Category: Mexican Markets

Adobo de Cerdo Huasteco, from Verde Blanco y Rojo by Ricardo Muñoz Zurita

Originally published in October 2011, this illustrated recipe for Adobo de Cerdo Huasteco is a perfect meal for February's chilly weather. Mexico Cooks! celebrates its ninth anniversary of publishing with this delicious meal to warm body and soul. Enjoy!

Roma tomatoes and onion quarters toasting on a comal (in this case, a cast iron griddle). That little tomato on the right looks downright happy to be toasting.

Several months ago, Mexico Cooks! was thrilled to receive a copy of Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita's newest recetario (cookbook), titled Verde, Blanco, y Rojo en la Cocina Mexicana. Due to the pressures of moving and settling into a new and somewhat more frenetic life in Mexico City, the very attractive book sat patiently in the kitchen bookshelf with its 150 or so brother and sister cookbooks, waiting to be chosen. 'Choose me, choose me!' it whispered each time I passed by the shelf. And finally I listened.

Serving-size pieces of maciza de cerdo (lean, fresh pork leg) simmering with onion and garlic.

My friends and I are very fond of traditional Mexican cuisine. Like most people, we have our favorite dishes. And like most people, I have a hard time breaking habits and wading into a new cookbook: it means learning a new format, a new organization of ingredients, and a new dish that I had never prepared.

The first task was reading the recipe all the way through to the end to make sure that I had all of the ingredients and utensils on hand prior to starting to cook and that I understood the order of cooking. It's really no fun at all to start the preparations and discover at the time of need that oops, there is no garlic and ouch, that one bowl I really wanted to use is full of last night's stew. You'll want to organize yourself and prepare your mise en place (all ingredients in place, ready to cook) well before you turn on the stove.

Differentiating between dried chiles ancho and chiles mulato can be confusing. If you open a chile ancho and hold it up to the light, it looks from the inside like red stained glass. The mulato, on the other hand, looks brown when held to the light. It's immediately apparent which this is. Always try to buy chiles that are leathery and flexible, not brittle.

Ingredients
2 kg (approximately 4.5 pounds) lean pork meat, cut into serving-size pieces
1 white onion, cut into quarters
1 head of garlic, split in half
4 liters water
6 tsp salt
8 chiles guajillo
5 large chiles ancho
3 large tomatos, roasted
1/2 white onion, quartered and roasted
5 garlic cloves
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dry Mexican oregano, crumbled
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 cloves
3 Tbsp pork lard (you can substitute oil if you can't get real, freshly rendered lard)
1/2 cup white vinegar

Utensils
Comal or griddle
Mesh strainer
Several small or medium-size mixing bowls
Mixing spoons
Heavy-bottom pot with lid
Blender

Toasting the chiles ancho on the comal.

Toasting the chiles guajillo on the comal.

Procedure
Put the pork, onion, and head of garlic in a large pot. Cover with water, add 4 tsp salt and bring to a boil. Lower the heat until the water is down to a simmer and cook until the pork is tender, about an hour. Remove the pork from the water, drain the liquid into a bowl, and reserve both the meat and the cooking liquid for later use.

Remove the stems, seeds, and veins from all of the chiles and discard them. Lightly toast the chiles on the comal, being careful not to burn them. If they turn black, they will be bitter. Soak the toasted chiles in four cups of the reserved cooking liquid from the pork.

Both types of toasted chiles are then soaked for a few minutes in some of the freshly cooked hot pork broth.

Blend the soaked chiles with enough of the cooking liquid to make a smooth, somewhat liquid paste.

Roast the tomatoes, onions, and garlic on the comal, then blend them until they make a very smooth sauce. If necessary for blending, add just a little of the reserved meat cooking liquid. Using the wire mesh strainer, strain into a bowl and reserve.

The mix of various seasonings (foreground), the blended and strained chiles (left rear) and the blended tomato/onion/garlic mixture (right rear).

Grind the cumin, the oregano, the pepper, and the cloves together until they are powdered. Set aside for later use.

Over a high flame, heat the lard or oil in a heavy-bottomed pot until it smokes slightly. Add the ground chiles (splatter alert!) and fry for about 15 minutes or until the mixture is reduced by about one-fourth. Add the blended tomato mixture, the spices, and two tablespoons of salt. When the mixture comes to a boil, lower the fire and allow to simmer until the sauce has reduced a little.

The pork now needs to simmer in the adobo for an hour or more, either in the oven or over a very low fire. The fragrance will drive you crazy, it is so tantalizing.  Mexico Cooks! prepared this recipe on top of the stove using the cast iron comal as a heat diffuser.

Add the meat, the vinegar, and three cups of the reserved meat cooking liquid. Correct the seasonings and cook with the lid ajar over low heat (or bake covered in a 350° oven) for about an hour. The finished sauce should be thick enough to cover the meat without sliding off the pieces.

Adobo de cerdo huasteco, ready to eat! Serve the dish with steamed white rice and plenty of hot-off-the-comal corn tortillas.

The finished recipe also freezes very well.  Mexico Cooks! served half the recipe as comida for six and froze the rest for a later meal.

Serves 12.

The wonderful Spanish-language Verde, Blanco, Rojo en La Cocina Mexicana, written by my friend Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita of Restaurante Azul/Condesa.

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12 de March de 2016
Restaurante La Teca–Cuisine from Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec: Cocina Istmeña Oaxaqueña

A delicious Oaxaca specialty: sopa de guía, a clear soup made with chicken broth, tendrils of squash plant, and squash flowers.

While in Oaxaca with a writers' group, I took a little time away from that group to visit another group: several culinary-world friends who live and work in this southern Mexico city. I played hooky to eat on Friday with Pilar Cabrera at her wonderful restaurant La Olla, and on Saturday with chef Rodolfo Castellanos and his family at La Teca, a restaurant specializing in cooking from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is the skinniest part of mainland Mexico, lying between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to the opening of the Panama Canal, it was the most important route for goods working their slow way across the relatively flat lands between the two bodies of water. Partly in Oaxaca, partly in Chiapas, partly in Tabasco and partly in Veracruz, the territory has its own legends, its own history, and its own cuisines.

