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“I’m sure Martha Stewart is like, who is this Jenny Martinez lady?!” says Jenny Martinez, letting out her big, famous laugh. We are both picturing the legendary domestic goddess in the aisles of JCPenney, scoping out Martinez’s new line of tortilla presses, blue glassware, and molcajetes (a grinding tool made of stone). While Stewart and Martinez are not (yet) besties, Martinez has almost 4 million adoring fans across TikTok and Instagram, who feel as if she’s adopted them across the imaginary family lines of the internet. She’s huge.
Martinez is now one of the biggest Mexican food creators on the internet — and it all started with her mother’s birria. A long-simmered recipe of beef chuck roast that falls off the bone and soaks up a chile sauce, ready for tacos and a dip in consommé (or leftover quesadillas tomorrow). During the pandemic, Martinez’s daughter filmed her making birria, and overnight, the 2020 video exploded past 1 million viewers. They kept the momentum up the next day, posting a video of making quesadillas with the leftover birria.
Four years after the birria post, Martinez has a JCPenney line, a bestselling cookbook called “My Mexican Mesa, Y Listo!,” and has appeared on morning shows, commercials, and, the week I spoke to her, “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”
From Mexico to Telemundo
In a typical video, Martinez cooks Mexican comfort foods with a fast-paced edit that shows every step as she narrates with bubbly, infectious joy. She punctuates each recipe with at least one “Be-AU-tiful!” that rises and falls like a tortilla on the comal. Her narration intersperses Spanish and English without missing a beat, and close-ups reveal an always-perfect manicure that clicks on the kitchen counter, blowout curled hair, and deftly applied makeup. Her skin glows, as does her presence.
When Martinez was a toddler, her parents moved from Mexico to LA after her sister required specialized surgery. In Mexico, they owned a shop, but after the move, they lost the store and struggled to get a footing in California. Martinez and her siblings sold fruit in the park to help supplement their parents’ income, and Jenny helped her mom cook for armies of family and friends who ordered her birria for birthdays, baptisms, and weddings. When her birria TikTok went viral, Martinez told her mother, who didn’t totally understand. “Once she realized, Oh, Jenny’s getting invited to Telemundo, to Univision, she said, ‘Oh, mija, you made it big.’ Mom, yes, I’ve been telling you — it’s huge!”
Martinez got married when she was only 17 — so young that her father had to sign paperwork to give his permission (she’d known her husband since she was 8 and he was 10). She moved in with her in-laws and her husband’s eight siblings and cooked for all of them, with pleasure. In her TikTok videos, he pops in to dance with her with wholesome, genuine chemistry that’ll melt anyone’s heart, as do the couple’s four children, all grown up except for two teenage sons. Thanks to her success on TikTok, she was able to buy a little ranch where they’ll move soon, fulfilling her husband’s dream to have chickens, pigs, and goats, like his grandfather had in Mexico.
(Fork)Lifting Up
Before TikTok, Martinez worked for a decade for a company that sold forklifts. “At first, I didn’t know about forklifts,” she laughed. “I didn’t know about transmissions or changing oils… but I made the relationships and the connections — that’s my thing — and that’s what helped me get the orders.” Martinez has a personality so jubilant that her friends will ask, “Jenny, how many tequila shots have you had today?” and she’ll answer, “None. But I’d like one!”
After a workday selling forklifts, she’d come home and cook for her family, making the recipes she shares on TikTok now, like chile rellenos, barbacoa, and posole verde. “It was still busy, but a different kind of busy,” she said. Her teenagers now know how to cook so they can fend for themselves while she navigates partnerships, guest appearances, and media promotion. “At the end of the day, I’m tired, but with a big smile.”
Her millions of followers, many of whom are in California and Texas, send her messages of support that “gives me that fire to continue posting,” she said. “Back in the day, when I was taking my menudo [a Mexican soup made with tripe] for lunch at work, [people would ask] what is that smell, or what is it that you're eating? And I would be embarrassed,” she sighed, “and now it's like, I'm having menudo and it’s the best thing! And I get a lot of comments saying ‘thank you.’”
All in the Familia
Now her teenagers show up in her feed, too, making quesadillas, copycat fast food sandwiches, or viral dishes like Hot Cheetos cheese sticks. Her daughter is mastering sourdough, and her eldest son is the family mixologist. The whole family gathers in the kitchen to hang out, like they always have.
When I ask if her confidence has boosted since her success, she said no, she feels like the exact same person. “The one thing that did scare me a little bit was when they invited me to Food Network” for a cooking competition show alongside other cooks. “I was about to back out. My daughter said, ‘Mom, what have you always taught us? She said, ‘Never let fear stop you and you’re doing that.’ And so I was like, Oh my gosh, you’re right. So I went and I won. I won,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “Now I can say, ‘Okay, I am a chef.’”
“I just feel very, very blessed. I still can’t believe this is happening to me,” said Martinez as we wrapped up our call, “I just feel like, wow, I’m still dreaming.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Jenny Martinez
