Author: typepadtowordpress

If you’ve shopped at any of Mexico’s thousands of tianguis (street markets), you may have wondered what certain vendors were ladling out of their frosty garafas (stainless steel containers). That’s tejuino.  Along many highways and byways, you’ll regularly see someone selling aguamiel and pulque, the ancient drink of the Aztecs, from large jars positioned on a tiny table.

If you’ve wandered along the magical beaches bordering Mexico’s western coastlines,
you may have noticed a man with a yoke-like pole across his shoulders,
a red painted gourd suspended from the pole by a rope. His cry is
"Tuba! Tubaaaaaaaaaaa!" and his hands are full of plastic cups. At
various hole-in-the-wall supper restaurants, pineapple tepache
is the order of the day, served fizzing with a pinch of bicarbonate of
soda.  And on the outskirts of one small town as I head for Guadalajara and home, a sign hangs from a guamúchil tree. It reads "Aquí Se Vende Pajarete" (Pajarete Sold Here) and advertises yet another unusual beverage.

I don’t expect you to whip up most of these six popular drinks in your
home kitchen, but I thought you’d love knowing about some of Mexico’s really unusual cold drinks.

Tejuino

Since ancient times, cooling tejuino has refreshed Mexico. It’s made from the same corn masa (dough) that’s used for tortillas and tamales. The prepared masa is mixed with water and piloncillo
(cone-shaped Mexican brown sugar) and boiled until the liquid is quite
thick. It’s then allowed to ferment slightly—but just slightly. I’ve
never known anyone to get so much as a buzz from sipping a cupful of
cold tejuino.

Once the tejuino is thickened and fermented, it’s mixed as needed with freshly squeezed jugo de limón
(key lime juice), a pinch of salt, water, ice, and a big scoop of lemon
sherbet. Just about everywhere in Mexico, it’s sold in plastic glasses—small,
medium, and large—or in a plastic bag with the top knotted around a
drinking straw.

Some people say that tejuino is an acquired taste. I
acquired the taste for it the very first time I tried it and often
crave it on hot afternoons. There is nothing more
refreshing. Fortunately, there is a tejuino vendor just a block from my house,  so I can buy a glassful when the spirit moves me. Cup after cup of freshly prepared tejuino is ladled out to customers every day.  Although tejuino is only a slightly sweet
drink, the masa base makes tejuino very filling. A small glass is usually very satisfying.

Pulque
In the early 1980s while I was living in Mexico City, a friend took me
to meet some of her friends in a tiny town in the State of Mexico, which surrounds Mexico City. I
ate and drank things that I’d never seen before, including blue corn quesadillas washed down with pulque. The quesadillas were delicious. I was a bit uncertain about trying the pulque—I’d heard certain things about it.

Pulque is harvested from mature maguey plants that have reached heights of over eight feet by the time they’re seven to ten years old. Once a plant is mature, a pulque
harvester prunes off the top, carves out a reservoir in the center of
the plant, and then covers the opening. Juice from the plants’ leaves
drains into the reservoir and the liquid, called aguamiel, is harvested twice a day by the farmers. A typical maguey plant yields more than a gallon of aguamiel twice a day for several months. There are tales of legendary magueyes which have produced nectar for a year.

Harvesters store the juice in vats, where naturally occurring bacteria
from the plant cause it to ferment. Within the course of a day or two,
it reaches six percent alcohol. It’s often cured with pineapple,
strawberries, guavas, or other fresh seasonal fruit to give it
delicious flavor. It has more alcohol than beer, but less than wine.
It’s rich in vitamins, minerals, and amino acids—in fact, it’s said to
be almost as good for you as chicken soup!

Indigenous peoples in this country discovered the heady
beverage over 2,000 years ago. It became the elixir of choice for Aztec
leaders, who occasionally shared it with their subjects. About-to-be
human sacrifices were given pulque before they were killed. Aztec legend tells of a leader who got drunk on pulque
and removed his clothes in public. The shamed man was banished to a
remote area, where he and his followers enjoyed a lifestyle rich in pulque parties and frequent nudity.

That tale may shed light on the certain things that I’d heard: the most celebrated characteristic of pulque is that it’s alleged to have an aphrodisiac property. Ask any Mexican male, and he’ll say, ‘Ooh, pulque makes you very strong!’   

Over the centuries, pulque morphed from royal nectar to a blue-collar beverage enjoyed mainly in pulquerías: gritty, working-class, men-only establishments. When my friends in the State of Mexico saw a pulque
vendor outside a produce market, they insisted, with much laughing and
poking each other with elbows, that I try it. Remember that I’d heard things about it. Tasting the pulque made me nervous, since what I’d heard was that decent women didn’t drink pulque, that it was slimy and bad-tasting and that it quickly made one very drunk.