You may not be aware that you are already familiar with the native dress of the Tehuanas, as the women of the isthmus are known. Above, a Frida Kahlo 1948 self portrait, dressed as a Tehuana. Image courtesy of: http://www.earlywomenmasters.net

Just off the beaten tourist track in Oaxaca, Restaurant La Teca serves outstanding food from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The welcoming owner and cook, Señora Deyanira Aquino, will make sure that you eat your fill of her marvelous regional cuisine.

The cooking of the Isthmus is traditionally corn-based and idiosyncratic. Most ingredients are indigenous to its hot lowlands (for example, armadillo and iguana) and its proximity to the sea: fresh and dried shrimp, fresh fish, and other creatures from the ocean depths.

At La Teca we shared a platter of garnachas, a traditional entrada or botana (appetizer or snack) based on a fried disk of corn dough and topped with a mixture of meat, vegetables, and salsa.

Tamalitos de cambray from Tehuantepec, savory-sweet tamales made of chicken, raisins, olives, almonds, and capers.

These are molotes de plátano macho (small, sweetly ripe plantain croquettes) topped with crema de mesa (table cream) and queso fresco (fresh cheese). The three of us shared an order of four molotes. We kept dividing the last one into smaller and smaller pieces so that one of us did not hog the whole thing–although each of us would have!

Next course at La Teca: a taco filled with a small chile pasilla oaxaqueño relleno (a regional dried chile, reconstituted, stuffed, and fried). It doesn't look like anything special, does it? If you could just enjoy the fragrance, I assure you that you would want to lick your monitor.

Tamales de elote (fresh corn tamales) followed, served with crema de mesa. These reminded me very much of Michoacán uchepos, another kind of fresh corn tamales.

Another traditional dish from the Isthmus, estofado de bodas (wedding stew). It's a delicious long-cooked combination of beef, fruits, chiles, and other spices, typically served at weddings.

Purée de papa, estilo Istmeño (potatoes, coarsely mashed and then baked, Isthmus style).

Asado de puerco con mole (pork roasted with mole, from Tehuantepec).

The owner and chief cook at La Teca is Sra. Deyanira Aquino, born and raised in the Isthmus. Women of the region are called 'tecas'–from Tehuantepec–hence the name of the restaurant.

You are probably well aware of the mythical seven moles of Oaxaca, and although the state is best known for those, there are many other less-well-known but equally wonderful dishes available to visitors. By all means go see Sra. Aquino at La Teca; you will be as thrilled by everything you eat as we were. This is not fancy, high-end designer-plated food. Your palate will be delighted by traditional Tehuantepec home-style cooking. And oh my god, you might exclaim, did the three of you really eat all that? We most assuredly did, every bite, and so will you.

Restaurant La Teca
Calle Violetas #200-A
Colonia Reforma
Oaxaca, Oaxaca
01.951.515.0563 (from within Mexico)

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5 de March de 2016
Abigail Mendoza Ruiz and Restaurante Tlamanalli: Food for the Gods in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca

This article, originally published in 2014, promised that Mexico Cooks! would be back in Oaxaca and would return to Tlamanalli. This week, we're there again, this time leading a tour and delighting in all the marvelous culinary and cultural treasures Oaxaca has to offer. Abigail Mendoza sends her best wishes to all who follow Mexico Cooks!.

Emblematic of Oaxaca: chocolate caliente (hot and foamy hand-ground hot chocolate) prepared in water and served in a bowl. Zaachila market, Oaxaca.

There's much more to Oaxaca's magic than simply its capital city, which is of course fantastic in its own right. Driving in any direction from the city, twisting two-lane roads lead to small towns; each town has a weekly market, and each market has beauties of its own.

At the Zaachila Friday market, a vendor sold calabaza en tacha (squash cooked in brown sugar syrup) covered with a leaf to keep insects away and maintain the squash fresh and ready to eat.

Another vendor offered flor de frijolón (the red flowers of a large, black, local bean known elsewhere as ayocote negro).

Tejate, Oaxaca's emblematic cold, foamy, and refreshing chocolate beverage, scooped out of this clay bowl with a red-lacquered jícara into the size cup you prefer: small, medium, or large.

When Mexico Cooks! traveled recently to Oaxaca, joyous anticipation and a letter of introduction were stowed among my baggage. For years I had read about and admired (albeit from afar) Abigail Mendoza Ruiz and her sisters, but we had never met. This trip would fix that: two days after my scheduled arrival, we had an appointment for comida (Mexico's main meal of the day) at the Mendoza sisters' Restaurante Tlamanalli in Teotitlán del Valle. The restaurant's name, a Náhuatl word, means several things: it's the name of the Zapotec kitchen god, it means abundance, and it means offering. For me, newly arrived in Teotitlán del Valle, the word Tlamanalli meant, 'you are about to have the experience of a lifetime'.

Teotitlán del Valle is best known as the principal Oaxaca rug-weavers' town. Among its five to six thousand inhabitants, the majority weaves wool to make lovely rugs and also combines the weaver's tasks with agricultural work, growing both marketable and personal-use corn and other vegetables plus raising poultry for personal use.

Detail of the rustic wooden rueca (spinning wheel) used by the Teotitlán del Valle rugmakers for spinning fine wool yarns.

Shown in this group of Oaxaca-made baskets: a flat double comb for carding wool, a pointed spindle, and various natural coloring agents, along with hanks of wool which demonstrate just a few of the colors used in Oaxacan wool rugs.

Not only are the Mendoza Ruiz sisters extraordinary regional cooks, they and their siblings are also well-known rug weavers. Their parents, Sra. Clara Ruiz and don Emilio Mendoza (QEPD), gave this world a group of supremely gifted artisans, all of whom learned the weavers' traditions at their parents' knees.

Abigail Mendoza started learning kitchen traditions as a five-year-old, as the first daughter of the family, watching her mother grind nixtamal (dried native corn soaked and prepared for masa (dough). In the postcard above, the little girl (who is not Abigail) watches seriously as the woman we imagine to be her mother pats a tortilla into its round shape.

By the time she was six years old, Abigail was in charge of sweeping the kitchen's dirt floor, gathering firewood, and making the kitchen fire. At age seven, she told her mother, "I'm ready to grind corn on the metate," (volcanic rock grinding stone, seen in the center of the photograph above), but she wasn't yet strong enough to use her mother's large stone. She was barely able to lift its metapil (stone rolling pin). She eagerly awaited the purchase of a metate small enough for her use. Doña Clara taught her to grind the home-prepared nixtamal, pat-pat-pat the tortilla dough into perfect thin rounds, and bake them on the comal (wood-fired griddle made of clay).

