Rosalba Morales Bartolo, born and raised in San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro, Michoacán, grew up cooking alongside her mother in their indigenous Purépecha kitchen. Purépecha women are well known for their regional cuisine and extraordinary cooking abilities. Rosalba, who learned recipes and techniques beginning in her early childhood, has become one of the most exemplary cooks living in Mexico. In the photo, Rosalba oversees a restaurant dining room during a 2015 homage dinner she prepared for Diana Kennedy and many attendees. All photos copyright Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.
San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro–Purenchécuaro translates to 'place of visitors'–nestles at the shore of the Lago de Pátzcuaro, in central Michoacán. Eighty per cent of the town's approximately 2,000 inhabitants are indigenous Purépecha and a large number continue to speak their native language and teach it to their children. The town continues its millennia-old social customs, some of which are incorporated now into Roman Catholic religious practices. Mexico Cooks! took the photo from a scenic overlook in San Jerónimo; you can see the town, including the parish church tower, one tiny portion of Lake Pátzcuaro, and the tiers of Michoacán's mountains stretching out beyond the other shore.
Lake Pátzcuaro fishermen, in an old postcard. Today, the butterfly nets typical of the lake region have been largely replaced by other styles of hand-woven nets. Fishing continues to generate income as well as family sustenance for the towns around and close to the lake. Photo courtesy Mexico en Fotos.
Charales, freshly caught and cleaned. Rosalba's father was a fisherman, working on Lake Pátzcuaro. From him, she learned how to fish with a net. She learned how to prepare tiny charales (genus Chirostoma) her grandmother's old-fashioned way. Once the fish are caught, she scales them (yes, these tiny fish, one by one), then eviscerates and washes them. The heads are typically left on the charales. Next, Rosalba spreads them out in the sun to dry on petates (mats made of palm fronds). Once the fish are dried, she uses them for a variety of different dishes: fried for a filling in tacos or gorditas, simmered in a richly flavored broth, crushed into a salsa, or cooked in a guisado (a type of main dish that can also be used as a taco filling).
Petate (mats made of palm fronds), rolled up to be transported on a bicycle. The petate, of pre-Hispanic origin, has multiple uses, including use as bedding, as a drying floor, and as a shroud. Image courtesy Pinterest.
At home in her kitchen, Rosalba shows off a plateful of her famous charales. Restaurants and individuals in cities and towns all over Mexico order kilos of charales to be shipped to them. I confess that I always thought I hated them: strongly fishy, thickly breaded, greasy, and often overly picante (spicy), charales were for years last on my list of things I wanted to eat. One day a few years ago, Rosalba stood in front of me with a lightly fried, delicately golden brown charal held out between her fingers. "You haven't tried mine, Cristina," she insisted. There was no way to say no. What a surprise, it was delicious! Now I crave them–but only Rosalba's.
Your family's food preparation probably begins with a trip to a well-stocked supermarket. Once your ingredients are at home, you simply turn on a modern stove, either electric or gas. Rosalba's food preparation begins with a trip into the woods near her home, where she gathers branches to be used as fuel in her wood stove. In addition, she grows much of her food in h
er large back garden: she tends and harvests tomatoes, chiles, squash, cilantro, and various fruits, among other delicious items that end up on her table.
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Recently, Rosalba has been featured on several Mexican television programs, including this one called "Cocineros Mexicanos" (Mexican Cooks). Take a few minutes to watch how she cleans the charales, prepares a simple soup and salsa, and delights Nico (the program's host) with her simplicity, directness, honesty, and skill as a cocinera.
Rosy's route to her present renown hasn't been fast and it hasn't been easy. Her life has had numerous ups and downs, its path twisting from her birthplace to a risky life as an undocumented person in the United States and back again. In 1984, she graduated from primary school in San Jerónimo and left the next day to work as a cook in a private home in Guadalajara. Her employer asked her to prepare food that was completely unfamiliar to her–fish cooked in white wine! She remembers, "That day marked my life and was incredibly special, because it confirmed and reconfirmed the love, my deep feeling for cooking, as I experimented with different flavors."
In 2013, Rosalba won honorable mention in Raíces, Platillos que Cuentan Una Historia (Roots, Dishes Which Tell a Story) at the annual Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Michoacán (Meeting of Michoacán's Traditional Cooks). Her first entry, in 2010, won her a first prize.
Twice Rosalba entered the United States as an undocumented worker, each time laboring in Mexican restaurants and sending money back to her native San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro. Over the course of 25 years, she was able to construct her own home, where she lives today and has made her "Cocina Tradicional Rosy" well known to Mexicans and foreigners who are intent on dining well in Michoacán.
Everybody's favorite chile in much of Michoacán: chile manzano, known in Michoacán as chile perón. Approximately 1.5"-2" in diameter, the perón is only chile in the world with black seeds. It ranks between 30,000 and 50,000 'heat' units on the Scoville scale–about the same heat level as the chile de árbol. "While I was living in the United States, I really missed caldo de trucha (trout soup) with chile perón," Rosalba reminisced.
Rosalba at Morelia en Boca 2015, with chef Aquiles Chávez of La Fishería Restaurant in Houston and Restaurante Sotero in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico. Morelia en Boca, an annual international high-end food and wine festival, featured a conference given by cocinera tradicional Rosalba together with chef Aquiles, demonstrating the preparation of Rosy's tiny charales and chef Aquiles' enormous pejelagarto (freshwater gar), native to the waters in chef Aquiles' home state, Tabasco. Their conference was so knowledgeable, so well-presented, and so funny that the huge and enthusiastic audience gave them a standing, cheering ovation at its end.
Chef Aquiles roasted the pejelagarto over a charcoal fire; this photo shows only the head and a small portion of the giant fish's body. To roast the fish, chef Aquiles inserted a broomstick into the gaping tooth-filled mouth; the broomstick stopped at the fish's tail. With the end of the broomstick that protruded from the mouth, chef Aquiles was able to turn the fish as it roasted.
Rosalba's caldo de pata de pollo. She prepared this rich chicken broth using just chicken feet as the base. She added fresh vegetables just prior to serving.
Rosy's delicious guisado (a casserole or stewed dish) made with nopales (cactus paddles) and calabacitas (a squash similar to zucchini).
One of Rosalba's many talents is the ability to create utterly wonderful food from whatever is seasonably available. Salsa de zarzamora (blackberry sauce) is a molcajete-ground spicy, sweet, and savory concoction of roasted chile perón, roasted ripe tomatoes, and native Michoacán blackberries. A pinch of salt, a moment's grinding in the volcanic stone mortar, and it's ready for the table. I would cheerfully have eaten it with a spoon, it was so heavenly.
Rosalba serves a taco de charales to chef Joaquín Bonilla, director of the Colegio Culinario de Morelia (Morelia's Culinary School). Not only has Rosy prepared and served her extraordinary dishes all over Mexico, but she has traveled to a number of foreign destinations as well. In 2016 alone, she thrilled Chicago, Illinois, for several weeks with her food. Later that year she participated in the Slow Food International Terra Madre event in Turin, Italy. The current year has brought more much-deserved recognition throughout Mexico.
Please contact me if you'd like to visit Rosalba and enjoy a meal in her kitchen. I'd be delighted to take you to meet my dear friend and talk with you about the food and its preparation.
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