Peer pressure got to me and I took a sip and discovered that I liked it
very much, perhaps because it was cured and flavored with fresh
strawberries. I downed the small cup my friends gave me and asked for
another. It reminded me of hard cider, with that same kind of light
bubbly feel in the mouth. I quickly discovered that it affected me the
same way hard cider does—with that same kind of light bubbly feel in
the head, the feeling that makes it hard to walk straight. My friends
laughed all the harder as I acted sillier and proclaimed that I really,
really liked the pulque—the very same beverage I had protested against just a few minutes earlier.

Aguamiel
Aguamiel is the fresh, uncured juice of the maguey. At the time the mature maguey is topped, some of the juice is taken out of the plant’s center reservoir and drunk as is. A single maguey plant can produce as much as 2,500 liters of aguamiel over the course of several months. Aguamiel is non-alcoholic, fresh-tasting, and very thirst-quenching. It has the same medicinal properties as pulque.

Old traditions called for growers to plant and later top the maguey
with religiously fervent reverence. The farmer begged the plant to grow
well, to weep, and to fill up with aguamiel. The practice was considered to be idolatrous, because the farmer was treating a simple plant as if it were a god.

In today’s fields all across Mexico, there are farmers who continue to
practice the old rituals. When the mature plant begins to grow its
flower spike, the spike is cut away from the heart of the maguey,
leaving an opening 20 to 30 centimeters in diameter (approximately one
foot). The opening in the top of the plant is covered by several of the
plant’s own leaves, which are folded over and pinned down with the
long, sharp needles that grow along the leaves’ edges. In that way, the
plant protects itself from insects and dirt and can be opened twice a
day to remove the aguamiel.

Tuba
In Mexico, tuba is primarily a coastal drink. Several years ago I was surprised to see a tuba vendor at a tianguis in Guadalajara. Now I’ve been seeing the same man selling tuba in Tlaquepaque and at the Thursday and Sunday artisans’ tianguis in Tonalá. If you happen to be in this area, look for him—he’s easy to spot, with his bright-red gourd of tuba suspended from a pole across his shoulders.

Coconut palm sap is fermented to make the clear, white, sweet wine called tuba.
To collect the sap, workers climb the palm tree in the morning and
evening and bruise the coconut flower stalk until it starts to ooze its
liquid. The stalk is tied with bamboo strips into a special bamboo
container to catch the sap. Crushed tanbark from the mangrove tree is
dropped into the container to give the sap a reddish color and to
hasten its fermentation. As many as three flowers from one coconut tree
can be made to yield sap. Each flower produces tuba for two months, after which it dries out and is cut from the tree.

The liquid actually begins to ferment while still in the bamboo
container on the tree, but the alcohol content increases considerably
with longer fermentation. Tuba quenches the thirst, is good for indigestion, and makes conversation flow easily.

Tepache

I’ve found tepache in several cenadurías
(restaurants open for supper only, usually from 7:30 PM until midnight)
in Mexico, as well as at street stands. Tepache is simple to make and the ingredients are readily available whether
you live North or South of the Border. You might like to try this at
home.

 

Tepache (teh-PAH-cheh)
1 whole pineapple (about 3 pounds)
3 quarts water
1 pound piloncillo or brown sugar
1 cinnamon stick, approximately 3" long
3 cloves

Wash the pineapple well. Cut off the stem end and discard. Leave the
skin on the pineapple and cut the entire fruit into large pieces.

Place the pieces of pineapple in a large container and add two quarts of water, the piloncillo
or brown sugar, the cinnamon, and the cloves. Cover and allow to rest
in a warm place for approximately 48 hours. The longer you allow the
liquid and fruit to rest, the more it will ferment. If you let it sit
for longer than 48 hours, taste it periodically to make sure it is not
overly fermented, as it will go bad.

Strain the liquid—the tepache—and add the last quart of water.

If you prefer, do not add the last quart of water. Instead, add one cup of beer and allow to rest for another 12 hours.

Strain again and, if you have used the beer, add three cups of water.

Serve cold with ice cubes.

At any cenaduría, you can ask for your tepache
with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. You can also add it at home, just
before you’re ready to drink a glassful. The addition makes the tepache
fizz and bubble, and it’s said to be extremely good for the digestion.
An elderly neighbor of mine swears by it as a heartburn remedy.