Abigaíl Mendoza Ruiz, the internationally known and much-traveled Zapoteca cook, best loves preparing meals in her home kitchen and her restaurant kitchen in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Here, she's pictured in the beautiful open kitchen of Tlamanalli, the restaurant where she and her sisters Rufina and Marcelina (pictured above) create their culinary alchemy.

Abigail Mendoza is at once filled with light and filled with mystery. Luminous as her joy-filled personality, her smile lights up any room she enters. She is a woman of deep faith, a subscriber to the mysteries of dreams, a believer in spirit worlds both before and after life, a strong believer both in human relationships along life's horizontal and the vertical relationship of God with humanity. Formally educated only through primary school, she holds intense wisdom borne of deep meditation on the nature of life, both spiritual and physical.

In her extraordinary book Dishdaa'w, Abigail reveals her life story, her philosophies, and a good part of her soul. The Zapotec title of her biography (transcribed and organized by Concepción Silvia Núñez Miranda) means "the word woven into the infinite meal". And what does that mean? Food itself has a soul, the soul is transmitted in food's preparation and its ingestion. We are all part of the whole, and the whole is part of each of us.

In her restaurant's large kitchen, Abigail is the sun itself. Hair braided with traditional Zapotec ribbons into a royal crown, she's holding a fistful of freshly picked flor de calabaza (squash flowers).

What did we do, Señorita Abigail and I? We talked, we laughed, we discovered who our many friends in common are, we swapped kitchen lore and recipes, we gossiped (just a little, and in the best possible way), and we each felt like we had met yet another sister, a sister of the kitchen.

And then she asked what we would like to eat. After stumbling around in a maze of I-don't-know-what-to-request, I suggested that she simply bring us her personal choices from the day's menu.

Menu for the day, Restaurante Tlamanalli. The dishes are not inexpensive, but ye gods: save up, if you must, and go. You will never regret it.

First came made-on-the-spot creamy guacamole, in tiny turkey-shaped clay dishes and accompanied by a small bottle of local mezcal amd a wee dish of roasted, seasoned pepitas (squash seeds).

Mole zapoteco con pollo (Zapotec-style mole with chicken). Each of our dishes was accompanied by freshly made tortillas, hot from the comal (griddle).

Pre-hispanic segueza de pollo (breast of chicken in tomato and chile sauce with dried corn and hoja santa). If I should ever be in Oaxaca and in a position to choose one last meal, this would be it.

The herb hoja santa is added to the sauce just before serving and gives a delicate anise flavor to the segueza de pollo.

Oaxaca's heirloom jitomate riñón (kidney-shaped tomatoes) is used for creating the intense and deeply tomato-flavored sauce for the segueza.

When we finished our meal, the Mendoza sisters and doña Clara invited Mexico Cooks! to visit their private kitchen altar, devoted to the Preciosa Sangre de Cristo (Precious Blood of Christ), whose feast day is a major holiday in Teotitlán del Valle and for whom the parish church is named. The home altar has offerings of seasonal fruits as well as perpetually-burning candles.

Mexico Cooks! will go back to Oaxaca, back to Teotitlán del Valle, and back to Restaurante Tlamanalli. After all, I want to visit my new sister–she's a constant inspiration and the best Oaxacan cook I know.

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

27 de February de 2016
Mercado 20 de noviembre, Oaxaca: Shop This Market with Mexico Cooks!

Mexico Cooks! travels once again to Oaxaca! A week in this marvelous city is barely enough time to experience some of the wonders it has to offer. We'll be at the extraordinary Mercado 20 de noviembre this week, just as we were when this article first appeared in 2011.

Emblematic of Oaxaca and its mezcal culture, sal de gusano (worm salt) and a wedge of fresh orange are the truly Oaxacan accompaniments to a shot of what Mexicans call la bebida de los dioses (the drink of the gods). And yes, sal de gusano is made with sea salt, ground chile, and ground dried maguey worms. I promise you that it is delicious.

The last morning of Mexico Cooks!' recent stay in Oaxaca, I grabbed a friend who's working with the initiative and headed off to the city's famous Mercado 20 de noviembre. The market is in many ways similar to but in many ways different from the traditional markets of Mexico's Central Highlands, those that Mexico Cooks! knows best. Both my friend and I were fascinated by what we saw and learned while we were poking around among the stalls.

The large carved bowls at the top of the basket and several of the smaller carved bowls to the lower right–including the laquered red ones–are actually jícaras (dried gourds). Jícaras are traditionally used for drinking mezcal. Around the edge of the basket you see sonajas (rattles), in this case whole dried gourds on sticks. The seeds dry inside the gourds to provide the sound effects when you shake the stick.

Rural Oaxaca grows chiles of all kinds, including some that are unique to the state. These are dried chile chilhuacle negro, arguably the most expensive chile in Mexico. Retail price? Eight hundred pesos the kilo–about $75 USD for 2.2 pounds, at today's exchange rate.

Bags, bags, and more bags–all plastic–sell at two adjacent market stands. The bolsas (bags) range from the little zipper change purses in the basket at lower right to the big woven market bags on the left and at the rear. Mexico Cooks! came home with two of the big ones.

Mexican chile terminology is filled with contradictions. These are chiles pasillas oaxaqueños (Oaxacan pasilla chiles). Chiles pasillas are different sizes, shapes, colors, and flavors depending on where you are in Mexico, but these are unique to Oaxaca.

Moronga is pork blood sausage. The blood is heavily seasoned with ruda (rue), oregano, fresh mint, onions and chile and then stuffed into pigs' intestines and boiled for as much as several hours.

Chile de agua (literally, water chile) is another specialty pepper from Oaxaca. Some folks say its heat is medium, some folks swear it's hot as hell, and everyone agrees that it's very difficult to find outside Oaxaca. Look back a few weeks on Mexico Cooks! to see a wonderful use for these small chiles. I loved the flavor and the picor (heat factor).

