Carmen Ramírez Degollado (born 1940, Xalapa) is an internationally recognized expert on traditional Mexican food, head of the El Bajío restaurants located in Mexico City.
However, when her husband died in 1981, she took over the restaurant he founded and expanded it adding dishes from her native Veracruz and other Mexican states along with the carnitas and barbacoa that he made.
Carmen Ramírez Degollado was born in 1940 in Xalapa, Veracruz, a colonial city in the mountains of the state, surrounded by nature and coffee fields.
[1][2] She was born Carmen Hernández Oropeza, but she is professionally known with her late husband’s last names, as well as the nickname “Titita.”[3][4] Carmen was raised traditionally to be a housewife and mother, which included cooking[3] She says that the women of her family, especially her mother and her aunt which raised her, were very industrious both in cooking and sewing.
Many of her childhood and adolescent memories involved food, especially the cooking of her mother and other female members of the family as well as the fruits and vegetables that grow in her native state.
She remembers going to the local market as a child and being fascinated by it, with its fresh fruits and vegetables and women in indigenous dress.
She and her sister Luchi were then raised by her mother, an aunt she called Mama Luz and a nanny by the name of Amparo.
As a teen, she was selected to compete in the Miss Red Cross pageant, representing Xalapa in Mexico City.
[1] Carmen remembers that one of her husband’s many friends was French who wanted nothing more than to be invited to the house to eat her noodle soup.
[1][5][6] In 1972, Carmen’s husband Raúl retired from the pharmaceutical business and decided to start a restaurant with a friend named Alfonso Hurtado Morellón to make barbacoa and the Michoacán style carnitas he knew growing up in Cotija[3][6] The partners found the Azcapotzalco location for sale, but Carmen was against it because it was far from their San Ángel home and it was in an industrial part of the city.
She changed the menu adding items that she had cooked for family and friends for many years as well as dishes that were specialties of her nanny Amparo, who was helping her raise her children.
[6] Motivated by the desire to preserver traditions related to Day of the Dead, she organized a dinner for the press in 1990, inviting journalists and artists, decorating the restaurant for the occasion.
[8] She has befriended much of Mexico’s artist and artisan communities and her restaurants include the works of Rodolfo Morales, Juan Alcázar, Justina Fuentes, Marisa Luisa Guerrero, Carmen Parra, Felipe Ehrenberg, Ofelia Murrieta and many more.
[7] In 2012, Carmen celebrated the 40th anniversary of the opening of the original El Bajío with family and many recognizable friends including Diana Kennedy and chefs such as Guillermo González Beristáin, Zahie Téllez, Federico López, Mark Miller and John Bagur.
[11][12] She is considered one of the most important experts on Mexican cuisine, along with Patricia Quintana, Monica Patiño and Alicia Gironella.
She taught classes for three years on Mexican cooking at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley and has worked as a consultant for various restaurants in the United States and Europe.
[2][6] She also appeared on the public service announcement series “Got Milk?” with her episode targeting the Los Angeles area.
[6] In 2001, Carmen published Alquimias y atmósferas del sabor, a book dedicated to anecdotes from her life, paying tribute to the various women of her family, including her nanny Amparo, as well as recipes from Veracruz.
[2][3] Her recognitions include a Five Star Diamond Award from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences for the El Bajío restaurant in 1998, regular invitations to participate in the Festival Annual del Centro Histórico de la Ciudad de Mexico (Annual Festival of the Historic Center of Mexico City), La Llave Empresarial award from AMAIT and ABASTUR in 2006 and 2008 and the CANIRAC entrepreneur prize in 2009.
[6] It also includes membership in the Asociación Mexicana de Restaurantes and the International Association of Chefs in the United States.