Pajarete
In the Mexican countryside, tequila drinking
starts as soon as the sun comes up. If you drive Mexican highways early any
morning—early, please, when the air is still chilly and cool gray mist
clings to the flanks of the mountains of the Central Highlands—look for a small hand painted
sign. "Aquí Se Vende Pajarete" (pah-hah-REH-teh)
is all it says. The sign may hang from a tree, it may be tacked to a fencepost, and you won’t see any indication of a cart or stand.

Back from the road, behind the trees, past the bushes, just over there by those old wrecked cars, a dairy farmer milks his cows.  As he milks the patient cows and they snuffle their hot breath into the misty morning, groups of men (sombrero-wearing men who are real men) gather around the cow lot, each man with his large clay mug.  Into each mug go a stiff shot of either charanda (a kind of grain alcohol) or tequila, a bit of sugar and some cinnamon-laden Mexican chocolate grated from a round tablet.  The mug is then filled with warm milk, freshly squeezed directly into the mug from the cow.  More a body-temperature drink than a cold drink, that’s pajarete: breakfast of champions.

There are many more interesting and unusual drinks South of the Border, everything from A (acachú, a drink made near Puebla from the wild cherry) to Z (zotol,
made in Chihuahua from the sap of wild yucca). Wherever you are in
Mexico, you’ll find something fascinating to quench your thirst, make
you feel more at home in the culture, and give you a story to tell.

A toast to each of you: Salud, dinero, y amor, y tiempo para gozarlos. Health, money, and love, and time to enjoy them. 

  I often note that Mexico is a country full of contradictions and
paradoxes. As a case in point, the Mexican kitchen of the 21st Century
lives cheek by jowl with the Mexican kitchen that predates the 16th Century arrival of the Spanish, and
we’re all the richer for it. Ancient utensils and techniques are put to
daily use in modern kitchens so beautiful they could be in any of
today’s slick kitchen design magazines. In today’s Mexican kitchen, a molcajete and tejolote (volcanic stone mortar and pestle) often sit on the counter next to a Kitchen-Aid mixer, and kiln-fired bean pots made of barro (clay) may well share cupboard space with a Le Creuset Dutch oven.

The Mexican kitchen of colonial times was typified by the kitchens of
the women’s religious orders. Early nuns had very poor diets except on
the many feast days: the reception of a novice into the convent, the
feast day of the order’s patron saint, Christmas, and many other
special days provided reason for especial and elaborate meals. During the annual posadas
(nine-day celebrations prior to Christmas), the ruling Spanish lords,
the local archbishop and other dignitaries were invited to dine with
the nuns, along with their family members and the sponsors of the
convent.

It was in the convents that many of the most wonderful Mexican foods
were invented to take advantage of local products, mixing and matching
them in old European recipes. Today, those recipes that mix of Europe
and the New World are among the most traditional of the Mexican
kitchen.

The cooking utensils that were in daily use in Europe were
almost nonexistent in the New World. Because metal utensils like those used in Spain
were prohibitively expensive in the New World, they were replaced by
utensils made of indigenous clay. Clay pots were gradually perfected,
in large part due to the incorporation of new glazing techniques and
new designs. Other utensils were made from native volcanic stone found predominantly in Mexico’s central highlands.  Prehispanic
utensils such as the molcajete, the comal (clay griddle), and the metate
(flat rectangular grinding stone) were common. Most cooks in the days
of the Spanish colonial period were indigenous women who brought their
utensils with them into Spanish New World kitchens.

The volcanic stone metate, along with its mano de metate
(similar to a rolling pin made of stone) was the principal cooking
utensil in the prehispanic kitchen, and it’s still used today in rural
areas to grind corn for making tortilla masa (dough). Volcanic
stone is porous and microscopic pieces of it break off into the corn as
it is ground, becoming an essential part of the dough. It’s so
essential to the texture and flavor of the masa that even in enormous commercial processing plants, the corn-grinding stones are made of volcanic rock.
   

The metate is also used to grind dried chiles and other
grains used to prepare moles and other complex dishes, and to prepare
the highly prized home made chocolate used for cooking.

The second most important piece in the indigenous kitchen is the three-legged molcajete, a
kind of volcanic stone grinding mortar. It’s still widely used,
especially for grinding soft ingredients such as tomatoes, green
chiles, green onions, herbs, and other condiments. A well seasoned salsa de molcajete (sauce to be used at table, made in a molcajete) is the mark of a wonderful cook.

