In the Yucatán jungle near Valladolid, the village of Xocen holds something increasingly rare: a kitchen where ancient Mayan recipes built around the seeds of the Ramon tree are being rescued from near-oblivion. For generations, the Maya Nut fed entire civilisations — but today, both the tree and its recipes are quietly disappearing from memory due to colonialization. Maricela and her mother are among a network that is still keeping this knowledge alive, and they're inviting you in — not as a tourist, but as a guest.

When the Maya Nut is in season, you'll cook with this extraordinary superfood at the heart of Mayan cuisine and jungle ecology. In the off-season, you'll prepare traditional Pollo Adobo using time-honoured techniques. Either way, you'll leave with something real you can recreate at home.

While your meal cooks, step into the tree nursery where you can see how they are cultivating Ramon tree seedlings for active reforestation. This tree is a keystone species — an ancient evergreen that produces food for people, fodder for animals, and canopy for an entire ecosystem of wildlife. Where it thrives, the jungle recovers.

After which, you will visit the Mayan bee apiary with the unique stingless Melipona bee.

Here's the virtuous circle your visit helps close: when travellers cook with Maya nuts and create demand for them, indigenous communities gain a real economic reason to plant more Ramon trees — and to protect the ones already standing in the forest. More trees mean more habitat, more wildlife, and a jungle that slowly heals. By taking this class, you're not just learning a recipe. You're helping to rebuild the ecology and forests of the Yucatan peninsula.

Start times are flexible. Please leave a note if you wish start later or you have any dietary restrictions.