As a child growing up in Mexico City, Adriana Torres' parents instilled in her an appreciation for good food and for travel. As she grew, she began to be interested in the connections between culture and cuisine.

Later, she would marry a Korea-born Hawai'i man whom she met at a French restaurant in Mexico City after she moved back there from a time of living in Paris. And now she's in Hawai'i (her husband is Kevin Chong, sous chef at Chef Mavro restaurant), learning about Asian and Island foods and teaching others about the food and customs of her homeland.

And, just as happens with kama'aina who move elsewhere, she's also a little "foodsick" — missing those comfort foods you just can't get thousands of miles away.

Like esquites (es-KEE-tays), a classic Mexican street food characteristic of corn-obsessed southern and central Mexico. It's made by caramelizing corn on the cob or corn kernels in butter, then seasoning it with epazote (Mexican tea herb), chilies and lots of lime juice. Mexicans like to doctor the esquites with more lime juice, chili powder or dried chilies, crumbled cheese, mayonnaise, salt or pepper — whatever they prefer. Torres' eyes twinkle as she recalls wandering Mexico's streets munching on a little cup of fresh, hot, spicy esquites while window-shopping.

"It's sooooo goood, so cheap and it's extremely simple. That's one of the things I miss the most," she said.

Another is puerco al pastor — pork, shepherd's style. While esquites can be made at home, al pastor is strictly street and restaurant food, and it's a culinary art form. The dish resembles the Middle Eastern specialty shawarma. Thinly sliced pork steaks are marinated in spicy chili adobo sauce and then skewered, one on top of the other, to form a huge, tightly packed, roughly rectangular mass of meat known as a trompo. A trompo can weigh as much as 200 pounds, Torres said.

The skewer is topped with — of all things — a pineapple, then fitted into a stand next to an open flame; the dripping juice of the pineapple flavors and tenderizes the meat. With great skill, the tenders keep the trompo rotating so that the meat cooks and sizzles but never burns. When the outermost layer is done, they use a sharp knife to carve off thin, juicy slices of meat, deftly catching the meat in a fresh tortilla and handing it over to the customer while keeping the trompo rotating so it cooks evenly. The al pastor is served in a small corn tortilla, topped with cilantro, onion and salsa and disappears in two bites; four or five are considered a serving.

"It's so much fun to watch them," Torres said. "I would kill to have a trompo here."

Instead, Torres has to content herself with the dishes she prepares for her husband and friends, and for cooking classes she will be teaching at Kapi'olani Community College starting this week.

After she graduated from high school, Torres' interest in food translated itself into a degree in gastronomy from Universidad del Claustro de Sur Juana, a convent school where she studied both practical culinary skills and front of the house management, but also food history and food writing. "I liked it because it was very well-rounded; we were not always in the kitchen," she recalled.

Soon, however, she was in the kitchen as corporate chef for the local distributors of Krupp and T-Fal kitchenware. "That was really fun. We had our own kitchen, a large, home-style kitchen, and I would make classes for 15 to 20 people at a time," she said. Every six months, she would host a culinary festival at a local department store, doing demonstrations.

With the frenzied pace of living in a city of 22 million people, with literally thousands of street food stalls and many sophisticated fine-dining restaurants, many younger Mexicans, like young Americans, don't cook much. But there is a lot of interest in learning about the food of other cultures, she said, just as there is here.

Torres said the food of Mexico is fusion food, with maiz (corn), peppers and tomatoes from the indigenous Indians and dairy foods and cooking techniques adopted from the Spaniards who colonized the country. The food is also highly regional, with wheat-flour tortillas preferred in the north and corn tortillas popular in central and southern Mexico, she said. Each region has its specialties: moles and chocolate in Oaxaca; seafood, pork and achiote marinades from Yucatan; fish tacos from Baja; heavier beef dishes in the north.

In her kitchen, and in her classes, Torres borrows from each: "Although I am from Mexico City, I love all of the food from my country."

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.