Family-operated
workshops in certain Mexican villages carve locally mined volcanic stone into the
familiar shape of the molcajete and the less frequently seen metate.  It can be difficult to find molcajetes and metates at the source, unless you know where to look.  The first time I ventured to one of these small villages, I expected to see molcajetes and metates for sale in stores. I discovered that I
had to knock on the doors at private homes in the towns and ask if
anyone there made molcajetes.

Fortunately there is an easier way for most of us to find a traditional molcajete or metate.
Next time you’re on a shopping expedition to one of Mexico’s regional mercados, ask the merchants where to find a vendor who sells them.  They usually range in price from $65 pesos for a tiny molcajete just big enough to use for serving salsa at the table to the mother of all molcajetes
priced at $125 pesos. The vendors may also sell even bigger ones carved
with the head of a pig. Those are priced at approximately $600 pesos.

The basis and essence of the earliest and most current cuisines of Mexico is what is called the corn kitchen. Corn and corn masa have been used to prepare an infinite variety of staple foods in this country since before written history. The word masa
comes from a Nauhatl word that means ‘our flesh’. It’s said that the
Nauhatls believed that their gods created man and woman from corn
dough. That equation of corn with the flesh of the human being is more
telling than any long description of prehispanic, colonial, or
present-day eating habits could be. Corn was all, and in many Mexican
homes today, corn is still all.

The corn tortilla has always been the single most important
staple food of Mexico. Tortillas with a serving of beans are a perfect
protein. In many impoverished Mexican homes, corn tortillas and a pot
of beans are even today the only daily fare. At all levels of society,
a meal eaten at home is not complete without a large stack of
tortillas, carefully wrapped in a special napkin. A family of five can
easily eat a kilo of tortillas as many as eighteen tortillas per
person or more along with the comida (main meal of the day). 

From the time tortillas originated, women have patted balls of damp masa by hand to form it into perfect circles. It’s still a mark of pride for a restaurant to offer tortillas "hechas a mano" (hand
made). In some homes, especially in very rural areas, the rhythmic
pat-pat-patting of hands making tortillas marks the dinner hour.

In many cases ‘hand made’ now means tortillas prepared using a tortilla press made of either wood or metal. Masa can either be purchased ready-made at a nearby tortillerí­a or cooks can prepare it from dried corn. Either way, once the masa is ready the tortillas must be made quickly or the masa
will be too dry to work. A piece of waxed paper or one half of a
plastic storage bag is placed on the bottom half of the tortilla press.
A ball of dough the size of a golf ball or slightly larger is pulled
from the bulk of masa; then the dough is flattened slightly by
hand and placed on the plastic. A second plastic or waxed paper sheet
is placed on top of the dough and the press is squeezed shut.

Open the press and there’s a perfectly round tortilla, ready to have
the plastic peeled off. Now do it again. And again. And again, and
remember, there are five of you in the family and at least some of you
will eat eighteen tortillas each at this meal! Even using the modern
convenience of a tortilla press, it’s still backbreaking work to
prepare enough tortillas for a family’s needs.

Of course Mexico is not only about rural tradition and the indigenous
corn kitchen. I recently talked about recent trends in the Mexican
kitchen with Licenciada Virginia Jurado Thierry, owner of  Arquitectura en Cocinas in Guadalajara. Walking into her design
center in fashionable Colonia Providencia is like walking into a high
end kitchen designer’s showroom anywhere in the world.

Sleekly modern wood cabinets are shown with stainless steel
refrigerators and restaurant quality stoves; glass-front cupboards
reflect top-of-the-line small appliances crouching on quartz polymer
resin counters. When I explained the nature of this article, Lic.
Jurado nodded and invited me into her private office to chat.

"So many people think the design of the Mexican kitchen is only done with talavera
tiles. New kitchens are constantly evolving, and new design here is
similar to new design everywhere. As you noticed as you walked through
our showrooms, we offer nothing but the finest in kitchens. Everything
is designed with convenience and efficiency and performance in mind."
She paused to reach behind her and take down a thick notebook. "These
are some of the products we offer to our clients."

We flipped through the book. Familiar names in kitchen design jumped
out at me: European lines like Miele and Smeg, United States
manufacturers such as SubZero, Wolf, Viking, and Dacor, and the
noteworthy Italian Valcucina line were just a few important
manufacturers’ names I noticed.

Lic. Jurado smiled. "Our clients really want a bright,
clean look. That translates into light woods such as oak for cabinets,
lots of whites and tones of gray, stainless steel and glass. People
also want aluminum accessories and opaque glass, especially for
cupboard doors. Paint colors are light. For counter tops, we’re getting
many requests for melamine in new, stain-free colors, and polymer resin
quartz in light colors. And some people want granite, or colored
concrete. It’s a whole range of effects, but with a very clean European
look.

