Author: typepadtowordpress

In Mexico, Christmas Food is All About Tamales!

Tamales Oaxaca style, wrapped in banana leaves. These tamales, prepared in the kitchen at Restaurante Las 15 Letras in Oaxaca, were filled with armadillo meat. They were absolutely delicious.

When I was a child, my mother would sometimes buy a glass jar (I have conveniently forgotten the brand name) packed with what we called "hot tamales". Wrapped individually in parchment paper, covered in a thin, brackish, tomato-y fluid, these slippery travesties were all I knew of tamales until I moved to Mexico.

The first Christmas season I that I lived in this country, nearly 36 years ago, my neighbor from across the street came to my door to deliver a dozen of her finest home-made tamales,fresh from the tamalera (tamales steamer). I knew enough of Mexican culture to understand that to refuse them would be an irreparable insult, but I also was guilty of what I now know as contempt prior to investigation. I did not want tamales. The memory of those childhood tamales was disgusting. I smiled and thanked her as graciously as I could.

"Pruébalos ya!" she prodded. "Taste them now!" With some hesitation I reached for a plate from the shelf, a fork from the drawer (delay, delay) and unwrapped the steaming corn husk wrapper from a plump tamal she said was filled with pork meat and red chile. One bite and I was an instant convert. My delighted grin told her everything she wanted to know. She went home satisfied, wiping her hands on her apron. I downed two more tamales as soon as she was out of sight. More than 25 years later, I haven't stopped loving them.

A three-compartment tamalera: bottom left, Oaxaca-style tamales wrapped in banana leaves. Right, central Mexico-style tamales, wrapped in corn husks.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUWjZTAWMQU&w=350&h=315]
The 'official' voice of the ubiquitous Mexico City tamales oaxaqueños vendors. One of these carts visits our street every night at about ten o'clock.

Christmas in Mexico is a time for special festive foods. More tamales than any other food come from the Christmas kitchen. Tamales of pork, beef or chicken with spicy red chile, tamales of rajas con queso (strips of roasted poblano chiles with cheese), and sweet pineapple ones, each with a single raisin pressed into the masa (dough), pour in a steady, steaming torrent from kitchen after kitchen.

I asked my next door neighbor what she's making for Christmas Eve dinner. "Pues, tamales,que más," she answered. "Well, tamales, what else!"

I asked the woman who cleans my house. "Pues, tamales, que más!"

I asked the woman who cuts my hair. "Pues, tamales, que más!"

And my handyman. "What's your wife making to eat for Christmas Eve, Jorge?"

I bet by now you know what he replied. "Pues,tamales, que más?"

Obviously there are other things eaten on Christmas Eve in Mexico. Some folks feast on bacalao a la vizcaína (dried salt codfish stewed with tomatoes, capers, olives, and potatoes). Some women proudly carry huge clay cazuelas (rustic casserole dishes) of mole poblano con guajolote (turkey in a complex, rich sauce of chiles, toasted spices, and chocolate, thickened with ground tortillas) to their festive table. Some brew enormous ollas (pots) of menudo (tripe and cow's foot soup) or pozole (a hearty soup of prepared corn, chiles, pork meat, and condiments) for their special Christmas Eve meal, traditionally served late on Nochebuena (Christmas Eve), after the Misa de Gallo (Midnight Mass).

As an exceptional treat, we're sharing part of a photo essay by my good friend Rolly Brook. The photo essay is all about tamales, their ingredients and preparation. Rolly's friend doña Martha cooks a whole pig head for her tamales; many cooks prefer to use maciza—the solid meat from the leg. Either way, the end result is a marvelous Christmas treat.

Doña Martha Prepares Tamales for Christmas

Doña Martha begins to take the meat off the cooked pig head.

Doña Martha mixes the shredded meat from the pig head into the pot of chile colorado (red chile that she prepared earlier in the day).

Doña Martha needs a strong arm to beat lard into the prepared corn for the masa. The lard and ground corn must be beaten together until the mixture is fluffy.

Doña Martha's daughter spreads masa (corn dough) on the prepared hojas de maíz (corn husks).

Corn husks spread with masa, ready to be filled.

Doña Martha fills each masa-spread corn husk with meat and chile colorado.

Folding the hojas de maíz is an assembly-line process involving the whole family.

Tamales in the tamalera, ready to be steamed. Steaming takes an hour or so.

The photos only show part of the process of making tamales. You can access Rolly's entire photo essay on his website. Rolly graciously allowed Mexico Cooks! the use of his wonderful pictures. Although Rolly is now having his Christmas tamales in heaven, his website is permanently on line for the benefit of anyone who needs almost any information about life in Mexico.

Can we finish all these tamales at one sitting? My friends and neighbors prepare hundreds of them with leftovers in mind. Here's how to reheat tamales so they're even better than when they first came out of the steamer.

Recalentados (Reheated Tamales)

Over a medium flame, pre-heat an ungreased comal (griddle) or heavy skillet. Put the tamales to reheat in a single layer, still in their corn husk wrappers. Let them toast, turning them over and over until the corn husks are dark golden brown, nearly black. Just when you think they're going to burn, take them off the heat and peel the husks away. The tamales will be slightly golden, a little crunchy on the edges, and absolutely out of this world delicious.

Provecho! (Good eating!)

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3 de December de 2016
Holiday Gift Recommendations from Mexico Cooks!: Books About Mexico That You’ll Love

During the course of the last year, Mexico Cooks! has received several new books about Mexico's people, places and things. You can see that my desk is stacked up–and this is just the short stack! It's time for holiday giving, and the Mexico-phile on your gift list would definitely enjoy one of these. In alphabetical order by last name of author, they are:

Many of you may already know Suzanne Barbezat, who writes extensively about Mexico travel for About.com. Suzanne is based in Oaxaca and has years of experience as a travel and cultural expert, particularly in the southern part of Mexico. She's taken her cultural expertise one step further–and a giant step, at that–with her newly minted book Frida Kahlo at Home. Photo courtesy Suzanne Barbezat.

Fully illustrated in both color and black and white, the book features Suzanne's writing, photos of Frida's paintings together with archive images and Kahlo family photographs, many objects and artifacts that the artist collected, as well as photographs of the surrounding Mexico City landscape to provide an insight into how these places shaped this much-loved artist and how the homes and streetscapes of her life and travels relate to and shape her work. Even though books about Frida Kahlo abound, Suzanne brings a fresh look at the artist in her hogar–her own home. New insights, fresh research, gorgeous photography, and a beautiful format make Frida at Home the perfect gift for any Frida fan.

Sheri Brautigam is extraordinarily well-versed in regional Mexican textiles. She's recently written Textile Fiestas of Mexico, a lovely and comprehensive book about the textiles fairs of several of those regions, including Chiapas, Michoacán, Puebla, and Oaxaca, among others. Photo courtesy Norma Schafer.

It's exciting to read this compendium of textile fiestas and shopping; the book is subtitled A Traveler's Guide to Celebrations, Markets, and Smart Shopping and Sheri is as good as her word in sharing wonderful information with the reader. Sheri was at one time a well-known textile designer and collector and now sells fabulous things from her online Etsy shop, Living Textiles. Whether you want to go to a tempting textile sale in Michoacán, an indigenous market in Oaxaca, or a fair in the state of Chiapas, her new book will get you to some of the top textile venues in Mexico. The photos are terrific for studying the variety of hand-woven fabrics used in all sorts of indigenous dress. Regional differences in dyes, weaving, and dress are well-covered, and Sheri offers wise advice on everything from bargaining to laundering your acquisitions. This is a great starter book for sourcing textiles, both wearable and decorative, and I recommend it highly.

