Early on in his professional life, Jean Mendieta was a project manager helping farms in Nicaragua start and sustain their own tourism programs. He then came to the United States to live with his now-wife and be closer to her family. He took a restaurant job because it was the only work he could find.
Now, he is a private chef, cooking mostly at pop-up events and for small groups using ancient and Indigenous Mesoamerican methods along with ingredients he has grown on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley. Through the project, called Proyecto Xilonen, he wants to educate Utahns about the diversity of precolonial food in North America.
“I want people to learn more about the importance of this culture — squash, beans and corn and what other things we can do with that,” Mendieta said. “Nowadays, people don’t know much about these ingredients and how they can utilize them, and how they can eat [them]. But they’ve been using [them] for thousands of years, so the variety that you can make with [them], it’s huge.”
Mendieta grows many of his ingredients on small plots in West Valley City and in west Salt Lake City’s Glendale neighborhood.
Proyecto Xilonen, along with nine other small groups, is a part of a Salt Lake City Hall microgrant program that aims to boost residents’ access to fresh, healthy, local food. A handful of other west-side projects also received small grants, including two others with international roots: ‘Aikona and the New American Goat Club.
Like Proyecto Xilonen, ‘Aikona and the New American Goat Club were founded with a focus on connecting Utahns to international food traditions, farming techniques and ingredients.
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