"We can,
for example, offer the client a stove for $5000 pesos or we can offer
the client a stove for $15,000 U.S. Usually we find a meeting place
somewhere in between those figures."

What a revelation! I felt as if I’d jumped 500 years, from
Colonial Spanish days to the 21st Century in the course of an
afternoon. The contradictions of Mexico, even in as small a detail as
the utensils and design of a kitchen, still amaze me.

A first trip to the local tianguis can be mind-boggling—there are so
many sights and smells of so many unfamiliar foods. For now, let’s take a tour
of some of the tropical fruits that you’ll want to try.

I saw so many marvelous tropical fruits on Wednesday at the tianguis
(street market) where I usually shop: cherimoya, guanábana, mamey, and carambola.
Papaya, mango, sapote, maracuyá, and bananas nearly the size
of your forearm—and other tiny bananas, the ones that are the size of your
thumb.

And then there were the tunas. Since when is a tuna a fruit
and not a fish?

The fruits available in season in Mexico can be confusing when we’re used to
the ordinary apples, peaches, oranges, pears and plums in North of the Border
supermarkets. We have those "normal" fruits here too, but wait till
you try the exotic produce that awaits you in Mexican markets.

The cherimoya ranges from tennis ball size to a fruit the size of
your head. The guanábana can have a size range equally wide. Either
fruit should be eaten when the fruit is very soft but not mushy. At home, I
often cut a small ripe cherimoya in half and eat it with a spoon right
from the skin. It makes a wonderful light dessert. The seeds are big, black,
shiny, and easily discarded.

Guanábana (soursop) flesh is eaten with a spoon or is used to make
drinks and paletas (popsicles). Try this easy, delicious, and refreshing
drink.

Agua Fresca de Guanábana
(Fresh Guanábana Juice Drink)
1 pound ripe guanábana
3/4 cup white sugar
8 cups water
1 cup milk (optional)

Cut the guanábana in half and scoop
out the tender white flesh. Discard the bitter peel. Put the fruit flesh in a
large bowl and reduce to a pulpy liquid, using a potato masher or the back of a
large spoon. Discard the large black seeds as they appear.

When the fruit pulp is mostly liquefied, add the sugar and stir together
with the fruit pulp and its juices. Put the fruit and sugar mixture in a
3-quart pitcher. Add the eight cups of water and the milk, if you wish. Stir
well and chill for an hour or more.

The carambola (star fruit) is primarily used for decoration. Cut
cross sections of the fruit, as you see them in the photo above, to use on the
rim of a glass of your fresh guanábana fruit drink.

The papaya and the mango are two of the more familiar tropical
fruits available in Mexican shops and stalls.

The deep orange-red flesh of the Mexican papaya
is much richer and sweeter than its small yellow Hawaiian relative. The papaya
is best eaten when very ripe; the flavor and sweetness have developed
beautifully just when you think the fruit might need to be thrown in the trash
can.

When the papaya is super ripe—even
a little moldy in spots—peel it and cut away any small sections that might be
overly soft (the overly ripe spots will be darker in color, translucent and
softer than the rest of the fruit). It’s delicious cut into chunks for
breakfast, with a squeeze of limón criollo (the tiny round Mexican
lime), a sprinkle of salt, and a dash of powdered chile if you like a
little heat with your tropical fruit. For dinner, papaya slices combine
with thinly sliced red onion, toasted pecans, and fresh watercress to make an
exotic and refreshing salad. Try the salad with a raspberry vinaigrette
dressing, either your own concoction or a bottled variety.

There are nearly 2,000 varieties of mango grown worldwide.  India produces more mangos than all other fruits produced in that country combined.
The mango, king of fruits, is related—believe it or not—to poison ivy.
Cultivated in Asia for more than 4,000 years, the
growing of mangos has now spread to most parts of the tropical and
sub-tropical world. The mango could well be the national fruit of Mexico.

A mango tree can grow 75 to 100
feet high and bears thousands of fruits each year. During mango season
(June-August) here in the Guadalajara area, we use caution when walking under enormous mango trees; one of the
heavy fruits could inflict a mighty thump to the top of an unsuspecting head.

Mangos are so wonderfully versatile that it’s difficult to choose one
particular mango recipe for you to try. Eaten fresh for breakfast,
lunch, or dinner, the mango is unbeatable. One friend substitutes mango
slices for fresh peaches when making cobbler, pie, or Brown Betty. Another
makes a fantastic mango mousse, and yet another is renowned for her mango
sorbet.

