Pueblos del Maíz marks its fifth year this weekend, and the festival running from Thursday, Sept. 24 through Sunday, Sept. 27 has some special feels about it.
There’s the return of the opening night collaborative dinner — it wasn’t part of last year’s event — with a more affordable price tag than previous years, says Jonathan Mabry, executive director of festival organizer Tucson City of Gastronomy.
The popular cooking demonstrations and tastings return to the Pima Community College Kitchen at the Desert Vista Campus. Admission is free, but attendance is capped at 75, making this one of the festival’s hottest tickets.
And the legendary Mexican rock band Los Apsón will once again headline the daylong Fiesta del Maíz Saturday at Kennedy Park.
“Three years ago, Los Apsón played and we had 4,000 people show up,” Mabry said of the Agua Prieta, Sonora, rock band that has been performing since the 1960s. “They played almost ‘til midnight because they were having so much fun.”
Pueblos del Maíz returns this weekend, Sept. 24-27, for a series of discussions, tasting opportunities and cooking demonstrations that celebrate the region’s rich cultural and culinary history rooted in corn.
Over the next four days, Tucson will turn its attention to corn, a grain deeply rooted in the region’s historical and culinary history.
It’s a history that Tucson, the U.S.’s first UNESCO City of Gastronomy, shares with the cities of gastronomy in San Antonio, Texas; Merida, Mexico; and Bergamo, Italy.
Five years ago, Mabry and the nonprofit Tucson City of Gastronomy that he leads launched the festival with San Antonio and Merida; Bergamo came along in 2024.
“One of the things that we've done every year with this festival … is to increase awareness of the threats to corn biodiversity from GMO corns and climate change,” Mabry said, highlighting the panel discussion “Saving Ancient Seeds to Feed Us Tomorrow” on Saturday that deep-dives into the issue.
“This is an amazing lineup of people. (Xóchitl Valdés) who is coming from Merida, Mexico, has a restaurant where she focuses on using heirloom corn varieties of the Yucatan region in Mexico to help those producers and to preserve those traditional varieties, and she's going to be talking about that initiative.”
Foodies packed the Carriage House for the 2023 festival's closing dinner, presented by the Gastronomic Union of Tucson. Chefs from Tucson and guest chefs from Mexico, San Antonio and Italy will collaborate on this year’s version, “Noche de las Tres Hermanas,” on Sunday.
Valdés will share the stage Saturday with:
— Alexandra Zamecnic, executive director of Tucson’s Native SEEDS/SEARCH, discussing how maize seeds from the desert Southwest and Mexico are being conserved and shared to prevent their replacement by GMO corns.
— Antonio Rottigini, cofounder of Italy’s Slow Mays initiative that has revived centuries-old maize farming and stone-milling and reconnected communities with their heritage while building local food security.
— Farm manager Duran Andrews will look at how San Xavier Cooperative Farm strengthens Tohono O’odham agricultural traditions, community connections and the cultivation of traditional food crops.
The free discussion is from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Tucson Museum of Art’s Baker Education Center in the Stonewall Community Room, 140 N. Main Ave.
Festival’s teaching moments
Pueblos del Maíz opens Thursday with a tour of Native Seed/SEARCH’s seed lab, seed bank and conservation gardens, 3584 E. River Road. The non-profit, founded in the early 1980s, conserves and shares heritage seeds from the desert Southwest and Mexico to ensure arid-adapted crops may “benefit communities and nourish a changing world.”
Tours are from 9-10:30 a.m. Thursday and Friday, and while admission is free, you need to RSVP at pueblosdelmaiz.com.
— Hang out in the kitchen Friday with Tucson City of Gastronomy Chef Ambassadors Aris Cabrera and Angela Garcia as they demonstrate recipes that incorporate maiz. But this is more than just watching Garcia and Cabrera, who traveled to Bergamo, Italy, earlier this month to represent Tucson at their festival. It’s a chance to chat with the chefs about their dishes and how culinary heritage can connect communities.
“Maiz Cooking Demonstrations” will be from 4–5:30 p.m. at Pima Community College Kitchen, 4905 E. Broadway on the Desert Vista Campus. Admission is free but there’s only room for about 75 people. RSVP through pueblosdelmaiz.com.
Los Apsón returns to headline this year’s Fiesta del Maíz at Kennedy Park on Saturday, Sept. 26.
Fiesta del Maíz!
Mabry is probably most proud of the annual Fiesta del Maíz, the daylong community festival that focuses on food, culture and all things Tucson.