Meet Lydia Carey, the author of La Roma, the excellent new guide to Mexico City's Colonia Roma. La Roma (the neighborhood) is one of the truly hot spots in the city, filled with restaurants (and more restaurants!), galleries, street food, cantinas, pulquerías, mezcalerías, cozy little (and not so little) hotels, and up-to-the-minute modern shops. Lydia is a relative newcomer to the city and I was quite frankly surprised and delighted by the extraordinary scope of her research. She's done a superb job of scouting out the most interesting, most fun, most delicious of everything La Roma has to offer. If you're coming to Mexico City and want to explore the trendiest part of the city, you will want–nay, you will NEED this book. The book is bilingual English and Spanish–the cover means "Come right in!"

La Roma is organized by sections of the colonia (neighborhood), which makes it very easy to look up or walk the area, section by section, to see just what interests you. Whether you need a shoe repaired, need a street stand recommendation for tacos, want to buy wonderful fresh-baked bread, or you're thinking of buying a home, La Roma will point you in the right direction. It's terrific to have a bilingual guidebook dedicated to one of Mexico City's brightest and most entertaining colonias. Two thumbs up for Lydia and her book La Roma!

Lesley Téllez is the author of Eat Mexico, a book about the joys of Mexico City market stalls, food on the street, and more, featuring Lesley's updated recipes for classic street food and home cooking favorites. Lesley's personal story is about discovering her own roots; born in California into a Mexican-American family and raised on Cal-Mex food, Lesley moved to Mexico City when her husband's work brought him here in 2009. She quickly discovered that she knew almost nothing about the food of Mexico's interior, took a short course at a local cooking school, and started her own blog and her own Mexican food-oriented tour company. Lesley lived and wrote in Mexico City for about four years; when she moved back to the USA in 2013, she produced the book Eat Mexico. From her home in Queens, New York, she continues to direct a group of tour guides in Mexico. Photo courtesy Lesley Téllez.

Lesley's most impressive accomplishment is her zero-to-sixty zoom from neophyte to self-proclaimed expert. She writes with style, although not 100% accuracy, about a most complex subject. Her recipes look quite authentic to the casual observer, although many are simplified for cooks who might not have access to standard Mexican ingredients. Certainly we can't all follow Diana Kennedy's traditional methods and recipes that all but instruct us, "first you plant your corn". A good example of that simplification is her suggestion to use masa harina (corn flour) or even cornstarch to thicken atole (a thick hot drink with a corn masa [dough] base). It seems logical that not everyone who wants to prepare corn-based recipes has access to raw tortilla dough, and masa harina might well work as a short-cut thickener, but thickening atole with cornstarch gives the finished drink an unpleasant slippery texture; I wouldn't recommend that short cut. There are a number of similar conveniences in the recipes, created with the best of intentions for the modern home cook. Overall, Eat Mexico is a well-designed, well-organized cookbook that will get the user into the home kitchen to make Mexican food. It will be a start in learning about commonly eaten foods in Mexico City and its surroundings.

It's a month before the year-end holidays! You have plenty of time to order any or ALL of these books as gifts for that special someone on your list–and maybe even an extra of each for yourself. Enjoy!

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26 de November de 2016
Dr. Atl, Volcanos and Politics: A Painter’s Eye, A Painter’s Passion

The painter's eye. Detail of Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo) 1962 self-portrait, oil on cardboard. Private collection.

Gerardo Murillo was born in 1895 in the San Juan de Dios neighborhood of Guadalajara, at the height of the Francophile rule of Mexican president/dictator Porfirio Díaz. He began studying painting at the age of 19. After studying in Italy in 1921, Gerardo Murillo became been better known as 'Dr. Atl' (atl is the Náhuatl word for water), as he was re-christened by Leopoldo Lugones, an Argentine writer and leftist political colleague. After his death in 1964, his ashes were interred in Guadalajara in what is known today as the Rotonda de Jaliscienses Ilustres (the Rotunda of Illustrious People of Jalisco). During his life, Dr. Atl was profoundly eccentric, his entire being immersed in his passions for painting, for politics, and particularly for volcanos.

Gerardo Murillo, self portrait 1899. All photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

The Museo Colección Blaisten, part of Mexico City's Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco (part of the UNAM, the huge multi-campus National Autonomous University of Mexico), mounted a December 2011 through April 2012 exhibition if 190 of Dr. Atl's masterworks. Dr. Atl, one of Mexico's most prominent 20th century painters, is actually very little known in the United States. Mexico Cooks! thought you might like once again to see a part of this exhibit.

Volcán Iztaccíhuatl (the Sleeping Woman volcano), 1916. Colleción Museo Regional de Guadalajara-INAH. Labels of this and many other paintings in the exhibit indicate that they were painted using Atl color (a type of paint created by the artist). Atl color is similar to Greek encaustic paint. It contains resins, wax, and dry pigment which are melted, mixed, and hardened to form a medium similar to oil pastel. Dr. Atl used his eponymous colors on paper, cardboard, rough fabric such as jute, wood, and other bases.

Although Dr. Atl is best-known as the passionate painter of volcanos, he also painted portraits. Nahui Ollín, pictured above in 1922, had a five-year romantic relationship with Dr. Atl. During the early part of her life, Nahui Ollín's name was Carmen Mondragón. Dr. Atl gave her the Náhuatl name to honor the date in the Aztec calendar that commemorates the renovation of the cosmic cycles. Private collection.

The Valley of Mexico from the South, 1931, oil on fabric. Private collection.

Dr. Atl's scholarly observation and study of Mexican geography (he was not only a painter, but also a volcanologist and writer) combined perfectly with his travels in Europe to give him the tools necessary to become one of the outstanding landscape painters of the 20th century. In 1897, then-Presidente Porfirio Díaz gave young Gerardo Murillo a scholarship to study in Europe. Murillo studied not only Italian frescoes but also philosophy and penal law. He involved himself ever more deeply with leftist, anarchist politics, a consequence of his studies that President Díaz probably did not anticipate.

Dr. Atl was also an exceptional painter of clouds. This painting is Nubes sobre el Valle de México (Clouds over the Valley of Mexico), 1933, Atl color on asbestos. Collection Museo Nacional de Arte INBA.

Detail mid-right side, Nubes sobre el Valle de México. Note the variety of brushstroke used to create texture in the painting. Click on any photograph to enlarge the detail.

Dr. Atl began studying volcanoes during a trip to Italy in 1911. Beginning in 1925, he spent long periods of time at Mexican volcanoes such as Popocatépetl, Iztaccíhuatl, and the Pico de Orizaba. A tireless traveler, Dr. Atl climbed Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. Later those volcanoes became an important theme in his body of work.

In 1942, he visited the site of Mexico's newborn volcano Paricutín in the state of Michoacán. He said, “…El espectáculo del cono ardiente vertiendo aludes de materia ígnea, bajo un cielo de guijarros incandescentes, en sí mismo tan fuera de lo común que toda invención sale sobrando…” 'The spectacle of the burning cone spewing avalanches of lava under a sky of incandescent ash was by itself so far out of the ordinary that every other invention became like something left over…'

Volcán en la Noche Estrellada (Volcano on a Starry Night), 1950 (Paricutín). Atl color on plywood. Collection UNAM. Dr. Atl was the first artist to paint what he called 'aeropaisajes' (landscapes from the air); he took to the skies in small airplanes, flying over various volcano sites to immortalize them from above.

Life imitates art. April 16, 2012 photo of volcano Popocatépetl spewing flame, ash, and smoke. Popocatépetl straddles the state line between Puebla and Morelos, approximately 40 miles south of Mexico City. Photo courtesy Todo Oaxaca.