Cook’s Tip:
Cutting up a mango can leave you with juice up to your elbows, stains on
your clothing, and stringy shreds of fruit in your mixing bowl. Here’s the simplest
way to cut a mango with minimal mess, loss of fruit, and frustration.
You’ll be pleased that your mango, cut this way, will not be the least
bit stringy.

Lay the mango on your cutting board with the narrowest side facing
up. With a very sharp knife, cut completely through the mango along one
side of the broad, flat seed. Then cut through the mango along the other
side of the seed, leaving a narrow strip of skin and flesh around the perimeter
of the seed. Set the seed portion aside.

Lay the two halves of the mango skin-side down on the cutting board.
Cut through the mango flesh (but not through the skin) to make
approximately nine diamond-shaped pieces in each mango half. Then gently
flip each half of the mango inside out, so that the diamond-shaped pieces
pop up. Use your knife to cut each piece free of the skin.

Next, cut the skin from the strip of mango
surrounding the seed. Cut the flesh in pieces as large and as close to the seed
as you can.  Cut all the mango flesh into pieces the size you need.

Voilà, no strings, no shreds, and no lost juice.

My inviolable household rule is that the one who cuts up the mango
gets to slurp any remaining fruit from the seed. Try to suck the seed until
it’s bone-white–that’s how we do it South of the Border.

The banana is a familiar North of the Border favorite. Babies eat it as
their first mashed fruit; older folks can eat one a day for an easy daily dose
of potassium. Here in the subtropics, we have a huge variety of bananas that are just
beginning to make their way north to Latin markets in the United
  States and Canada.

The guineo (similar to the ordinary banana), the dominico (a tiny
banana also known as the ladyfinger), the manzano (the ‘apple’ banana),
and the plátano macho (the ‘macho’ banana) are only four of the many
types of this fruit that we see regularly in our markets.

The tiny ladyfinger banana, three to four inches long, is delicious eaten as
a snack. The peel is almost paper-thin and the firm flesh is sweeter than most
full-size bananas. The manzano banana has reddish peel and a marked
apple-banana flavor.

The plátano macho is my particular favorite, however. While it’s
still green and hard, it can be sliced into and fried into savory, salty chips
called tostones. Fully ripened—the skin at this stage is dark brown or
black—the plátano macho is called the maduro (mature or ripe). I
don’t get nervous even when I see that my maduros have a spot or two of
mold on the skins. That’s when they’re the best, and this way to prepare them
is my favorite. Be careful, they’re addictive.

Plátanos Machos Fritos
Fried Sweet Plantains

2 very ripe plátanos machos (plantains)
vegetable oil

Peel the plaintains. Cut each plantain on the diagonal into pieces 1/4"
thick.

Heat approximately 1/4" vegetable oil in a large non-stick or cast iron
skillet. The oil should be quite hot but not smoking. If the oil starts to
smoke, remove the skillet from the heat until the oil cools down slightly.

Put as many of the plaintain slices in the frying pan as will fit without
touching one another. Fry on one side until golden brown. Flip each slice over
and fry until golden on the other side. Add oil to the skillet if necessary and
continue frying the plantain slices until all are done.

Drain thoroughly on paper toweling.

Serve for breakfast with fried or scrambled eggs, refried beans, and hot
tortillas. The fried plantains are particularly delicious when topped with a
dollop of Mexican crema (or sour cream).

The tuna (prickly pear cactus fruit) is an unlikely-looking addition
to the table. The thick pale green
or deep red skin is covered with spines, the
fruit is filled with BB-size hard seeds, and the flesh is normally either
pallid grayish-green or red. Nevertheless, the tuna is one of the most
refreshing and delicious fruits of Mexico.  Chilled, peeled, and eaten either out of hand or (in a more refined style) from
a plate, with a knife and fork, the tuna cools you from the inside, the
way a cold slice of watermelon brings brief respite to a hot afternoon. Swallow
the seeds along with the flesh; they cause no harm unless your doctor has
suggested that you not eat seedy foods.

The maracuyá (passion fruit) is unusual even for the subtropics. It
looks like a large greenish-yellow egg with a stem attached. The skin of the
passion fruit is thin but hard. You will need a sharp or serrated knife to cut
through the top third of the ‘shell’. The pulp of the passion fruit is cradled
in the bottom of the remaining shell. Pale green and filled with small seeds,
the pulp honestly doesn’t look like anything you would want to eat, but it has
a sweetly tart flavor that’s quite agreeable. Some people scoop the pulp and
seeds out of the shell and stir them into a glass of orange juice to drink;
others simply eat the pulp with a spoon, directly from the shell—seeds and all.