Three of Oaxaca's famous moles. These are sold as pastes, by weight. You simply reconstitute them with chicken broth at home and serve them with the meat of your choice. Mexico Cooks! is crazy about carne de cerdo con mole negro (pork with black mole).

We'll come back to Oaxaca, just to give you a sample of marvelous food and drink–next Saturday morning, right here at Mexico Cooks!. Be ready for more regional Oaxacan specialties.

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20 de February de 2016
Oaxaca De Mis Amores :: Mexico Cooks! Falls in Love with Oaxaca

La bella Lula'a…beautiful Oaxaca, as said in the indigenous Zapotec language. You are looking through a window toward the Capilla del Rosario (Chapel of the Rosary) dome and bell tower, part of the Templo Santo Domingo.

This image of St. Peter (easy to identify because he is almost always depicted holding the keys of the kingdom) in Oaxaca's Templo Santo Domingo wears a tiny but knowing smile: he gets to live in Oaxaca!

Mexico Cooks! has visited Oaxaca and written several times about the city and its attractions, about the interesting differences of the city's markets from those of long-familiar central Mexico, the palate-tease of regional foods, a dream made real in another Oaxaca town. I had a good time, several times. But it didn't hit me, the loving lightning bolt of Oaxaca didn't strike me, until a trip to the city only a few years ago.

Winter is mandarina (tangerine) season in Mexico. These, vendor-stacked in pyramids outside Oaxaca's Mercado 20 de noviembre, caught late January light and presto! they turned into still life magic.

Those non-descript nouns and pallid adjectives (attractions, interesting) in the first paragraph tell the tale of how I felt about Oaxaca, until now. Where's the punch? The truth is, I just didn't get the thrill of Oaxaca, no matter how many visits I made. And then this time: YOWZA! I got it–or better said, it got me. Oaxaca, how could I have been so blind?

Templo Santa María de la Asunción (Church of St. Mary of the Assumption), the town parish in Santa María del Tule, just outside the city of Oaxaca. A small part of the famous ahuehuete tree, more than 2,000 years old, is visible on the left side of the photo.

The photo shows a knot more than five feet in diameter on the trunk of the ancient and enormous ahuehuete tree at the town Santa María de Tule. The knots have names–they're called everything from 'the elephant' to 'Carlos Salinas's ears'. At one time people believed that this behemoth was actually several trees, but it has been proven to be only one trunk measuring more than 30 feet in diameter.

What I once thought about Oaxaca has always been like at first sight, and second sight, and third, and so on. It's been similar to going to the movies with a friend and then POW, out of the blue, right between the eyes, it's so long just friends, you're panting for a goodnight kiss.

This woman, who sells dried chiles, beans, and spices at Oaxaca's Mercado 20 de noviembre, is cleaning frijol (dried black beans). You can see the white costal (large bag) at the left side of the photo. She picks out as many stones and twigs as she can find, but once you get the beans home, you'll need to sort through them again. Note: dried beans of any kind for sale in a market are called frijol. Once you cook them, they are frijoles.

These stones and pieces of debris are typical of what you might find in any kind of newly purchased beans, whether from a bag you bought at a supermarket or bulk beans from a market. The beans in the photograph above are peruanos (so-called Peruvian beans).

This market stand is loaded with chapulines (grasshoppers), an iconic snack from Oaxaca. Seasoned with garlic or chile, these are really delicious. Mexico Cooks! prefers the tiny ones (at the top of the photo) to the larger sizes.

What changed? Not the city, surely. Oaxaca is a timeless glory. This trip, for reasons I can't explain, my heart and mind were entirely open to receive the city's gifts.

Wall of bas relief vegetables at my friend Pilar Cabrera's Restaurante La Olla, Calle de la Reforma 402, Col. Centro.

One stand in the famous Pasillo del Humo(Hall of Smoke) of carne asada (grilled meat) at Mercado 20 de noviembre. From the late afternoon moment that we saw this long hallway, lined as it was on both sides with carne asada stands and tables filled with ravenous carnivores, we knew this would be the spot for comida (Mexico's midday meal) the next afternoon.

Our basket of tender grilled beef, hot tortillas, and a spritely salad. The side dishes we ordered–nopales, guacamole, grilled onions, the salad pictured above, and several others–disappeared just as fast as the kilo of carne asada and the pile of tortillas. Three of us ate and drank our fill for just about $20.00 USD.

One of my personal favorite Oaxaca restaurants is the Istmo de Tehuantepec's La Teca, owned by the marvelous Sra. Deyanira Aquino. As part of another day's many-course main meal, friends and I shared these four molotes de plátano macho (small, sweetly ripe plantain croquettes) topped with crema de mesa (table cream) and queso fresco (fresh cheese), dividing the last one into smaller and smaller pieces so that one of us did not hog the whole thing–although each of us would have!

Paletas (in this case, lollipops) stand ready to welcome you to Oaxaca. For me, just for today, these represent the sweetness, color, variety, and delight that Oaxaca have to offer.

Come with me next week as we journey just outside the city of Oaxaca to make a new friend, a sister-soul of the cocina mexicana (the Mexican kitchen). I can't wait to introduce you; you'll love her just as much as I do.

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

13 de February de 2016
El Niño Dios, the Christ Child on the Feast of La Candelaria: Candlemas Day in Mexico

Niños Dios: one Christ Child, many colors: ideal for Mexico's range of skin tones. Mercado Medellín, Colonia Roma, Mexico City, December 2013.

For about a month prior to Christmas each year, the Niño Dios (baby Jesus) is for sale everywhere in Mexico. Mexico Cooks! took this photograph in 2013 at the annual tianguis navideño (Christmas market) in front of the Mercado Medellín, Colonia Roma, Mexico City. These Niños Dios range in size from just a few inches long to nearly the size of a two-year-old child. They're sold wrapped in only a diaper.

When does the Christmas season end in your family? When I was a child, my parents packed the Christmas decorations away on January 1, New Year's Day. Today, I like to enjoy the nacimientos (manger scenes), the Christmas lights, and the tree until the seventh or eighth of January, right after the Día de los Reyes Magos (the Feast of the Three Kings). Some people think that date is scandalously late. Other people, particularly my many Mexican friends, think that date is scandalously early. Christmas in Mexico isn't over until February 2, el Día de la Candelaria (Candlemas Day), also known as the Feast of the Presentation.