Dr. Atl, astonished and awed to see a volcano born in his lifetime, lived for approximately a year near still-erupting Paricutín. He observed, painted, and wrote for more than seven years about this majestic and completely unexpected young volcano.

Cráter y La Vía Láctea (Crater and the Milky Way), 1960. Oil and Atl color on masonite. Private collection, courtesy of Galería Arvil.

Detail, Cráter y La Vía Láctea.

For his entire life, Dr. Atl involved himself in left-wing political movements. In 1914, he allegedly was part of the plot to assassinate then-President Victoriano Huerta, because of which he was imprisoned briefly. After his release, he lived in Los Angeles, California until 1920. When he returned to Mexico, revolutionary leader and President Venustiano Carranza named him director of the Escuela de Bellas Artes (School of Fine Arts) and then Jefe de Propaganda e Información en Europa y América del Sur (Head of Promotion and Information in Europe and South America), a position he held for only a short time.

In 1956 Mexico awarded him the Medalla Belisario Domínguez and, in 1958, the Premio Nacional de las Artes.

Gerardo Murillo Pintando en el Valle de Pihuamo (Gerardo Murillo painting in the Valley of Pihuamo), 1952. Photo by Ricardo Salazar. Dr. Atl's right leg was amputated in 1949. Popular legend has it that the amputation was due to the inhalation of gases at Paricutín, but it was actually necessary because of complications of diabetes.

Mexico gave poet Carlos Pellicer the task of writing Dr. Atl's biography. Dr. Atl wrote to him, "Now it looks like a biography will really get off the ground! A couple, nearly human, came from Los Angeles as if they had fallen from heaven, to write a biography of me. Then I remembered that you were writing one. To make a long story short, I make the following proposal: you finish the biography that you already started. I enclose a slip of paper with some suggestions for organizing it in the most convenient way…I send you the most cordial handshake…" Some of the biographical material was printed in Carlos Pellicer en el Espacio de la Plástica, Volume 1, by Elisa Garcìa Barragán and Carlos Pellicer, UNAM 1997.

Dr. Atl died in Mexico City on August 15, 1964. His ashes are buried in the Rotonda de Jalisciences Ilustres in Guadalajara, where this statue is part of the site. Photo courtesy Rodrigo_gh, Flickr.

The five-month exhibition was an opportunity to see, through the eyes of this genius painter, the Valley of Mexico before Mexico City's explosion of population with its lava-like rivers of concrete swallowed nature whole. We had the chance to see the Valley and its volcanos when they ran with rivers, when the mountains burgeoned with trees and flowers.

Today, even though the exhibition has closed, we can see Dr. Atl's vision of the Valley of Mexico every time we visit the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City's Historic Center. His design, executed by the house of Louis Comfort Tiffany, is immortalized in the theater's million-piece stained glass curtain.

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19 de November de 2016
Pequeño Seúl in Mexico City :: Where to Eat in Mexico City’s Koreatown? Myeong Dong Guan!

For several years, I've asked friends about Korean food in Mexico City. We are fortunate to have a good-sized Korean community here. This is a cuisine I don't know but have wanted to experience and learn. Little did I know that my downstairs neighbor works in Zona Rosa (the pink zone), right in the middle of Pequeño Seúl (Little Seoul)–our very own Korea town–and often eats at the restaurant in the photo: Myeong Dong Guan. On a street I'd never heard of, in a neighborhood relatively unfamiliar to me, there was my goal: hiding in plain sight.

Page 1 of the four-page Myeong Dong Guan menu. Prices subject to change without notice. Click on any photo to enlarge it for a better view.

Page 2.

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Since eating at Myeong Dong Guan, I've begun to educate myself a bit about Korean dishes. Here's what we ate–and for those who haven't tried Korean food, a short explanation of each.

Banchan might seem to be side dishes, but they are an integral and essential part of one's meal. Clockwise from the top left are soft, bland potato straws, gamja-salad (creamy potato salad), mildly spiced noodles, and spicy kimchi (fermented vegetable salad). Each of these was delicious in its own way, and each complemented the main courses we ordered.

Dolsot bibimbap, just about everyone's favorite dish from Korea. "Dolsot" is the stone pot in which the rice and vegetables are prepared.

Bibimbap simply means rice mixed with vegetables, meat, and chile. A freshly cooked runny-yolked egg usually goes on top. When your bibimbap is served, poke the egg yolk with a chopstick and mix everything together until your bowl looks like that in the photo. I'd eaten bibimbap before and after the first couple of bites, I thought it was just ho-hum. The bibimbap at Myeong Dong Guan is 180 degrees from ho-hum! I loved every delicious mouthful and so will you. I have read that for the best flavor, bimbimbap rice should be slightly crisp, toasty, and lightly stuck to the bottom of the pot. This rice was just like that.

Kimchi jjigae–in this case, stewed kimchi with firm tofu, scallions, broth, and big chunks of braised beef. The dish is spicy-hot, with a mixture of textures and flavors that dance in your mouth. Sra. Gloria told me that this is one of the most-loved jjigae (stews) in Korean cuisine. My companions, who are vegetarians, ordered it without knowing about the beef content–so guess who got to eat most of the kimchi jjigae! Next time–and there will be a next time!–I'll ask the kitchen to use more chile to make the stew even spicier.

Korean ramyeon, instant noodles very similar to Japanese ramen. At Myeong Dong Guan, the noodles are instant, but the broth and the rest of the ingredients for this soup are prepared in the restaurant. Ramyeon is traditionally prepared in a thin tin pot so that it heats up fast and stays hot. The kitchen poaches an egg in the broth, then the diner pierces it at table to mix with the noodles. Add chile sauce from the bowl on the table if you like a spicier broth.

The morning before going to Myeong Dong Guan, a friend knowledgeable about Korean food suggested that my neighbors and I try this dish: sundubu jjigae (spicy soft tofu stew with seafood). This was another big winner: the silkiness of the tofu, the spiciness of the broth, and the delicacy of the chunks of fish were all marvelous.

Sra. Gloria, the cook (and wife of the owner) at Myeong Dong Guan. She's a charming woman and as far as I can tell, a tremendously talented cook. When we had all but finished our comida (main meal of Mexico's day), she came to chat with us. The menu in her hands is not the menu from which we chose our meal! The menu she's holding includes the grilled meat categories that are offered at grill tables on the first floor of the restaurant. She took us upstairs to show us the rest of the restaurant. Even my neighbor, who has eaten countless times at Myeong Dong Guan, wasn't aware of this second menu. Another time when I dine with omnivores, we'll try the traditional grilled offerings for which Korea is famous. Raise your hand, whoever's ready for comida at Myeong Dong Guan!

Restaurante Coreano Myeong Dong Guan
Calle Oxford 28
Col. Juárez
Del. Cuauhtémoc
Ciudad de México
5511-5997

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12 de November de 2016
The Spiritual Component of the Day/Night of the Dead in Mexico :: La Parte Espiritual del Día y Noche de Muertos en México

Remember me as you pass by,
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you will be,
Prepare for death and follow me.
…from a tombstone

What is death? We know its first symptoms: the heart stops pumping, breath and brain activity stop. We know death's look and feel: a still, cold body from which the spirit has fled. The orphan and widow know death's sorrow, the priest knows the liturgy of the departed and the prayers to assuage the pain of those left to mourn. But in most English-speaking countries, death and the living are not friends. We the living look away from our mortality, we talk of the terminally ill in terms of 'if anything happens', not 'when she dies'. We hang the crepe, we cover the mirrors, we say the beads, and some of us fling ourselves sobbing upon the carefully disguised casket as it is lowered into the Astroturf-lined grave.