There will be local food vendors — El Perro Loco Hotdogs, Juice ‘N’ Fruit Raspados, Divine Lemonade, Churros El Rey, Lumbre Pizza, Kettlelicious, Nieves De Garrafa, Bisou Burger, Masad Coffee, Apacheria Cukson and Popovers y Tacos — and chef demonstrations by a trio of visiting chefs from Tucson’s sister Cities of Gastronomy.
In addition to headliner Los Apsón, there will be performances by Mariachi Aztlan De Pueblo, La Nueva OndA, Southern Scratch, Ballet Folklorico Tapatio, Calpolli Teoxicalli and Mariachi Los Toritos de White Elementary.
“It’s our big event during the festival every year, a free community celebration of borderlands culture,” Mabry said. “There's great food, live music, all sorts of family-friendly activities. We may be the only festival in Southern Arizona that does not charge the food and craft vendors any fees at all.”
Mabry said they received a $10,000 grant from Ward 1 that was voted on by residents that helps them to keep the entry and admission fees free.
The fiesta runs from 3-8 p.m. at the southwest side Kennedy Park, 3357 S. La Cholla Blvd. Details at pueblodelmaiz.com.
Nearly 4,000 people showed up the first time Los Apsón headlined Fiesta del Maíz, the free daylong community festival held at Kennedy Park. The band is back this weekend.
Finally, let’s eat!
Pueblos del Maíz opens and closes around a table.
On Thursday, five of Tucson’s most notable chefs will share their signature dishes at Sabores del Pueblo, from 6-9 p.m. at the newly opened Tucson GastroPark, 1625 E. Broadway.
“These are some of the hottest chefs in Tucson right now,” Mabry said. “There's two James Beard nominees. The new chef at Sawmill Run is doing very interesting things with their menu up on Mount Lemmon, and then there’s Devon (Sanner) and Travis (Peters) young stars in our chef community.”
Tickets, available through pueblosdelmaiz.com, are $75, which includes food paired with local craft beers, wines and bacanora tastings.
The lineup:
— Amelia's Mexican Kitchen Chef Jose Contreras, who was named a James Beard Award Best Chef: Southwest semifinalist in 2025 and got a shoutout from Forbes for serving what they called one of the best meals "around the globe."
— La Frida Mexican Grill & Seafood Chef Claudia Vindiola, named a 2026 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Southwest.
— Sawmill Run Restaurant, a scratch kitchen on Mount Lemmon that locally sources heritage ingredients like prickly pear, mesquite and chiltepin peppers that Chef-owner Nick Avrama uses to create live-fire, house-made dishes.
— Chef Devon Sanner, who trained under James Beard Award-winning Chef Janos Wilder, was a finalist in the 2023 Iron Chef Tucson competition and led the Gastronomic Union of Tucson team that won Best in Show at the 2024 Devour Culinary Classic in Phoenix. He has represented Tucson UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy abroad as a Chef Ambassador.
— Chef Travis Peters won the 2017 Iron Chef Tucson title and took first place on Food Network's “Guy's Grocery Games.” He has represented Tucson as a Chef Ambassador and is a Tucson City of Gastronomy Certified Artisan.
The Tucson spaghetti-Western-inspired band Hey Bucko! will perform.
On Sunday, chefs from Tucson and its sister cities of gastronomy will collaborate on the festival-closing “Noche de las Tres Hermanas” dinner presented by the Gastronomic Union of Tucson.
One of the keystones of Pueblos del Maíz is the collaboration between the four cities, with each sending chef representatives to participate in one another’s festivals.
Chef Mehdi El Omari
This weekend, Tucson will see how Moroccan-born Italian chef Mehdi El Omari combines rigorous culinary technique and a commitment to quality ingredients and sustainable supply chains with a belief that food should convey the identity, terroir and dialogue among communities.
Omari will join:
Chef Lizzeth Martinez
— Lizzeth Martinez, chef-owner of San Antonio’s Naco Mexican restaurant, connects her roots along the borderlands of Nuevo Laredo with a culinary identity rooted in heritage and local ingredients.
Chef Xóchitl Valdés
— Xóchitl Valdés, chef-owner of Pancho Maíz in Mérida, creates food that celebrates and champions Yucatán’s native corn and corn producers. Earlier this year, she received a prestigious Michelin Guide Mexico Young Chef Award for her leadership in connecting the dots between cooking, biodiversity and heritage.
The trio will join Tucson chefs from the GUT, which sponsors the dinner at the Carriage House, 125 S. Arizona Ave. It’s from 6-8:30 p.m. Sunday, and tickets are $161.90 through eventbrite.com.
