Ten Minute Cooking School: Puerco Pibil

This one I saw like an extra goodie in Once upon a time in Mexico... Well Johnny Depp loved this recipe and killed for it, and it´s really interesting to see how it´s done. In Godfellas and Godfather we saw mobsters cooking and well at least we see an director cooking, fun and fast worth watching. Robert Rodriguez is one of the best cool director´s and Once upon a time in Mexico is full of cool bonus like this one. Actually you can understand the motivations on Johnny Depp´s character after tasting this pork. Watch it, cook it, enjoy it

I've cook this dish several times and it always taste good. It takes a lot of ingredients, but it's quite simple to cook. I'm from Brazil and I like spicy food. The only thing that bothered me was to wait 4 hours until the dish is ready. But one thing I can tell: It's really worth waiting. I hope the next Robert Rodriguez movies on DVD come with a recipe like that as bonus. It's cool to watch those videos and the way Rodriguez leads us through it is a real fun. Rodriguez's recipe is nice but I can't say the same about his films. Only 4 or 5 films are worth seeing. My favorite is still "from Dusk til Dawn". I look forward to watch his segment in "sin city".

Robert Rodriguez's comment that not being able to cook is as bad as not being able to f*** is actually a crudely put truism based on the physiological and psychological pleasures enjoyed from participation in the respective recreational activities. It takes someone with at least a modicum of talent in the kitchen to be able to appreciate the sensual pleasures of the consumption of carefully prepared food (and good wine) to further appreciate the same kind of emotion generated by the intimacies of the world's oldest sporting activity! The emotions involved in both should be able to render a grown man close to tears. Sound weird? Then you aren't the kind of person that can truly appreciate the wonderful enlightenment that participation in either brings. I have cooked dishes at home that have reduced me to tears when I have sat down to eat them, and have tasted wines that have had the same effect. As regarding the fairer sex? I can only say that emotion is viewed as a strength by women, not as a weakness.

The overriding danger of having such a "cool" focus in a film like "Puerco Pibil" is that the young, uninitiated wannabes will latch on to it and denigrate the real meaning by cooking it for themselves and serving it up at their lame "Hey, I can pretend I'm really cool!" parties to try and impress their friends (for friends actually read "Hangers-on"). If you're as cool as you think you are you will cook the dish (several times) and just revel in the all-consuming emotion that is generated by the taste explosion in your mouth. You may then just want to share that feeling (as does Johnny Depp's character) with someone close.

Cool is not letting people know you think something is cool. "Puerco Pibil" is destined to become a cult dish: that can not be in doubt. But it is because it has been mentioned in a film, not because it is the most marvellous food on this planet. (Don't even go there McCorporate Death Burger!) Don't reduce Robert Rodriguez's recipe to a mere social point-scoring exercise.

Be Cool. Stay Cool.

While I haven't, myself, tried this dish(never been much for Mexican food), it certainly sounds rather tasty, and judging from other comments as well as the boards here on the site, it is. Rodriguez, with his usual energy, takes us through a recipe that sounds very interesting and goes into the right amount of detail about each step. In about half the amount of time the title puts the short's running time at, he teaches us how to cook this food, and even takes some time to give a few general tips on cooking. With a mix of hand-held and static camera, this is a little different as far as cinematography goes than the two previous Ten Minute "schools", but Rodriguez, who comes across as someone who was just about *born* with the camera in his hand, pulls it off perfectly, with nary a wrong shot or angle. The editing is crisp and smooth as always when Robert is in charge of it, and there is not a single boring moment found throughout. For anyone not terribly familiar with Rodriguez, know that he does occasionally swear, and does so a little in this, as well. On that same note, if such words offend you, you'd probably prefer not to look at the Memorable Quotes for this short. I recommend this to any fan of Rodriguez, and anyone looking for cooking tips and/or a recipe on the Mexican food that's part of the title of this. 7/10

I got this recipe back in 1/05 when I bought the film and finally made it yesterday. Fantastic. One of the best Mexican dishes I've ever eaten. At bit costly, but worth every step. I had some trouble with annatto seeds. Couldn't find them locally, but wholespice.com had them. Great website. Wholespice, if you can't the other spices, also has cloves, cumin, and allspice. It has just about every spice you can possibly think of. Banana leaves were impossible to find so I had to go on with out them. The tequila he uses is Casa Noble, which is top of the line, and runs about $50 a bottle. I also found out that if you don't want to buy coffee grinder that a mortar and pestle works great. It's cheaper and you can find them at stores like Tuesday Morning. If any of you are like me and hadn't worked with garlic much before in cooking, don't do what I did and buy eight bulbs of garlics. You'll have more garlic than you know what to do with. Buy one bulb and break it open, and inside you'll find about ten to fifteen cloves. There's your eight. I don't know what to do with my seven bulbs of garlic I have leftover. I guess I could make another batch of pibil. Enjoy.