Octavio Paz, Mexico City's Nobel Laureate poet and essayist who died in 1998, is famously quoted as saying, "In New York, Paris, and London, the word death is never mentioned, because it burns the lips."

Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán panteón (cemetery), Mexico Cooks! photo. These fellows sing to la Descarnada (the fleshless woman) on November 2, 2009.

In Mexico, on the contrary, every day is a dance with death. Death is a woman who has a numerous affectionate and humorous nicknames: la Huesuda (the bony woman), la Seria (the serious woman), la Novia Fiel (the faithful bride), la Igualadora (the equalizer), la Dientona (the toothy woman), la Pelona (the bald woman), la Patrona (the boss lady), and a hundred more. She's always here, just around the next corner or maybe right over there, behind that pillar. She waits with patience, until later today or until twelve o'clock next Thursday, or until sometime next year–but when it's your time to go, she's right there, ready to dance away with you at her side.

November 2013 altar to La Santa Muerte (Holy Death), Sta. Ana Chapirito (near Pátzcuaro), Michoacán. Devotees of this deathly apparition say that her cult has existed since before the Spanish arrived in Mexico.

In Mexico, death is also in the midst of life. We see our dead, alive as you and me, each November, when we wait at our cemeteries for those who have gone before to come home, if only for a night. That, in a nutshell, is Noche de Muertos: the Night of the Dead.

In the lower center portion of this photograph, you can see the Quiroga, Michoacán, panteón municipal (town cemetery). Late in the afternoon of November 1, 2013, most townspeople had not yet gone to the cemetery with candles and flowers for their loved ones' graves. Click on any photograph for a larger view.

Over the course of the last 30-plus years, Mexico Cooks! has been to countless Noche de Muertos events, but none as mystical, as spiritual, or as profoundly magical as that of 2013. Invited to accompany a very small group on a private tour in Michoacán, I looked forward to spending three days enjoying the company of old and new friends. I did all that, plus I came away with an extraordinarily privileged view of life and death.

A magnificent Purépecha ofrenda (in this case, a home altar) in the village of Santa Fe de la Laguna, Michoacán. This detailed and lovely ofrenda was created to the memory of the family's maiden aunt, who died at 74. Because she had never married, even at her advanced age she was considered to be an angelito (little angel)–like an innocent child–and her spirit was called back home to the family on November 1, the day of the angelitos. Be sure to click on the photo to see the details of the altar. Fruits, breads, incense, salt, flowers, colors, and candles have particular symbolism and are necessary parts of the ofrenda.

Detail of the ofrenda casera (home altar) shown above. Several local people told Mexico Cooks! that the fruit piled on the altar tasted different from fruit from the same source that had not been used for the ofrenda. "Compramos por ejemplo plátanos y pusimos unos en el altar y otros en la cocina para comer. Ya para el día siguiente, los del altar pierden su sabor, no saben a nada," they said. 'We bought bananas, for example, and we put some on the altar and the rest in the kitchen to eat. The next day, the ones in the kitchen were fine, but the ones from the altar had no taste at all.'

Preparing a family member's ofrenda (altar) in the camposanto in the village of Arócutin, Michoacán. The camposanto–literally, holy ground–is a cemetery contained within the walls of a churchyard. The candles used in this area of Michoacán are hand made in Ihuatzio and Santa Fé de la Laguna.

Come with me along the unlit road that skirts the Lago de Pátzcuaro: Lake Pátzcuaro. It's chilly and the roadside weeds are damp with earlier rain, but for the moment the sky has cleared and filled with stars. Up the hill on the right and down the slope leading left toward the lake are tiny villages, dark but for the glow of tall candles lit one by one in the cemeteries. Tonight is November 1, the night silent souls wend their way home from Mictlán, the land beyond life.

At the grave: candlelight to illuminate the soul's way, cempazúchitl (deeply orange marigolds) for their distinctive fragrance required to open the path back home, smoldering copal (frankincense) to cleanse the earth and air of any remnants of evil, covered baskets of the deceased's favorite foods. And a low painted chair, where the living can rest through the night.

Watching through the night. This tumba (grave) refused to be photographed head-on. From an oblique angle, the tumba allowed its likeness to be made.

"Oh grave, where is thy victory? Oh death, where is thy sting?"

Noche de Muertos is not a costume party, although you may see it portrayed as such in the press. It is not a drunken brawl, although certain towns appear to welcome that sort of blast-of-banda-music reventón (big blow-out). It is not a tourist event, though strangers are certainly welcomed to these cemeteries. Noche de Muertos is a celebration of the spirit's life over the body's death, a festival of remembrance, a solemn passover. Years ago, in an interview published in the New York Times, Mexico Cooks! said, "Noche de Muertos is about mutual nostalgia. The living remember the dead, and the dead remember the taste of home."

One by one, grave by grave, golden cempazúchtles give shape to rock-bound tombs and long candles give light to what was a dark and lonely place, transforming the cemetery into a glowing garden. How could a soul resist this setting in its honor?

"Our hearts remember…" we promise the dead. Church bells toll slowly throughout the night, calling souls home with their distinctive clamor (death knell). Come…come home. Come…come home.

Waiting. Prayers. No me olvido de tí, mi viejo amado. (I haven't forgotten you, my dear old man.)

Next year, come with me.

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5 de November de 2016
The Catrina, Mexico’s Iconic Legacy from José Guadalupe Posada

José Guadalupe Posada, born in early 1852 in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico, developed his skill as an artist into a career as the foremost political cartoonist of his era, regularly skewering the high and mighty of late 19th century Mexico with his engravings. His portrait (above), engraved by mid-20th century engraver Leopoldo Méndez, is a classic.

Posada's satirical efforts started when he worked as a teenage apprentice in Aguascalientes. His boss, José Trinidad Pedroza, assigned him the job of creating a finger-pointing cartoon depicting the misdeeds of a local politician. His characterization was so successful that it created a tremendous hullabaloo in Aguascalientes; both Posada and Pedroza had to leave town in a hurry to avoid the politico's wrath. When the tumult calmed down, the two printers returned to their work of exposing nefarious political goings-on.

Posada, photographed around the turn of the 20th century, standing in the doorway of his Mexico City taller de grabado (engraving workshop).

When Pedroza's Aguascalientes workplace was destroyed by a flood in 1888, Posada moved to Mexico City to open his own workshop. After the move to the capital, Posada began publishing and distributing frequent volantes (flyers). He used the medium to continue to puncture the egos and expose the foibles and serious crimes of government and social figures of the day. During a time when many in Mexico were illiterate, the message of political cartoons could be easily understood even without reading the articles. Many credit Posada with raising the political and social consciousness of the peón (common laborer), exposing social injustice at a time when most at that level were blind to it.

Posada's first published fashionably-hatted calavera (skull). The cartoon is titled, "Big Sale of Grinning Skulls". Over the course of the rest of his career, it is estimated that the prolific Posada published as many as 20,000 political volantes, at a penny apiece, including many thousands that were illustrated by calaveras.

What was Posada's purpose in utilizing a skeleton–albeit a well-dressed skeleton–to illustrate his articles? Mexico's president/dictator at the time, Porfirio Díaz, appreciated and aped all things French. During his rule, known as the Porfiriato, Mexican government officials and high society alike dressed in the French mode, expressing what was known then and is known now as malinchismo: over-valuing foreign imports over Mexico's national products. The Frenchified calavera engraved by Posada is offered as a satirical portrait of those Mexican natives who, Posada felt, were aspiring to adopt European aristocratic traditions in Mexico's pre-revolutionary era. The irony of Posada’s drawing—a fabulously over-dressed skeleton—is that no matter what we’re wearing, we all end as bones.