The Holy Family, a shepherd and some of his goats, Our Lady of Guadalupe, an angel, a little French santon cat from Provence, and some indigenous people form a small portion of Mexico Cooks!' nacimiento. Click on the photo to get a better look. Note that the Virgin Mary is breast feeding the infant Jesus while St. Joseph watches over them.

Although Mexico's 21st century Christmas celebration often includes Santa Claus and a Christmas tree, the main focus of a home-style Christmas continues to be the nacimiento and the Christian Christmas story. A family's nacimiento may well contain hundreds–even thousands–of figures, but all nacimientos have as their heart and soul the Holy Family (the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and the baby Jesus). This centerpiece of the nacimiento is known as el Misterio (the Mystery). The nacimiento is set up early–in 2013, mine was out at the very beginning of December–but the Niño Dios does not make his appearance until the night of December 24, when he is sung to and placed in the manger.

Niños Dios at Mexico City's Mercado de la Merced. The figures are dressed as hundreds of different saints and representations of holy people and ideas. The figures are for sale, but most people are only shopping for new clothes for their baby Jesus. All photos copyright Mexico Cooks! except as noted.

Between December 24, when he is tenderly rocked to sleep and laid in the manger, and February 2, the Niño Dios rests happily in the bosom of his family. As living members of his family, we are charged with his care. As February approaches, a certain excitement begins to bubble to the surface. The Niño Dios needs new clothing! How shall we dress him this year?

The oldest tradition is to dress the Niño Dios in hand-crocheted garments. Photo courtesy Manos Mexicanos.

According to Christian teaching, the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph took the baby Jesus to the synagogue 40 days after his birth to introduce him in the temple–hence February 2 is also known as the Feast of the Presentation. What happy, proud mother would wrap her newborn in just any old thing to take him to church for the first time? I suspect that this brand new holy child was dressed as much to the nines as his parents could afford.

The Niño Dios dressed as San Juan Diego, the indigenous man who brought Our Lady of Guadalupe to the Roman Catholic Church.

Every February 2, churches are packed with men, women, and families carrying their Niños Dios to church in his new clothes, ready to be blessed, lulled to sleep with a sweet lullaby, and tucked gently away till next year.

The Niño Dios as el Santo Niño Doctor de los Enfermos (the Holy Child, doctor of the sick). He has his stethoscope, his uniform, and his doctor's bag. This traditionally dressed baby Jesus has origins in mid-20th century in the city of Puebla.

Every year new and different clothing for the Niño Dios comes to market. In 2011, the latest fashions were those of the Archangels–in this case, the Archangel Gabriel.

The Niño Dios dressed as Peruvian San Martín de Porres, the patron saint of racially mixed people and all those seeking interracial harmony. He is always portrayed holding a broom.

Niño Dios de la Eucaristía (Holy Child of the Eucharist).

Niño Dios dressed as San Benito, the founder of the Benedictine Order.

Niño Dios dressed as a Chinelo (costumed dancer from the state of Morelos).

Niño Dios de la Abundancia (Holy Child of Abundance).

The ceremony of removing the baby Jesus from the nacimiento is called the levantamiento (lifting up). In a family ceremony, the baby is raised from his manger, gently dusted off, and dressed in his new finery. Some families sing:

QUIERES QUE TE QUITE MI BIEN DE LAS PAJAS, (Do you want me to brush off all the straw, my beloved)
QUIERES QUE TE ADOREN TODOS LOS PASTORES, (Do you want all the shepherds to adore you?)
QUIERES QUE TE COJA EN MIS BRAZOS Y CANTE (Do you want me to hold you in my arms and sing)
GLORIA A DIOS EN LAS ALTURAS. (Glory to God on high).

One of the most popular 'looks' for the Niño Dios in Mexico City is that of San Judas Tadeo, the patron saint of impossible causes. He is always dressed in green, white, and gold and has a flame coming from his head.

Mexico Cooks!' very own Niño Dios. He measures just 7" from the top of his head to his wee toes. His new finery is very elegant.

[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4rcQDmyffo&w=420&h=236]
This lovely video from Carapan, Michoacán shows both the gravity and the joy (and the confetti!) with which a Niño Dios is carried to the parish church.

Carefully, carefully carry the Niño Dios to the parish church, where the priest will bless him and his new clothing, along with you and your family. After Mass, take the baby Jesus home and put him safely to rest till next year's Christmas season. Sweet dreams of his next outfit will fill your own head as you sleep that night.

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

6 de February de 2016
Kitchen and Countryside Mexico 2015: A Recap of Some of Our Favorite Things

In Mexico, once we've rung in the New Year, the next party is ordinarily for Los Reyes Magos–the Three Kings–on January 6, their feast day. The photo above shows the traditional Mexican Rosca de Reyes (Kings' Bread) that is eaten (accompanied by a cup or two of delicious Mexican hot chocolate) at just about every table in the country on that day. The sweet, rich dough is rolled into an oval or a ring and then decorated with sugar, ates of various flavors (similar to fruit leather), nuts, and then baked. So what's the big deal? Inside the dough, bakers hide a tiny figure of the Niño Dios (Baby Jesus). There's great hilarity as the rosca is sliced: who will get the muñeco (little figure)? The person who finds the baby in his or her slice is required to throw another party on Candelaria (Candlemas Day), February 2: tamales and atole (a thick, sweet corn-based drink) for everyone! February 2 is the official end of the Christmas season in Mexico.

February took Mexico Cooks! to Oaxaca, invited to the wedding of dear friends Diana Miller and Adán Paredes. The wedding festivities lasted three days–we don't do things by half here!–and the guests still sigh and smile when we think or talk about the event's joyous beauty. The civil ceremony was a marvelous cocktail party and opportunity to socialize with everyone; the morning of the spiritual ceremony, Mexico Cooks! gave two Oaxaca market tours to guests from northern Mexico. Later that afternoon, a traditional Zapotec chamán and his wife presided over the spiritual ceremony (followed by all-night dining and dancing!), and the third day we toured with the wedding party to a market south of Oaxaca city and then shared a joyous meal at the ever-marvelous restaurant La Teca. It was only February, but we knew that no other event on the 2015 calendar would come close to matching this thrilling weekend.

