Alex owns and runs Caoba Farms, just outside of Antigua, Guatemala. It’s a Farm-to-Table restaurant where the tables are literally ON the farm. Best food I had in my two months in Guatemala, hands down. We talked about how he got started (growing weed in CA, then selling lettuce to restaurants back in Guatemala), why Alex loves to experiment and learn about nurturing pants and animals, and why this knowledge is so important to share. I really enjoyed hanging with this guy.
Here’s the article I discussed in the intro.
Caoba Farms on Insta.
Find me on Instagram or Twitter.
To listen to this episode, plus get access to bonus content including bonus episodes, newsletters, and exclusive blog posts, please head over to Substack.
Intro music: “Brightside of the Sun,” by Basin and Range; “Mistica,” by Orishas; “Smoke Alarm,” by Carsie Blanton.
I giggled by the end of the podcast, thinking of how probably decided to stop bothering on how Alex kept banging the table 😛
This was an interesting coincidental podcast, seeing how his business is based on catering prime organic produce to the elite restaurants of Antigua, and the latest political scandal in Mexico involved one of the top government officials in our government getting married, and celebrating an ultra lavish wedding at one of the most exclusive hotels in Antigua –because he probably thought that would get less attention from our media. It didn’t and our president got mad because he keeps admonishing public servants should live very austerely, so as a result the poor groom was ‘resigned’ before even enjoying his honey moon. Oh well…
Alex also made me think of how devious this ‘organic’ labeling of products is –someone should probably do a documentary about that– and how many are willing to spend more money for the assurance that what they are consuming is ‘more natural’ and healthier, when in reality they are just paying for an illusion. Alas, the “buy local” advice he gives is VERY difficult to follow in a city like Mexico, where the closest thing to local farmers many of us have are the weekly street markets (“tianguis”).
It’s spooky how tuned in you are. Yes, I gave up. Tried to edit out some of the bumps in post, but could only get a few. Hope it wasn’t too annoying.
Loved this interview, perhaps because Alex dropped The Biochar Solution on you. Sadly, he did not really go into the importance. Chris, you were talking about the Herzog movie; he was talking about Biochar author Albert Bates relating an account of one of Pizzaro’s groups crossing the Andes and rafting East to the mouth of the Amazon. They were supposed to map as they went (as best they could), and put in to shore to forage for survival.
The importance here is that the group nearly starved to death. The shore had plenty of food; but it also had such an abundance of muscular, unwelcoming folks that could quite obviously fend off some rando bunch of weirdos, that they could only forage when no one was around… and the natives were always around. In fact, according to this account (written by the priest along for the ride, the only literate on on the trip), the Amazon was surrounded by cities all the way down.
Bates notes that this is enormously important, since it means that estimates of native American populations could be wildly off. These estimates (about 10 million) are based on current productivity of soils, combined with some guess work on previously built areas (old cities). If Bates is correct, based on his work on a quite different means of farming, the Americas could have held closer to a billion people, which would explain the cities all the way down the Amazon.
I’d be happy to share excerpts from the book, if you wish. Keep up the great work!
—Jim