The mamey is a love-it-or-leave-it sort of fruit with a hairy brown
shell and rich peachy-red flesh.
Some folks crave its sweet, soft, candied
yam-like flavor while others can’t stand the thought of it. I’m in the latter
category, but a California friend
has to buy a ripe mamey or two immediately each time she visits me.

Here in Mexico,
the flesh of the mamey is also used medicinally, as a cream to cure
certain skin conditions. The inside part of the large seed can be toasted,
ground, and rubbed on the eyelashes and eyebrows to prevent them from falling
out.

This series of photographs, recipes, and descriptions is just the beginning
of your knowledge of the tropical fruits available season by season here in Mexico.
Each harvest time brings new and different produce to our markets. We learn as
we live here to anticipate certain local fruits at certain times of the year: fresas (strawberries) starting in
February; tiny orange-red ciruelas (plums)
late in the summer; the tejocote (similar to a small crabapple) early in
winter. There are other fruits gathered locally in the wild: the capulín
(a kind of wild cherry) and the guamúchil (a small whitish, crisp fruit
that grows on trees, in a twisted pod).

In addition, of course, we have oranges, grapefruit, pineapple, watermelon,
cantaloupe, peaches, apricots, apples, pears, grapes, and tangerines in their
seasons.
All of these well-known fruits are generally picked in season and at the peak of
ripeness here in Mexico and will cause you to lick your fingers, reach for seconds, and exclaim,
"You know, I don’t think I’ve ever really tasted one of these
before!"

The  cuisines of Mexico–and there are many–are a fantastic amalgam of indigenous corn-based
food preparations with a heavy overlay of Spanish ingredients, a strong
influence of Moorish flavors, and a lagniappe of French artifice from
the mid-19th Century. There is no one cuisine in this big country,
although some popular dishes are found in every region. Not every cook
prepares enchiladas with the same list of ingredients; tacos, although
ubiquitous in Mexico, can be different at every crowded taco stand.

Many of the herbs and spices that you use in your own North of the
Border kitchen are also used in the Mexican kitchen. Garlic, cinnamon,
oregano, and thyme are in widespread use here. Cumin, cloves, tarragon,
and mint show up frequently. Lemon grass, which we usually think of as
an ingredient in Thai or Vietnamese dishes, is commonly grown in many
parts of Mexico and is used to make tea.

A good part of the differences in the regional cuisines of
Mexico is each region’s use of herbs. Some of those herbs are
completely unknown to those of us whose familiarity with Mexican food
stops with Pepe’s Taco Hut on Main Street, USA. Pepe, whose mother’s
family emigrated to the USA from the Mexican state of Hidalgo, prepares
the restaurant’s platillos fuertes (main dishes) from recipes passed down from his abuelita
(grandmother), who lived for 97 years in the same Hidalgo village. He’s
adapted those recipes to include the ingredients he can find in the
States and to the palates of his customers.

Oregano is quite common in Mexican cooking. It can be used either fresh
or dried. A small pot of oregano in a sunny spot of your kitchen garden
will usually be plenty for all your cooking needs. If you live in a
place where the growing season is short, harvest oregano periodically
through the summer, tie the stems in small bunches, and hang upside
down in a dark place to dry. It dries very fast and retains most of its
aroma and flavor. Discard the stems and store the crisp leaves in an
airtight, lightproof containers.

Because the growing season in most parts of Mexico is almost year-round, I can always cut a fresh sprig of oregano or two to use when making spaghetti sauce, pescado a la veracruzana,
(fish prepared in the style of Veracruz) or other tomato-based sauces.
I wash the sprigs and either strip off the leaves into the pot or put
the entire sprig into the sauce for seasoning.

The Mexican kitchen uses a wide range of other herbs. The Spanish names read like a mysterious litany: albahaca, epazote, estragón, hoja santa, hierbabuena; comino, clavo, and romero. In English, they are (in order) basil, wormweed, tarragon, holy leaf, mint, cumin, cloves, and rosemary.

Epazote grows wild all over Mexico and in parts of the United States. Several months ago I paid ten pesos at the tianguis
(street market) in Ajijic for a pot of it to plant in my garden. As I
was carrying the pot home, my neighbor, Doña Mago, saw me and
exclaimed, "Porque compraste eso?" ("Why did you buy that?").