March found Mexico Cooks! at Pujol, Enrique Olvera's flagship restaurant in Mexico City. Invited by a serious lover of food in all its aspects, we were not disappointed. In fact, we were overwhelmed by everything about our meal: the room, the service, and most of all, the food. There was no room at all for improvement: everything we experienced was perfect.

In April, we were back at Jing Teng, our favorite Chinese restaurant in all of Mexico. Yes: not just Mexico City, but the entire country. The photo shows perfectly cooked gai lan (Chinese broccoli) with garlic, one of the you-absolutely-gotta-get-it dishes on the menu.

Morelia en Boca, an international food and wine festival, takes place in Morelia, Michoacán on the last weekend of each May, and we were there. This fish is a pejelagarto, an enormous fish found primarily in the Mexican state of Tabasco. Look at its needle-teeth! The pejelagarto has no scales; its skin is like a suit of armor. This section of the fish was about one-third of its length; it measured between three and four feet long. World-acclaimed chef Aquiles Chávez brought this giant animal from Tabasco and cooked it (turning it with a broomstick rammed down its throat, all the way to the other end) over an open fire on the festival stage! The demonstration conference also included Rosalba Morales Bartolo of San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro, Michoacán, who prepared her famously delicious charales (fish as tiny as the pejelagarto is huge) in the style her grandmother taught her. This was without doubt the single best food conference I have ever attended; the skill, knowledge, and sense of humor on the part of both participants combined to receive a standing ovation at conference end.

June (and every other month of the year) took Mexico Cooks! on tour with various groups from the United States, Canada, and other countries from around the worl
d. This pork butcher's sign is always a favorite photo opportunity: unsuspecting little pig mariachis sing for somebody's supper!

An old friend, visiting me in Mexico City, was as interested as I in visiting the church of San Hipólito, in Mexico City's Centro Histórico. The 28th of each month, Masses are offered all day in honor of San Judas Tadeo. My friend and I were there on July 28, among a crowd that numbered in the thousands. On San Judas Tadeo's actual October feast day, the crowds number in the hundreds of thousands.

The Primer Encuentro Nacional de Cocineras Tradicionales (first national reunion of traditional cooks) in Morelia, Michoacán, in August 2015 brought together home cooks from 25 of the 31 Mexican states–plus the Federal District. Many of us who attended are long-time friends who see one another only occasionally. This memorable photo includes (L to R): Celia Florián from Oaxaca, Alma Cervantes Cota from Sinaloa and currently living in Mexico City, Susana Trilling of Seasons of My Heart cooking school in Oaxaca, Mexico Cooks!, and Calletana Nambo from Erongarícuaro, Michoacán. We spent hours around that table, eating, drinking mezcal, and gossiping catching up with one another.

The rainy season in central Mexico begins in mid-May and lasts until the beginning of November. During that time, wild mushrooms spring up in Mexico's oak and pine forests, especially in the more mountainous states. This vendor, who was too busy selling on this September day to tell me her name, brought mushrooms that she and her family foraged to sell in Mexico City's markets. Fresh chanterelles, boletes, and morels make up most of her wares. I bought a pound of fresh morels (approximately 80 pesos, or $4.50USD), gave half to my neighbor, and made a pasta sauce of the rest. Click on the photo to enlarge it and better see the mushrooms.

In late October we were in Quiroga, Michoacán, for carnitas. These, from a street stand under the traffic light downtown, are in my opinion the best carnitas in town. The vendor gave us this taco as a taste–just to see if we'd like what he was selling. Yes, it was exactly as enormous as it looks. And yes, we bought another half-kilo of carnitas to share among our group. The carnitas come with fresh tortillas, limones, and several kinds of salsas. Soft drinks and aguas frescas are available at a booth near your communal-seating outdoor table, and someone will come by your table to ask if you want to buy a cupful of guacamole. Yes, you do.

October gets two mentions! Suzanne Cope and her family came to Mexico City in the early Fall to tour with Mexico Cooks!. This sweet toddler is her son Rocco, who fell in love with a pig head at one of Mexico City's best markets. Who knows, you might fall in love with a pig head too!

A friend from Washington, D.C., ordered this bowl of crema de flor de calabaza at Restaurante Azul/Histórico in Mexico City in mid-November. She graciously let me taste it. This cream soup was without question one of the best I've ever tasted. Our waiter told us that each bowl contains 18 squash flowers plus the one used as decoration. Did you know that only male squash blossoms are harvested for food? The female blossoms are left on the vines to allow squash to form.

Just in case you might think that Mexico Cooks! never cooks at home: a Dece
mber dish of beautiful shrimp muenìere, served over fettucine.

Where will we travel and what will we eat in 2016? You're welcome to come along, whether to a market, a restaurant, or an exciting festival in Mexico City, Michoacán, or Oaxaca. Mexico City, just named the top travel destination in the world by the New York Times, is waiting for you. When you're ready to visit, Mexico Cooks! will gladly show you all the hot spots.

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

23 de January de 2016
New in Mexico City: Fonda Fina, to Recharge Your Body and Soul

The main dining room at Fonda Fina is cozy in the best possible ways: it's warming to the spirit and feels just like the party you always wanted to attend. Not only that, it's filled with beautiful design. Case in point: those lampshades are enormous upside down cazuelas–Mexican clay cooking vessels–and illuminate the room with a joyous light.

In early December, one of the people I love best in Mexico City sent me a Whatsapp: "What are you doing tomorrow for comida? I want to take you to try a new place I found." Never one to say no to a dear friend or a new restaurant, I Whats'd her right back and said, "Vámonos!" (Let's go!) The next day, I met her at Fonda Fina in Mexico City's trendy Colonia Roma. At 2:30PM, the place was moderately busy. By three o'clock, it was packed. Just two and a half months post-opening, it was obvious from the happy hum in the room that something wonderful was happening.

Because my friend had arrived a few minutes before I did, a wee basket of tostaditas (little house-made tostadas) and two salsas in mini-molcajetes were already on the table. In addition, the restaurant has an old-fashioned practice that made me smile. Every day the chef prepares a lightly flavored water–one day with a touch of basil, another day a touch of jasmine, another day a delicious flavor that you can almost-but-not-quite place–that's offered as a reminder that you're visiting someone and that, as a visitor, you're important.

