Fit Check, Food Check: Julieta Venegas on Chamoy and Secondhand Clothes
Julieta Venegas needs no introduction. The Grammy award-winning Tijuana native released her debut album, Aquí, in 1997. Decades later, she continues to resonate with multigenerational audiences through her original indie-pop hits and newer tracks. Today, she returns to the global music scene with Norteña, a project inspired by her upbringing in Baja California. It’s her first album since 2022, and since then, she’s also added “published author” to her resume: Venegas’s debut memoir, Norteña: Memorias del Comienzo, hit shelves earlier this month.
Venegas joined us for Northern Mexican fare at Cuerno in New York City, where she introduced us to the suerito, a salt-rimmed hangover cure we’ll be recreating all summer long. We talked about all things Norteña, her style on and offstage, and the flavors that make her nostalgic.
Keep reading for more about Venegas’s tastes in food and fashion — and some reflections on the importance of childhood role models.
Fit check: After decades in the public eye, how would you describe your relationship to fashion?
I really do enjoy fashion. I mostly enjoy the performative part of it. If it’s my day-to-day, I’ll be super practical. I like vintage-looking stuff, but I’m not the kind of person who goes out in heels. It’s really funny because if I’m buying something fancy, I’ll be like, “Oh, this is good for a show.” And it’s like, why do I think like that? I need to think about my daily life, which is when I’m more practical. If I like a pair of pants, I’ll wear them, wash them, and wear them again until I’m tired of them. Then I’ll move on to the next pair.
My mom is very much like, “I’m going to get rid of everything,” and she’ll just give away her things. Now, I’m more careful about that because I would like my daughter, if she wants some of my stuff, to use it. But I’m also not that great about it. Once in a while, I’ll go and give it away.
Food check: What did your childhood taste like?
There was a lot of Chinese presence in Tijuana when I was growing up. The flavors have a lot to do with that presence. They have to do with the agridulce and the acid. I think the chamoy — my mouth is watering — now it’s very present in other regions of Mexico, but when I was growing up, it was mostly from Tijuana. Instead of eating chocolate or something else sweet, you’d dip a salted plum into that chamoy sauce and it was super acidic and hot. That flavor, to me, is what I miss the most when I’m outside of Mexico.
My mom doesn’t cook. We ate a lot of Chinese food and a lot of fast food. What I realized is that food, although it’s important, is not the only way to show love. That’s something that my mom taught me. When I had my daughter, something that I didn't know that I had in me came out, and I’m sure that’s because of the way my mom treated me when I was a kid.
What flavors do you associate with working on Norteña?
When I came back to Mexico [to record the album], I couldn’t stop eating sauces. It was like, “Flavor! Back to the flavor!” We recorded in El Desierto, which is a studio that’s in the mountains outside Mexico City. They have such great cooks, and the cooking there was just incredible. Part of the experience of working in that studio was sitting down at the table every day and just being so happy and thankful to be able to share that food with people.
If you could only play one instrument for the rest of your life, what would it be?
The piano. I dedicated my first album to my piano teacher, and that was ages ago. She marked me so much, and I think that’s something so wonderful that can happen to people — that somebody can do such a positive thing for your life. We played in Tijuana with an orchestra last year, and her family came. I was super excited that they came because they look like her, and I miss her.
It’s not only about what she taught me, but the way she recognized something in me that I didn’t know I had. I had a bunch of siblings, so it wasn’t like my parents were going to say, “You’re going to be a musician, go do it.” It had to be somebody else. That changed my life.
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