"Well, you know" I answered, "I like it to cook in my beans, to make quesadillas, for the flavor—"

"No, no, no, amiga!" she cried, and pointed a finger
toward the corner. "It grows up through the cracks in the sidewalk just
down the street. You should have asked me to show you where to find it.
You could have saved your money. When I want some, I just go over there
and cut a piece." It’s true. When I was out for a walk the next day, I
noticed for the first time the epazote plant she had mentioned.

Regardless of my profligate waste of ten pesos, I do like to cook a big sprig of epazote in a pot of beans. The herb is originally from Mexico and Central America. The indigenous language name that was given to epazote
is derived from the Nahuatl words ‘epti’ and ‘zotle’: the combined word
means ‘skunk sweat’. As you can imagine, the herb has a very strong and
distinctive flavor. According to Mexican kitchen lore, epazote also has anti-flatulent properties, which is why it’s smart to add it to the boiling bean pot.

Other plants used to give uncommon seasonings to the cuisines of Mexico are hoja de plátano (banana leaf) and hoja de aguacate
(avocado leaf). You won’t be able to run right out to your nearest
Safeway or HEB store to find these. If you live in an area where
there’s a large Asian population, you’ll find packages of frozen banana
leaves in any well-stocked Asian food market. As for avocado
leaves—well, if you or your neighbor are lucky enough to have an
avocado tree, you can just go pick some. Unfortunately there’s no
seasoning substitute for them.

Hoja santa is used extensively in Mexican cooking. It’s a large,
heart-shaped leaf that comes from a tall, bushy plant—a plant that will
take over the garden space that it’s planted in and then some, if you
let it. It’s a native of Mexico and has medicinal properties as well as
seasoning uses. The flavor of hoja santa is reminiscent of licorice.

Banana leaves are used for wrapping meats to prepare barbacoa (southeastern Mexican barbecue, cooked in a pit) and for wrapping and flavoring tamales from the Yucatán Peninsula in far southeastern Mexico. Avocado leaves are used as a flavoring agent; like hoja santa, they have a mild taste somewhat similar to licorice.

As you can see, Mexican home cooking is far more than tacos and enchiladas. The
more unusual kitchen herbs of Mexican cuisine add intense flavor
without adding that blast of spiciness that we so often mistake for the
only seasoning of Mexico.

Corn is the staple and basic food of Mexico.  It's the place to begin this culinary journey.  There's nothing  in the food cultures of the rest of North America remotely comparable to the importance of corn in Mexico. 

Corn was so important in the lives of the Incas, Mayas and Aztecs that it was elevated to a special role in the culture. Centéotl, the corn god, and Xilonen, goddess of the corn ear, played a primary role in pre-Conquest mythology and religious practices. In some Mexican villages, it's still customary to make offerings to the corn plant itself prior to planting.  Farmers offer flowers, coffee, and aguardiente (a strong alcohol distilled from sugar cane) to the seed corn, along with prayers and songs specific to the occasion.

Another Mayan legend tells that when the gods had organized the earth, the water and the animals, they then turned to creating a being who would understand the goodness of life. First they tried molding a man of clay, but he was weak and inept. Then they attempted making a man and a woman of bark, but they lacked intelligence and gratitude. Finally the gods created beings whose flesh was made of corn and had the same colors as corn. These beings could think and could thank the gods that made them.

From that day forward–right up to the present moment–corn has been central to the Mexican diet and the Mexican way of life.  Think of its infinite uses: the ubiquitous tortilla (a family of five might consume as much as a kilogram–2.2 pounds–of tortillas per person in the course of a day's meals), antojitos (little whims) made of nixtamal-ized corn, and an assortment of delicious preparations that ranges from the hundreds of varieties of tamales to tiny region-specific soup dumplings. 

Corn can be yellow, white, blue, red, green, or black.   Any housewife can soak and boil the kernels and then grind them into dough–that's nixtamal-ization.  She can cook the prepared whole kernels in rich soups.  The variety of corn most often used in today's Mexico is cacahuacintle, Nahuatl for–what else–corn.  Cacahuacintle produces large ears and soft, broad kernels and makes an excellent pozole, a rich soup traditionally prepared with nixtamal-ized corn kernels and pork meat.  In Mexico, a whole cabeza de puerco (pig's head) is the foundation of the soup's broth. 

No matter how humble, it's rare to find a meal in Mexico that does not include corn.  For desayuno (breakfast), for comida (the main meal of the day), and for cena (late supper), corn's what's on the table.  We'll be talking much more about this gift of Centéotl as time goes by.