In Mexico, the very best mannered people (think your maiden great-aunt) insist that when a guest arrives, a glass of water is almost instantly forthcoming. It's always served in a glass placed on a small plate with a napkin, in case the water spills over or in case you dribble, and it welcomes you whether you have traveled days from a far-distant place or have merely come from the next floor down in your apartment building. Photo from the Mexico Cooks! kitchen.

Old-fashioned niceties, old-fashioned food (some with a modern twist), and old-fashioned service are the hallmarks of this charming restaurant. Fonda Fina, backed by chef Jorge Vallejo of the acclaimed Restaurante Quintonil, by the actor Luis Gerardo Méndez, and by the restauranteur Ramón Orraca, combines the talents of each man to bring a fresh, new aspect and ambiance to Colonia Roma. Fonda Fina's executive chef, Juan Cabrera Barron, has earned his stripes in a variety of kitchens in many parts of Mexico. During recent years, chef Cabrera has been an important part of the Hotel Camino Real restaurant staff in several cities including Guadalajara and Mexico City. Now he's all ours!

But enough preamble: let's eat!

The first two pages of the Fonda Fina menu explain how this restaurant serves your meal. Order a la carte items from the first page and order a meal similar to a comida corrida (complete main meal) from the second page. Click on any photo to enlarge the image for better viewing. Because chef Cabrera is a friend of the friend who invited me, and because she and I both wanted to try as many dishes as possible, we didn't place an order: chef Cabrera simply started sending dishes to our table.

Please notice, at the left of the photo, the paper bag holding the clay container. This was our pre-meal drink: it's called, at least at Fonda Fina, teporocho. Teporocho is a down-and-dirty Mexican slang word for the drunk who can't pick himself up off the sidewalk, the guy who's drinking from his pint bottle concealed in (you guessed it) a paper bag; the word has a long and inglorious history in Mexican popular culture. To find teporocho served in a high-class restaurant is a bit of a shock, a trip into the seamier side of life, and a really terrific start to a meal. I had two, and the taste and effect are a little like Long Island Iced Tea. If you don't see it on the menu, ask for it. And take it slow.

Our first treat was the taco placero (plaza-style taco). The soft, warm tortilla was smeared with asiento (the dark, thick lard left in the bottom of the rendering pot) and then smeared again with refried beans. Folded in half, it was then garnished with avocado, chicharrón (crisply fried pork skin), fresh crumbled cheese, a spicy salsa cruda (raw sauce), and cilantro sprouts. The small taco did what it was meant to do: it left us wanting more.

Chef Cabrera then sent out memelas de cecina (a Oaxaca corn-based delicacy). The toppings for the memelas were avocado, jícama, caramelized onions, pomegranate seeds, raw onions, and sprouts of acidy verdolagas (purslane). The combination of flavors was mouth-watering.

I could have eaten two of these incredibly delicious antojitos (literally, little whims) from Puebla: peneques rellenos de requesón. Fill a soft, uncooked tortilla with requesón (similar to ricotta cheese), fry it till it's crisp, then let it sit in a warm bath of green pipián from Puebla, and garnish it with Chiapas cheese, little cubes of avocado, and pumpkin seeds, add a swirl of Mexican table cream, and decorate the dish with an edible, peppery nasturtium leaf. I stopped at one, but…this was simply marvelous.

Fideo seco con chilaquiles (dry-cooked angel hair pasta with chilaquiles). Chef Cabrera's signature dish, topped with requesón and crema (cheese similar to ricotta accompanied by Mexican table cream), this is another do-not-miss from the a la carte menu.

Crema Conde, a classic Mexican cream soup, is made of puréed black beans, smooth as silk, and in this case poured over crumbled fresh cheese and a sprig of sprouts. Thick and rich, it made us aware that we hadn't quite arrived at the main course yet and we needed to slow the pace. Stop now? Never! Slow down a little, that's all.

Crema poblana, made from roasted, slightly spicy chile poblano and poured over tender corn kernels and fresh cheese. I am hard pressed to choose a favorite between the crema conde and the crema poblano. Fortunately Fonda Fina serves just one of them as the crema del día (cream soup of the day).

Main course: costillas de res (beef short ribs), oven-braised for 12 hours and served with tender baby asparagus, quelites de cenizo (field-grown greens), rings of raw onion, and diced avocado. Fork tender and complexly flavored, this offering from chef Cabrera was perfect.

The Fonda Fina kitchen offers simple and delicious roast chicken, either a half or the whole bird. On a second occasion at the restaurant, another friend and I ordered the whole chicken to share. The skin was crisp and golden, the chicken was juicy and tender, and we were both more than pleased to share it.

Dessert: a selection of unusual and delicious ice creams, all house-made. Clockwise from the left: avocado, hoja santa, chocolate, and chicozapote. The rich, deep, creamy chocolate and the hoja santa, with its marvelous anise flavor, were my favorites.

One of the latecomers ordered Chiapas-style cheese flan, garnished with guava, raspberries, edible flowers, and maguey cactus honey.

For our last dessert–and you thought we'd never stop eating!–the second late arrival asked for pan de elote tierno (sweet corn cake) with strawberries flamed with mezcal and a foam created from Michoacán's famous chongos zamoranos (a milk-based treat).

Mexico Cooks! has eaten at Fonda Fina several times since early December and has never been disappointed. If you're visiting Mexico City or if you live here and are looking for a delightul experience, do go for a meal. It's a wonderful thing to be able to recommend a new restaurant on all levels: ambiance, service, and excellent food. Let me know how you like it!

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

16 de January de 2016
Piñatas, Mexico’s Christmas Tradition

Huge piñatas at a Mexico City market.

Among clean ollas de barro (clay pots), plastic receptacles filled with engrudo (flour/water paste), and colorful, neatly stacked rounds of papel de china (tissue paper), Sra. María Dolores Hernández (affectionately known as Doña Lolita) sits on an upturned bucket. Her birthday is on December 24, and she still lights up–just like a Christmas tree–when she talks about her business and her life.

The last point of the star-shaped piñata is in Doña Lolita's hands, nearly ready to be glued into place.

