Over the 4th of July 1997, Rick and Deann Bayless took 35 Frontera/Topolobampo co-workers on their 8th staff trip to Mexico, this time to the state of Tabasco. Besides being the namesake of America’s biggest selling hot sauce (though one that’s made in the United States), Tabasco is little known—even in Mexico. It’s sandwiched in between the Gulf state of Veracruz and the Caribbean Yucatan, it is the stretch of land botanists tell us that gave birth to the first cacao (chocolate) trees, and it’s the land of the ancient Olmecs (the oldest civilization in the Americas).

With such ancient credentials, you’d expect a tourist mecca, but few ever explore the massive Olmec heads at Parque La Venta. Or journey to the cacao plantations and processing plants. Or have rustic picnics of Tabasco’s famous wood-grilled gar fish, overlooking the lake where they’d just been caught.

That’s what the Fronterans did. In fact, accompanied by Ricardo Muñoz and his mother, that ranch picnic was the culinary highlight of the trip. They served the gar (pejelagarto in Spanish) with the region’s typical 1/4-inch-thick tortillas of course ground corn and yuca and a wonderfully bitey habanero chile relish. Then came the traditional pudding-style tamales steamed in banana leaves, a river turtle stew with green plantain and malanga, and great poached fruit to finish up.

At the magnificently landscaped tropical home of one of Tabasco’s chocolate magnates, Sra. Gloria Bulnes prepared a Tabascan feast centered around Chirmol de Res (a rustic beef stew with ancho chile and pumpkin seeds) and Tamales de Chipilín (banana leaf-wrapped tamales studded with a popular local herb). What wowed the group the most: sweet chayote pudding with a crunchy crumb top.

With lingering memories of the huge river prawns (piguas) awash in roasted garlic, wonderfully rich plantain fritters dusted with pungent Tabascan cheese, dish after dish featuring wild greens, and the best Mexican chocolate in Mexico (made from fermented Neocriollo beans), the trip ended at Mexico’s most spectacular ruins. Palenque, in the state of Chiapas, has been carved from the rain forest that engulfed it for centuries, many of the structures carefully reconstructed. It’s as spiritual a place as any on earth. A perfect ending to a perfect trip.