El Jarabe en Ultratumba (Dancing Beyond the Grave).

In Mexico, we play with, make fun of, and party with death. We throw our arms around her in a wickedly sardonic embrace and escape her return embrace with a zippy side-step, a wink, and a joke. Every day is a dance with death. Death is a woman who has a numerous affectionate and humorous nicknames: la Huesuda (the bony woman), la Seria (the serious woman), la Novia Fiel (the faithful bride), la Igualadora (the equalizer), la Dientona (the toothy woman), la Pelona (the bald woman), la Patrona (the boss lady), and a hundred more. She's always here, just around the next corner or right over there, behind that pillar. She waits with patience, until later today or until twelve o'clock next Thursday, or sometime next year–but when it's time, she's right there to dance away with you at her side.

In the fairly recent past, Posada's politicized calavera became known as la catrina, a figure now closely related to Mexico's celebration of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Renowned Michoacán-based painter and sculptor Juan Torres Calderón, Mexico Cooks! good friend, was the first to present Posada's catrina vision in clay. In 1982, his wife, Velia Canals, began production of Maestro Torres' catrina designs. Their workshop in Capula, Michoacán, is open for sales to the public.

The Mexican word catrina–the word now used for any representation of Posada's original French-attired calavera–simply means a woman who is dressed to the nines. Her male counterpart is known as a catrín—a handsome man, usually dressed in elegant male attire. Together, the couple are catrines. Even today, if you go out to a formal event, your neighbor (seeing you leave the house) might well say, “Uff, qué catrina!” Unless you’re a man, of course, in which case the neighbor would say, “Qué catrín!”.

These catrines are made of paper maché. On the far right, you see a bride and groom. Mexico Cooks!' kitchen shows off this same artisan's chef figure, in a green chef's jacket and a high white toque. Enlarge any photo to have a better view.

Some of the many Día de los Muertos figures displayed at the fabulous bakery Hornos de Los Ortíz, in Morelia, Michoacán. The owner makes these gorgeous figures out of bread dough! If you happen to be in Morelia in the next few weeks, DO NOT MISS this bakery and its annual display. The owners, in a typical Mexican play on words, call the diorama a pan-teón: bread cemetery.

During the 2015 Noche de los Muertos events in Morelia's historic center, this young woman dressed in a skirt and hat made of totomoxtle (dried corn husks)–the husks normally used for making tamales. Her mother made her outfit and painted her face.

During the last few years, many Mexican children and adults have begun to paint their faces for Día (and Noche) de Muertos. The little girl in the chair lives in Opopeo, Michoacán, a small town not far from Morelia. In the town square's bandstand, young people were designing a special face for each child who wanted one.

Posada's century-old political calavera has evolved into one of Mexico's most beloved icons, the catrina. When your friends ask you about her, be sure that they know the history behind this beautiful creature. She's more than just a pretty face.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here to see new information: Tours

29 de October de 2016
Del Plato a La Boca at MODO, Mexico City’s Brilliant Museo del Objeto del Objeto

MODO: the Museo del Objeto del Objeto (Museum of the Object of the Object), on the lovely corner of Calle Colima and Calle Córdoba, Colonia Roma Norte, Mexico City. The museum has no permanent exhibits; each temporary exhibit is normally on display for several months. Photo courtesy Animal Gourmet.

One might think "Museo del Objeto del Objeto" is a strange name for a museum, but consider how far beyond simply seeing an object the name and the museum take us. In the space of this very manageably sized museum, we are given the vision of each object exhibited in the context of its time, of its place, of its fellow objects, and in the context of the entire exhibit. In other words, we come away with the sense of the object of the object: the purpose and the grace of each. MODO shows us how these familiar objects both interpret and relate to our very lives.

The current exhibit, which opened on September 20, 2016, is perfect for all of you who love everything related to food and its preparation. Del Plato a La Boca (from the plate to the mouth) is entirely about the kitchen, its utensils, and its design. The earliest piece in the show is from the late 1800s; the most recent is as new as this year. This exhibition will run through February 26, 2017. Mark it on your calendar and don't miss it! All photos copyright Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

First: what does the title of the exhibit mean? Mexico is famous for its thousands of refranes or dichos–folky sayings. The title of the exhibit is part of one of literally hundreds about only the kitchen, the dining table, and the art of eating. The complete saying is, "Del plato a la boca se cae la sopa"–from the plate to the mouth, the soup spills. In other words, there is no such thing as a sure thing; from one moment to the next, things change.

Ana Elena Mallet, the internationally acclaimed curator of Del Plato a La Boca, looks justifiably delighted with the initial response to the show. The museum graciously invited Mexico Cooks! to a press conference and a private guided tour, held just hours prior to the exhibition's September 20th opening to the public.

Here's a very modern kitchen from 1950s Mexico. It's the first room of the exhibit and it excited everyone on the tour. It's enormously gratifying to see such a beautifully mounted exhibit, nothing overstated, nothing wasted, everything just so. Last week, a friend, a member of Mexico City's food world, told me, "This exhibit is so wonderful! I've been twice, I can just stand there and look at just a few things for an hour. I can't wait to go back again." I agree, and will go again soon.

Del Plato a La Boca features every aspect of the Mexican kitchen. Well-used, well-loved, cherished through generations, Mexico's utensils range from the tortilla press to the pressure cooker and from the upper crust to the garbage bin.

A late 19th-early 20th century handwritten family recetario (cookbook). The page on the left is a recipe for bread pudding made from pan corriente ('ordinary' bread); the page on the right is a recipe for meatballs with bread.

Part of a wall of various types of metal moulds: for gelatin both sweet and savory, cakes, cookies, ice cream, and candies. My favorites? See those two rabbits about a third of the way down from the top? Those!

A rare paperback 'people's cookbook' from the Compañía Nacional de Subsistencias Populares, known by its acronym, CONASUPO. CONASUPO, founded in 1961 as a Mexican parastatal entity with the goal of regulating prices–particularly for corn–to enable Mexico's most marginalized citizens to supply their families with the canasta básica (basic food basket). This cookbook featured recipes made with harina de maíz (corn flour). Other recetarios featured dried beans, fresh eggs, whole milk, dried fish, chiles, tender fresh early corn, and even desserts. CONASUPO operated its stores in Mexico's areas of deepest poverty. The government closed the agency in 1999, but subsequently morphed into a similar, if smaller, organization called DICONSA (Sistema de Distribuidoras Conasupo, S.A. de C.V.) It's highly unusual to see a cookbook from the CONASUPO era, much less a utilitarian cookbook with a lovely cover design–it's papel picado, in the deeply colorful rosa mexicano!

Even kitchen toys make an appearance in Del Plato a La Boca. Here, a miniature and obviously well-loved stove. My question: what's in the oven? It looks like something is cooking, doesn't it?

It's easy to see that many kitchen items travel across internationally boundaries: the old enameled coffee pot is ubiquitous, as are the glass jars. Other things, like the metal spice container marked canela (cinnamon) to the left on the top shelf, might be different from those where you live. And that charming nesting hen dish at the bottom? She's probably a foot long and eight inches high, made of clay, and completely Mexican.

I looked at this for quite a while without recognizing it for its utility. The first thought that came to my mind was, "it reminds me of Petite Maman, the spider sculpture by Louise Bourgeois…". But of course you know what it is: a juicer! What terrific design. Photo courtesy MODO.

