James Beard Award-winning chef Pati Jinich is focused on forging bonds between Mexico and America, her two beloved countries. As the star of PBS’s “Pati’s Mexican Table,” “La Frontera,” and “Panamericana” (which premiered in April 2025), Jinich has become a cultural ambassador whose love language, as she says, is food.
In the new docuseries, Jinich follows the route inspired by the Pan-American Highway, her epic adventure spotlighting the entwined histories of the countries, using food as a medium to celebrate and explore culture and connection — concepts that began at home.
Jinich’s family is deeply rooted in the culinary world — her sister Alisa, a talented pastry chef, will appear on “Pati’s Mexican Table.” “My three sisters are all better cooks than me. They’re so incredible. I’m the baby, and I learn something new every time I see them,” Jinich said.
Season 14 of “Pati’s Mexican Table” will be in Mexico City, Jinich’s hometown, while “La Frontera” explores the US-Mexico border from San Diego and Tijuana to Brownsville. “It was fascinating and prompted my desire to create this new docuseries called ‘Panamericana,’ which is coming soon. We are taking the Pan-American Highway as an inspiration for a journey that connects the entirety of the Americas — the top of Alaska to the bottom of Argentina; we celebrate our diversity and find our connections as Americans who live in this hemisphere. It’s been one fascinating journey,” said Jinich.
On paper, Jinich could have been a D.C. analyst or diplomat. With a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from Georgetown University and a career at a policy research center in Washington, D.C., Jinich soon pivoted to food after becoming disillusioned with her political work.
“I wanted to be an academic, working in a think tank in Mexico City and Washington, D.C. But I got frustrated, year after year, conference after conference — it didn’t matter how many meetings you organize, how many times you get people with opposing views to sit at the table when there’s gridlock — people get so stubborn. I was missing food so much and felt that my work wasn’t making any impact,” she explained.
So she made a change, resigning from her position and enrolling in cooking school.
“Through food and recipes and sharing as a Mexican [living in the USA]I could contribute to understanding Mexicans in the U.S. and building bridges — even if people have the idea, ‘we don’t want or like Mexicans,’ then when they love the tacos and the tortilla soup and learn about the traditions and the history, there’s that willingness to accept the other. That’s why I switched, and I haven’t looked back,” Jinich said.
Raising her three sons in the U.S. has reinforced her belief in the strength of dual cultural identities. A self-described “proud Mexican who loves Mexico,” Jinich also loves the United States, and says that she’s held both close by “feeding this doubly-rooted tree.”
“There’s no contradiction with being both simultaneously. In this era especially, people tend to want to define you. ‘Are you American or are you Mexican? Are you white? Are you black?’ But we are all these rich kaleidoscopes,” she explained.
Jinich’s culinary philosophy also draws inspiration from her Jewish heritage, as her family emigrated from Europe to Mexico. She often speaks about how the migration story — her own and that of others — shapes her understanding of food.
“Mexican cuisine and Mexico as a country continue to develop, evolve, and thrive. The Chinese food in Baja, even the Taco al Pastor, came to exist because of the Lebanese community that settled in Mexico,” she said. “I come from a long line of immigrants who had to flee to survive and find safety. Since humans have existed, humans have migrated. Migration brings richness in every possible way; they don’t take any opportunity for granted and work so hard, bringing their cultural, culinary, and historical treasures. Migrants enrich the place where they land.”
In all her television efforts, the overriding message Jinich hopes you savor — along with her most downloaded recipes for tortilla soup, Birria-style tacos, and carnitas — is the willingness to keep an open mind, both in the palate and the heart.