| The Incredible Culinary Adventures of Don Pedro Serrano |
By Wibke Langhorst
Pedro Serrano is a small man with a big passion: he loves to feed everything that moves.
It starts early in the morning when he is making his rounds on the market to get supplies for his two “Marlin” restaurants. He buys a big bag of freshly baked rolls and hands them out to kids, elderly people, fishmongers, truck drivers and slightly bewildered bystanders. When he is heading off for his restaurant on the Isla Ixtapa, pelicans and seagulls eagerly follow his boat. The wild deer – yes, deer! - on the island literally wag their tails when they see him arrive with his tall stack of yesterday’s tortillas, and stray dogs from all over Ixtapa gather on Playa Linda at night to greet Don Pedro and his plastic bags of leftovers with enthusiastic howls.
It comes as no great surprise then that Pedro Serrano is personally responsible for many of the authentic culinary creations of Zihuatanejo.
Legend has it that he actually invented one of my favorite Zihuatanejo things – “tiritas”, a white ceviche of finely sliced raw fish “cooked” only in fresh lime juice – when he was shipwrecked and lost at sea after a failed assassination attempt against him (!) in 1970. Young Pedro, then an inspector for the Federal Fisheries Department who had discovered several “irregularities” at the Zihuatanejo Cannery, was drifting on the open ocean for three days after sabotage had stalled all engines on his boat. With nothing to eat except for a handful of limes and a few fresh fish he and his three companions had managed to catch - but for lack of a stove or combustible material had been unable to cook - Pedro deduced from his observations of pelicans and seagulls that ingestion of raw fish did not appear to result in certain death. He sliced up the fish, drizzled it with fresh limejuice and a little sea salt and – voilá! – Zihuatanejo’s best-loved form of sashimi was born.
Not surprisingly, shortly after this rather nasty episode in his career, Don Pedro decided to opt for a less dangerous life and opened Zihuatanejo’s second restaurant, the “Marlin” on Playa La Ropa, where he fine-tuned his “tiritas” recipe by adding thinly sliced red onions and green chiles to create a dish that would later appear in Mexican cookbooks all over the world as an example of authentic Zihuatanejo cuisine.
In spite of this early success, Pedro Serrano only started to dedicate himself more seriously to the culinary arts when all of his restaurant’s employees walked out on him at once one day and left him and his wife Isabel with the option to close their business or take matters in their own hands. Completely uninhibited by formal training in the kitchen, he embarked on creating imaginative dishes that would later distinguish him as a true pioneer of Zihuatanejo cuisine. His wonderfully fragrant fish fillets “al Marlin” that are topped with a wide array of vegetables and baked in a parchment pouch have found their way to the menus of a number of local restaurants through cooks that were trained in Don Pedro’s kitchen.
Today Pedro Serrano feeds people – and animals, if you happen to have one with you – at the original “Marlin” restaurant on Playa La Ropa, set in a tree-shaded, peaceful little oasis, and the “Marlin II” on Ixtapa Island’s Playa Varadero where he still personally prepares your tiritas seven days a week.
Pedro’s daughter Maribel, who has inherited her father’s innovative culinary talents has recently begun to serve her own healthy creations at the “Marlin” on Playa La Ropa. In addition to Pedro’s flavorful seafood dishes you can now sample freshly baked whole wheat breads and pastries, delicious pies, a great selection of natural fruit juices, and unusual infusions made with organic ginger and lesser-known local plants with mildly medicinal properties.
The other day, a large land turtle wandered into the “Marlin” courtyard on Playa La Ropa and stopped right by the fountain below the kitchen window. Even before she had a chance to stick her head out from underneath her shell, she was served a handful of crisp lettuce leaves.
Eat. Resistance is futile.
“Marlin”
Restaurant
At the Southern end of Playa La Ropa
Zihuatanejo 554-3766
“Marlin II”
Playa Varadero Isla Ixtapa
December 2002
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