Apart from the sheer joy of seeing Del Plato a La Boca, one of my day's highlight moments: an opportunity to talk and laugh for a few minutes with the award-winning and long-admired author of Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel. Ms. Esquivel formed part of the invited press conference's panel who discussed a bit of Mexico's culinary history prior to the museum tour. That panel included Ana Elena Mallet (the exhibit curator), Ricardo Muñoz Zurita (Mexico's most prominent food historian and restauranteur), and Ms. Esquivel. She has expanded the reach of her brilliant novel of early 20th century life and the kitchen along the Mexican border–her next book will be out in the not-too-far-distant future. We'll keep you posted.

Even the desk at MODO's exit featured the design of old-time milk bottles and their delivery crate, exquisite in their simplicity.

Don't miss Del Plato a La Bocas at the MODO. You believe there's plenty of time to get here: the exhibition is on until February 26, 2017. Just remember: from the cup to the lip, there's many a slip. Life changes in a heartbeat.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here to see new information: Tours

22 de October de 2016
Mexico Cooks! Tours–Fabulous Food, Marvelous Markets, and So Much More
So many of you are nearly fanatical–and rightfully so–about Mexico's artisan-made goods! The technique shown above, that incorporates hand-ground lacquers into beautiful designs and objects of all types, is famous in Michoacán. The very best examples are for sale for only two weeks a year. Let's go see!

In the "ABOUT" section listed on the front page of Mexico Cooks! (up there in the right-hand corner, where it's easy to miss), I make mention of the highly personalized tours I frequently give for small groups. Many of my readers have asked about planning a Mexico Cooks! tour for themselves and their friends. Today, I've succumbed to your requests for more information about making Mexico Cooks! tour happen.

Pulling into a Mexico City market with a truckload of newly cut cempazúchitl, pata de león, and nube–all flowers used during celebrations for Mexico's Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Come tour with Mexico Cooks! and we might be able to pull into the market right behind a truck like this.

Mexico Cooks! has been all over this enormous country since first living in Mexico more than 35 years ago. Over all of that time, we've found a lot of hidden wonders, places rarely mentioned in guidebooks. For example, a huge popsicle marks the entrance to this way-off-the-beaten-path town. Why? We can take you there to find out!

Food–street food, market food, and restaurant food–makes up the majority of Mexico Cooks!' tours. These are tacos al pastor (shepherd-style tacos), loved by everyone and allegedly invented in Mexico City. Just tell the pastorero (the guy who prepares these), "Cuatro con todo, por favor," (four with everything, please), and get ready for a mix of flavors that no other meal provides. Chances are you'll want more than four!

This pale and luminous tile moon mural graces a fountain that is a must-see in Mexico City–we have to go!

Minimum group size is two people, and I can accommodate up to seven tour participants for a day trip, a few-days' trip, or a longer adventure.

All of the tours that I offer include the following:
- my undivided attention for the duration of your tour
- personalized tours to meet your special interests
- extensive pre-planning to maximize your experience on tour
- my 100% bilingual (English/Spanish) guide service
- Cost of all meals taken as a group including Cristina's meal(s)
Not included in the cost of your tour:
- air transportation costs to/from and within Mexico
- ground transportation to/from airports and/or bus stations
- hotel accommodations and tips to hotel personnel
- alcoholic beverages with meals or on your own
- all food and all beverages consumed at non-tour meals or during "on your own" time
- gratuity to Cristina (if you choose) at close of tour
Huitlacoche, freshly cut and ready to purchase at one of Mexico's most fascinating markets. During the course of several years, clients and market vendors alike have discovered that when Mexico Cooks! takes a group to the market, the magic starts. Expect plenty of tasting opportunities, tips on how to choose the best Mexican ingredients in the town where you live, and Cristina's tips on preparing Mexican dishes.

Do you see six varieties of fresh chiles? Prepare to learn the differences among them at any of Mexico's markets.

The myriad wonders of Mexico are too many to count, and too many to see in an entire lifetime. If you've been here and want more, the "more" that most tourists never see, Mexico Cooks! will meet your needs. Traveling with Mexico Cooks!, you have the opportunity to tailor-make the tour you want. Nothing is pre-packaged. Mexico Cooks! bases its tours on your ideas, your wants, your needs.

Dear readers, what you see is ONE taco de carnitas, prepared by the vendor for my clients as a taste of his wares. A taste. Just seeing the photo makes my mouth water. When can we go?

Does an upscale restaurant meal better suit your style? We know the best places in Mexico City, the state of Michoacán, and the state of Oaxaca. You will be rolling your eyes with delight.

If you have particular interests (artisan villages and handwork, churches and cathedrals, city and country markets [with or without a cooking class!], traditional Mexican food and ingredients in all their regional varieties, restaurants small and large, special fiestas and religious celebrations, and small regional museums, to list a few), Mexico Cooks! can show you more than you've dreamed of finding.

During this market tour in Michoacán, my clients learned about and, for the first time, tasted a fruit they'd never seen before: the mamey. They loved it, and if this will be your first time trying it, so will you.

Many of Mexico Cooks!' tours are focused on Mexico's high-altitude Central Highlands, where the weather is nearly always temperate: balmy and sunny during the day and refreshingly cool during the evening hours. The best times for touring are mid-June through February. March through late May are often uncomfortably warm and dry for daytime touring. Come discover the cool joy of central Mexico in the summer.

During a Mexico City tour, we ran into Frida Kahlo–well, actually Frida Kallejera (uniquely-spelled street Frida)! If we're lucky on your tour, we'll see her again.

There's a market in Oaxaca that will just plain knock your socks off: colors, fragrances, sounds, the works, all are love at first sight. It's my favorite market in all of Mexico, and I suspect you'll feel the same way.

Just wait! With one turn of your head, you'll see the most unexpected things! There's no place like Mexico–and no tour like a Mexico Cooks! tour. Email me at patalarga@gmail.com to start making your plans.

Buen viaje–Mexico Cooks! te espera! (Have a great trip–Mexico Cooks! is waiting for you!)
15 de October de 2016
Tradition and Authenticity: What Is *Real* Mexican Food?

Originally published in a different format in 2007, this article has recently received a good bit of attention on social networks. It bears re-publishing here.

"Real" Mexican chile relleno (stuffed, battered, and fried chile poblano), caldillo de jitomate (tomato broth), and frijoles negros (black beans).

More and more people who want to experience "real" Mexican food are asking about the availability of authentic Mexican meals outside Mexico. Bloggers and posters on food-oriented websites have vociferously definite opinions on what constitutes authenticity. Writers' claims range from the uninformed (the fajitas at such-and-such a restaurant are totally authentic, just like in Mexico) to the ridiculous (Mexican cooks in Mexico can't get good ingredients, so Mexican meals prepared in the United States are superior to those in Mexico).

Much of what I read about authentic Mexican cooking reminds me of that old story of the blind men and the elephant. "Oh," says the first, running his hands up and down the elephant's leg, "an elephant is exactly like a tree." "Aha," says the second, stroking the elephant's trunk, "the elephant is precisely like a hose." And so forth. If you haven't experienced what most posters persist in calling "authentic Mexican", then there's no way to compare any restaurant in the United States with anything that is prepared or served in Mexico. You're simply spinning your wheels.

It's my considered opinion that there is no such thing as one definition of authentic Mexican. Wait, before you start hopping up and down to refute that, consider that "authentic" is generally what you were raised to appreciate. Your mother's pot roast is authentic, but so is my mother's. Your aunt's tuna salad is the real deal, but so is my aunt's, and they're not the least bit similar.

