😊

It is so funny to see Oaxaca as a travel destination. Back 35 years ago my Spanish professor (said with the correct accent) in high school went there to help because they were really not doing well. Starvation and living in very bad conditions was all over. Now, tourists go there to visit which I think is amazing.

A suggestion for Eva from an Italian that went to a ton of other places in the world! If you want good true Italian espresso coffee in places that don’t have good espresso just go to a McDonald, they all have at least one Lavazza coffee machine and Lavazza’s capsules! That cheap trick will save your mornings! ❤

street food is the best food my boy ALWAYS!!! cheap and delicious cant go wrong.

Some of my favorite meals are the simplest dishes. Respect the ingredients and you can make marvelous things. Now I gotta go visit Oaxaca haven't been there in ages.

im tearing up. what a wonderfulful meeting of cultures.

A large percentage of people in Mexico do use instant coffee for their breakfast. Also, kind of amazing that you didn't get hit with Moctezuma's revenge.

I’m really proud of my country Mexico, our traditions and food. Also I’m a Italian food love but Mexican food is the love of my life, you are really lucky to enjoy with Minerva the real experience of prehispanic food. I was so happy to saw you both enjoy your visit. And our food 💕

I never thought I'd consider trying insects. But seeing how enthusiastic you both were, inc Harper comparing the taste to sardine, I'll be open if I get to Mexico one day!

This reminds me of pre-RU-vid Travel Channel shows. I really miss the days when TV was so good;)

I love this video so much! I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to see you both visit Mexico, and Oaxaca is on my bucket list of places. If you ever get a chance to visit Mexico City, take a short trip to Teotihuacan and see the pyramids of the Moon and Sun. They are magnificent and the food and markets there are phenomenal too!!

@12:24 "I´m probably pronouncing it wrong, my apologies", nope Harper, every single Spanish word that came out of your mouth was perfect!!! I´m Mexican and I was really impressed, yes of course you have a slight accent but the pronunciation was spot on!! you did a great job, and by the way thanks for appreciating our culture, I´ve never been to Oaxaca myself and I feel ashamed for not having been there yet, you guys make me learn more about my own country and culture, New subscriber here, you guys are awesome , keep up the good work!!

I would love to go to Mexico and experience all the awesome food and culture. I wouldn’t know how to pronounce the names of the foods and drinks either 🥺 loved the video guys

My daughter lived in Oaxaca last year for six months. She loved it, not just the amazing food but the wonderful lifestyle. I really want to go, even just for a week!

Wow Eva speaks great Spanish! Spanish and Italian are sister languages

Jesus Christ, her hair is EPIC! It deserves it's own RU-vid channel.

Can you please visit Perú? My father is from Meta di Sorrento but I was born in Perú and believe me, we have AMAZING food! If you ever come to visit I'd be delighted to be your guide

I looooove Mexico! I've only ever been to Oaxaca and CDMX, but both I loved!❤

Guys I hope you practised enough spanish in Mexico to speak with me in about a month and in the next tour hahaha. See you soon!

Im so happy and honored to watch this video. You guys are amazing, Eva's Spanish is awesome and they way you treat the food, the people and the culture with so much respect, it just make me very happy, thank you.

I Love her reaction with the Domino's pizza "no way forget it not pizza" That's how I feel when I see taco bell Not TACOS

I’ve been to Oaxaca and took a cooking class there . We made mole and put it over chicken, also made a nopal salad. I love Oaxaca.

Complimenti! Video bellissimo

Eva needs no words. That hand tells the entire story

Great video..Eva's Spanish is wonderful. So many similarities between Italy and Mexico. Glad you both had a great trip.

As a brazilian I feel pride in the cuisine and culture of our mexican cousins! A cuisine that even a hardcore italian foodie like Eva can appreciate! Just a short note, we also have those giant puppets in Brazil. They are very traditional in the city of "Olinda" in the Pernambuco state, in northeastern Brazil. About the "chapulines", my first reaction is to think about my favorite superhero of all! El Chapulin Colorado!

I’m Blessed by GOD

I'm so glad you chose to visit Oaxaca. I'm from Juarez Mexico, and Oaxaca is known to have the very best food in all of Mexico because of all the different ingredients you can't find anywhere else. Thank you. I love this video. I loved Eva's Spanish, and yours too. Love you both❤️❤️🙏🙏

Points in common between Italy and Mexico: - Flag colours - Beautiful nature - Long culinary tradition that has been popularised and butchered worldwide - Uncomfortable, not so humble neighbours in the North border (with similar flag colours too) ...any more suggestions?

Holy mole. I haven’t been in years and I can still taste most of the food you showed. I gotta go back soon

I like the look on Ava's face when U know she really likes something

Thanks for sharing the authentic Mexican dishes you were able to experience!

Love your videos Eva is awesome! Harper your a lucky man and very smart , love you both 😊😊😊

The people of Mexico work sooooo hard.

It’s not a pizza, it was original before Pre-Colonial before pizza was created it’s an Aztec food.

haven't watched yalls channels in too long .. I LOVE THIS VIDEO!!!!!!

5:58. Eva, come tutti i veri italiani, anche per quanto riguarda il “caffè italiano”, fuori dall’Italia non è mai tanto entusiasta. 😅

11:00 watching his smile made me feel sooo good! These two really warm your heart.