Meet Your Post-Taco Mexican Food Ambassador

Eva Longoria talks food and her new show, Searching for Mexico, on Longer Tables

The first word that comes to my mind when I think of Eva Longoria is glamorous. She’s one of those people who you think couldn’t live anywhere but Hollywood.

But Eva is anything but a typical Hollywood star. For one, she LOVES to eat. As she told me on my show, she and her family were eating locally and seasonally on their ranch in Texas long before that was a thing in America. (Her mom would sometimes sneak out on a Friday night and get the family Domino’s Pizza as a treat, ensuring that they threw out the boxes in a neighbor’s trashcan so her dad wouldn’t discover they were not “eating off the land.”)

Eva has translated that love of food into some amazing projects. She has a food history podcast, Hungry For History, and a new TV show, Searching For Mexico, which she is determined will make quesillo (the delicious Oaxacan cheese) and nopales (cactus) as beloved as the tacos she grew up eating in Texas.

And if anyone can do it, it’s Eva. Just wait till you hear her talk about the mix of history and culinary innovation that brought us cochinita pibil, suckling pig that is slow roasted in banana leaves that is a specialty of the Yucatan. It’s going to make you VERY hungry.

She’s also got other projects on the move—including, in June, the release of “Flamin’ Hot,” a feature film she directed that debuts on Hulu. So tune in to Longer Tables. And while you’re at it, subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.