Carne de puerco en salsa verde (pork meat in green sauce), my traditional recipe.

The descriptor I use for many dishes is 'traditional'. We can even argue about that adjective, but it serves to describe the traditional dish of–oh, say carne de puerco en chile verde–as served in the North of Mexico, in the Central Highlands, or in the Yucatán. There may be big variations among the preparations of this dish, but each preparation is traditional and each is authentic in its region.

I think that in order to understand the cuisines of Mexico, we have to give up arguing about authenticity and concentrate on the reality of certain dishes.

A 200-year-old tradition in Mexico at this time of year: chiles en nogada (stuffed chiles poblano in a creamy sauce made with fresh (i.e., recently harvested) walnuts. It's the Mexican flag on your plate: green chile, white sauce, and red pomegranates.

Traditional Mexican cooking is not a hit-or-miss let's-make-something-for-dinner proposition based on "let's see what we have in the despensa (pantry)." Traditional Mexican cooking is as complicated and precise as traditional French cooking, with just as many hide-bound conventions as French cuisine imposes. You can't just throw some chiles and a glob of chocolate into a sauce and call it mole. You can't simply decide to call something Mexican salsa when it's not. There are specific recipes to follow, specific flavors and textures to expect, and specific results to attain. Yes, some liberties are taken, particularly in Mexico's new alta cocina (haute cuisine) and fusion restaurants, but even those liberties are based, we hope, on specific traditional recipes.

In recent readings of food-oriented websites, I've noticed questions about what ingredients are available in Mexico. The posts have gone on to ask whether or not those ingredients are up to snuff when compared with what's available in what the writer surmises to be more sophisticated food sources such as the United States.

Deep red, vine-ripened tomatoes, available all year long in central Mexico. The sign reads, "Don't think about it much–take a little kilo!" At twelve pesos the kilo, these tomatos cost approximately $1.00 USD for 2.2 pounds.

Surprise, surprise: most readily available fresh foods in Mexico's markets are even better than similar ingredients you find outside Mexico. Foreign chefs who tour with me to visit Mexico's stunning produce markets are inevitably astonished to see that what is grown for the ordinary home-cook user is fresher, more flavorful, more attractive, and much less costly than similar ingredients available in the United States.

Chicken, ready for the pot. Our Mexican chickens are generally fed ground marigold petals mixed into their feed–that's why the flesh is so pink, the skin so yellow, and the egg yolks are like big orange suns.

It's the same with most meats: pork and chicken are head and shoulders above what you find in North of the Border meat markets. Fish and seafood are from-the-sea fresh and distributed within just a few hours of any of Mexico's coasts.

Nevertheless, Mexican restaurants in the United States make do with the less-than-superior ingredients found outside Mexico. In fact, some downright delicious traditional Mexican meals can be had in some North of the Border Mexican restaurants. Those restaurants are hard to find, though, because in the States, most of what has come to be known as Mexican cooking is actually Tex-Mex cooking. There's nothing wrong with Tex-Mex cooking, nothing at all. It's just not traditional Mexican cooking. Tex-Mex is great food from a particular region of the United States. Some of it is adapted from Mexican cooking and some is the invention of early Texas settlers. Some innovations are adapted from both of those points of origin. Fajitas, ubiquitous on Mexican restaurant menus all over the United States, are a typical Tex-Mex invention. Now available in Mexico's restaurants, fajitas are offered to the tourist trade as prototypically authentic.

You need to know that the best of Mexico's cuisines is not found in restaurants. It comes straight from somebody's mama's kitchen. Clearly not all Mexicans are good cooks, just as not all Chinese are good cooks, not all Italians are good cooks, etc. But the most traditional, the most (if you will) authentic Mexican meals are home prepared.

Diana Kennedy, UNAM 2011. Mrs. Kennedy was at the Mexican Autonomous University to present her book, Oaxaca Al Gusto.

That reality is what made Diana Kennedy who she is today: she took the time to travel Mexico, searching for the best of the best of the traditional preparations. For the most part, she didn't find them in fancy restaurants, homey comedores (small commercial dining rooms) or fondas (tiny working-class restaurants). She found them as she stood next to the stove in a home kitchen, watching Doña Fulana prepare comida (the midday main meal of the day) for her family. She took the time to educate her palate, understand the ingredients, taste what was offered to her, and learn, learn, learn from home cooks before she started putting traditional recipes, techniques, and stories on paper. If we take the time to prepare recipes from any of Ms. Kennedy's many cookbooks, we too can experience her wealth of experience and can come to understand what traditional Mexican cooking can be. Her books will bring Mexico's kitchens to you when you are not able to go to Mexico.

Fresh Michoacán-grown strawberries, available all year in central Mexico.

In order to understand the cuisines of Mexico, we need to experience their riches. Until that time, we can argue till the cows come home and you'll still be just another blind guy patting the beast's side and exclaiming how the elephant is mighty like a wall.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours

8 de October de 2016
Corn: An Ancient Gift from Mexico to Feed the World

At first glance, these appear to be flowers–but look closely: they're actually cross-sections of different varieties, sizes and colors of maíces nativos (native corn), grown continuously in Mexico for thousands of years, right up to the present time. They're so beautiful–and delicious! Photo courtesy Tortilla de Maíz Mexicana.

A few weeks ago, CONACULTA (Mexico's ministry of culture) invited Maestro Rafael Mier and Mexico Cooks! to speak about the preservation of traditional tortillas and about the milpa (millennia-old sustainable agricultural method still used in Mexico) at the Second Annual Festival Universo de la Milpa, held this year in Santa María Coapan, Puebla. Santa María Coapan, a part of the municipality of Tehuacán, is at the epicenter of the documented-to-date 11,000 year history of corn.

Left to right in the photo: Maestra Teresa de la Luz Hilario, Regidora de Educación y Cultura de Santa María Coapan; Maestro Rafael Mier of Tortilla de Maíz Mexicana; Mexico Cooks!; (speaking) the humanitarian and life-long human rights abogada del pueblo (advocate for the people) Concepción Hernández Méndez; and at far right, Lic. Roberto G. Quintero Nava, Director General de Culturas Populares of Puebla, CONACULTA. It was an honor to be part of this event and to meet its outstanding participants in this center of Mexican corn production. Photo courtesy Rafael Mier.

In tiny Coxcatlán, Puebla (just down the highway on the road south out of Tehuacán), a main attraction is the monument to corn. The legend at the base of the recently refurbished monument reads, "Coxcatlán, Cuna del Maíz (Cradle of Corn)". All photos copyright Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

From the small town of Coxcatlán, our driver took us about five kilometers further, south toward the Oaxaca border; there's a turnoff onto a dirt road at the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Biosphere Reserve. The September 24, 2016 Mexico Cooks! article offers some fascinating general information about the biosphere.

If you didn't know to turn onto that poorly marked, narrow, and winding dirt road, you'd just keep whizzing along the highway, saying, "Nothing to see here, just a lot of big cactus and scrub trees. The Oaxaca border is only 30 kilometers away, let's hurry so we get there before dark." But this humble dirt road twists through a portion of an internationally important site marking the origin and development of agriculture in Mesoamerica and the world. Archeological research here has provided key information regarding the domestication of various species such as corn (Zea mays sp.), chile (Capsicum annuum), amaranth (Amaranthus sp.), avocado (Persea americana), squash (Cucurbita sp.), bean (Phaseolus sp.), and numerous other plants that are with us still in the modern era. This biosphere is home to just under 3000 kinds of native flora plus the largest collection of columnar cacti in the world. In addition, the biosphere contains approximately 600 species of vertebrate animals. Let's not hurry–let's spend some time here.

Archeologist Richard S. MacNeish (April 29, 1918-January 16, 2001). In 1965, Dr. MacNeish and a group of his colleagues first uncovered the agricultural treasures in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán biosphere. Their excavation resulted in some of the most significant agricultural finds in the world. A statue in his memory is prominent today in Tehuacán. Dr. MacNeish, one of the most outstanding archaeologists of the Americas, developed innovative field methods that allowed him and his teams of co-archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, agronomists, and others to use science rather than educated guesswork to locate potentially important sites for excavation. Other than his discoveries in this biosphere, which are crucial to our understanding of Mesoamerican agriculture and settlement, his greatest legacy is probably his influence on and encouragement of students, other archaeologists, and the multitude of scientific professionals with whom he worked. Photo of Dr. MacNeish courtesy LibraryThing.

My good friend and colleague Rafael Mier, founder of Tortilla de Maíz Mexicana (by all means join the Facebook group), had talked a good while with me about his desire to visit the site where, over 50 years ago, Dr. MacNeish documented the remains of ancient corn. The more we talked about going to the cave, the more my heart raced: We were going to visit one of the places in Mexico where corn was born. Where corn was born. I felt that the trip would be much more than a Sunday drive in the country: it felt like a pilgrimage, to the most basic food destination in Mexico. To the origin of everything.

The extremely ancient peoples of what is now Mexico domesticated a native wild-growing plant called teocintle, which over the course of many years became what we know today as corn. Teocintle–the photo above is a seed head of the plant, harvested in 2015 in the State of Mexico and framed in sterling silver–is a grass similar to rice in that the grains grow and mature as a cluster of individuals, on a stalk. A mazorca (seed head) of teocintle has no center structure; no cob, if you will. One of the primary features that distinguishes corn from teocintle is the cob. Scientists tracked the domestication of teocintle from the wild grain to its semi-domesticated state, and from semi-domestication to the incredible variety of native Mexican corns that we know today. The actual teocintle seed head in the photo measures approximately three inches long. What you see in my hand is the million-times-over great-grandfather, the ancient ancestor of corn.

The mouth of la Cuna del Maíz Mexicano (the cradle of Mexican corn). I grew up in the southern United States, where I knew a few caves. I had expected to see a cave along the lines of Wyandotte Caves in Indiana, or Mammoth Cave in Kentucky: huge, multi-room caverns in which a person can walk along seeing rivers, stalagmites, stalactites, and other underground cave formations. Not here; this cave is simply what you see in the photograph, a sheltering karst-formation in the limestone, a pre-historic bubble. Standing in this spot gave me chills, and simply thinking about it while looking at the photograph now makes a shiver run up my spine. Out here in the vastness of this ancient natural world, in some ways so similar to the primitive world into which corn was born, one forgets about the crowded city, one forgets about modern problems, and one returns both mentally and spiritually to another time and to a connection with those Stone Age people who gave us the gift of corn, the true staff of life in much of today's world.

This shelter, according to years-long archeological research by Dr. MacNeish and others, was used as a camp, as a shelter during the rainy season for as many as 25 to 30 people, and as a post-harvest storage place for corn and other native vegetables (corn, beans, chiles, etc). Families, bands of families, and tribes living in or traveling through the Coxcatlán area used this type shelter for 10,000 years or more, primarily during the time in Mesoamerica that is analogous to the Archaic archeological period: approximately 5000 to 3400 BCE. Dr. MacNeish's extensive research showed more than 42 separate occupations, 28 habitation zones, and seven cultural phases in this cave.

At the Museo del Maíz (Corn Museum) in Tehuacán, there is a small display of the original dehydrated corn cobs and utensils found in the cave in the biosphere. This tiny cob measures less than one inch long.

These dehydrated cobs, also found in the cave, are quite a bit larger and probably somewhat younger than the tiny one in the photo above. They measure between 2 and 3 inches long. Some ancient fingers plucked this corn from its stalk, some long-ago woman–she must have been a woman–removed the kernels from the cobs and prepared food. How similar the growing methods, how similar what they ate, those people who created corn from a wild plant. Corn, beans, chiles, squash, amaranth, avocado: all served up in some way for millennia-past meals, and all available in Mexico's markets today. What foods do you eat that nourished your Stone Age forebears? How precious it is to know and taste the flavors of eleven thousand years worth of comidas (Mexico's main meal of the day)!

In addition to the important finding of dehydrated corn cob specimens (nearly 25,000 samples) and other kinds of vegetables in the substrata of the Tehuacán cave, Dr. MacNeish and subsequent archeologists found a large number of ancient tools such as chipped-flint darts used for hunting, grinding stones, and coas (pointed sticks used for planting). The investigators also found approximately 100 samples of human feces, which were examined to document the human diet of those long-ago days. Thanks to carbon dating, a method of determining the age of organic objects which was developed in the 1940s, scientists were and continue to be able to assign dates to ancient artifacts.

Part of a mural found in ruins dating to 650-900 AD in Cacaxtla, Tlaxcala. Click on the photograph to enlarge it; you'll see that what initially appear to be ears of corn are in fact a part of Mexico's creation myth: humankind is born of corn, and corn is born of humankind. Corn, which humankind created in the domestication process, cannot in fact exist without a human helping hand to husk it, take the dried kernels from the cob, and plant those kernels for subsequent harvest. Aside from wheat and rice, corn is the single-most planted grain in the world; there are countries and regions where humans could not exist without corn.

This tiny mazorca (dried ear of corn) is maíz palomero: (popcorn, scientific name Zaya mays everta), native to Mexico, the only kind of corn in the world that pops. Maíz palomero is believed by many scientists to have been the first corn. Today, this original corn is tragically all but extinct in Mexico. My colleague Maestro Rafael Mier, who lives in Mexico City, wanted to plant it; he contacted a number of possible sources without locating any seed at all. He ultimately called a seed bank in another Mexican state to see if they had some. They did, and they took seeds out of their freezer bank so that he could sow them on his property. His goal is to begin the reversal of the extinction of this original Mexican corn. This wee ear of popcorn, the standard size for this variety, is just about four inches long. Look how beautiful it is, with its crystalline white and golden triangular kernels.

Mexico still grows and cooks with 59 different varieties of native corns, corns that are essential to the regions in which they grow. A type of native corn that grows well in the state of Tamaulipas, for example, will probably not produce as well in Oaxaca. Nor will a native corn that is easily produced in the state of Guerrero grow well in the state of Coahuila. Climates differ, altitudes differ, soils differ: all impact Mexico's native corns. If you click on the poster to enlarge it, you'll see how very, very different Mexico's 59 corn varieties are from one another. Click on any photo to enlarge it for a better view. Photo courtesy CIMMYT.

These multi-colored mazorcas are native to the Mexican state of Tlaxcala, the smallest state in the República.

These elotes (ears of freshly harvested young corn) are native to the state of Michoacán.

These large fresh ears are elotes from the State of México, for sale earlier this summer at Mexico City's Mercado de Jamaica.

And finally, these mazorcas are native to the far-southern state of Chiapas.

Mexico knows itself as 'the people of the corn'. Mexico knows that sin maíz no hay país–without corn, there is no country. Right now, Mexico is at a crisis point, the point of preserving its heritage of corn–or allowing that heritage to be lost to the transnational producers of uniform, high-yielding, genetically modified corn that is not Mexico's corn. The Chinese characters in the photo mean crisis, defined as both danger and opportunity. Which word will Mexico choose to safeguard its heritage and frame its future? I take my stand on the side of the 11,000 year history that defines us.

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1 de October de 2016