"When I was a young woman, raising my family together with my husband, it was hard for us to make a good living here in Morelia. We had eight children (one has died, but six girls and a boy survive) and we struggled to make ends meet. My husband was a master mason, but I wanted to help out with the finances. I knew a woman who made piñatas, and I thought, 'I can do that.' So I started trying my hand, nearly 60 years ago."

Doña Lolita adds another layer of newspaper to this piñata in progress. "You can't put too much newspaper on the pot, because it will take too long to break," she explained. "And you can't put too little on it, either, because then the first child to hit it will break it. That's no good, either. You just have to know how much to use." Click on the photo to enlarge it and get a good look at the clay pot inside the paper maché.

"The woman who made piñatas wouldn't give away her secrets, so I had to figure everything out for myself. You should have seen me the first time I tried to make a bird's beak for a parrot-shaped piñata! A man I knew told me to make it out of chapopote (a kind of tar), so I did. It hardened all right, but later in the day the weather warmed up and that beak dripped down to here! What a mess! I finally figured out how to make the shape out of paper, but I just about broke my head thinking about it!"

Pre-cut rounds of papel de china (tissue paper) wait to be glued onto a piñata. The black plastic bag holds strips of newspaper.

Doña Lolita told me about the different grades of paper used to create different styles of decoration on the piñata, and she explained different kinds of paper-cutting techniques; she's absolutely the expert. Here, her son-in-law Fernando cuts tissue paper for fringe. His hands are so fast with the scissors it made my head spin; he can even cut without looking.

"In those days, the clay pots cost four and a half pesos for a gross–yes, for 144. In the old days, I usually sold about 7,000 piñatas every December, so you can imagine the investment I made just in clay pots. In the 1960s, I could sell a large piñata for seven pesos. Now–well, now the pots are much more expensive, so naturally the piñatas cost more, too. The large ones cost 45 pesos. This year, I'll sell about 1,000 piñatas just for the posadas. "

Piñatas in various stages of completion hang from every beam in Doña Lolita's tiny workshop.

"When my daughter Mercedes was about eight years old, she wanted to learn to make piñatas. She'd been watching me do it since she was born. So I taught her, and I've taught the whole family. Piñatería (making piñatas) is what's kept us going." Doña Lolita smiled hugely. "My children have always been extremely hard workers. There was a girl for each part of making the piñatas. Every year, we started making piñatas in August and finished at the beginning of January.

This gigantic piñata, still unfinished, measures almost six feet in diameter from point to point.

"One time, we had so many piñatas to finish that I didn't think we could do it. So I thought, 'if we work all night long, we can finish them by tomorrow morning.' Only I couldn't figure out how to keep the children awake to work all night." She laughed. "I went to the drugstore and bought pills to stay awake. I knew I could keep myself awake, but I gave one pill to each of the children. And in just a little while, I was working and they were sleeping, their heads fell right down into their work! What! Those pills didn't work at all! The next day I went back to the drugstore and asked the pharmacist about it. 'Oh no! I thought you asked me for pills to make them sleep!' he said." Doña Lolita laughed again. "We finished all the piñatas in spite of those pills, but you had better believe me, I never tried anything that foolish again."

Doña Lolita builds piñatas with her son-in-law, Fernando Cedeño Herrera (left), her daughter Mercedes Ayala Hernández, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren. A close friend, Oswaldo Gutiérrez López (background), works with the family. Her grandson Enrique, 19, says he intends to keep the family business going.

Oswaldo Gutiérrez works on this piñata in the doorway of the tiny taller. Doña Lolita has taught many people the art of creating traditional piñatas, but her family and her loyal customers say she's the best piñatera (piñata maker) in Morelia.

"People come from everywhere to buy my piñatas. I don't have to take them out to sell; I only sell them here in the taller. Because they're so beautiful and well-made, all the best people in Morelia–and lots of people from other places–come to seek me out and order piñatas for their parties. I've taught my family that our work is our pride and our heritage, and my children have all taught their children the same. That is our legacy, our family tradition."

Fill the piñata with candy like these bags of traditional colación (hard candies especially for Christmas).

A group of Doña Lolita's piñatas, hung up for sale outside her workshop.

But why piñatas, and why in December? During the early days of the Spanish conquest, the piñata was used as a catechetical tool. The body of the piñata represented Satan; each of the seven points symbolized the seven capital sins (pride, lust, gluttony, rage, greed, laziness, and envy). Breaking the piñata equated with the triumph of good over evil, overpowering Satan, overcoming sin, and enjoying the delights of God's creation as they pour out of the piñata. Doña Lolita's most sought-after piñatas continue the traditional style, but she also creates piñatas shaped like roosters, peacocks, half-watermelons, deer, half moons, and once, an enormous octopus!

What the piñata might contain at Christmas–but fill it with whatever you think the kids will like best! Candies, small seasonal jícamas, sugar cane, mandarinas (tangerines) and cacahuates (fresh roasted in the shell peanuts, in season now) are all popular. Photo courtesy Google Images.

Now, for the nine nights from December 16 through December 24, Mexico celebrates las posadas. Each evening, a re-enactment of the Christmas story brings children dressed as la Virgencita María (ready to give birth to her baby) and her husband Sr. San José (and a street filled with angels, shepherds, and other costumed children) along the road to Bethlehem, searching for a place to stay. There is no place: Bethlehem's posadas (inns) are filled. Where will the baby be born! For the re-enactment, people wait behind closed doors at certain neighborhood houses. The santos peregrinos (holy pilgrims) knock, first at one door, then another. At each house, they sing a song, begging lodging for the night. At each house, the neighbors inside turn them away in song: 'No room here! Go away! Bother someone else!' Watch a lovely slide show:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R35yspFDsek&w=420&h=315]

Freshly toasted cacahuates (peanuts) also stuff the piñata. The wooden box holding the peanuts is actually a measure, as is the oval metal box.

After several houses turn away la Virgen, San José, and their retinue, they finally receive welcome at the last designated house. After the pilgrims sing their plea for a place to stay, the guests assembled inside sing their welcome, "Entren santos peregrinos…" (Come in, holy pilgrims…). The doors are flung open, everyone piles into the house, and a huge party starts. Traditional foods like ponche (a hot fruit punch), buñuelos (a thin fried dough covered with either sugar or syrup), and tamales (hundreds of tamales!) pour out of the kitchen as revelers sing villancicos (Mexican Christmas carols) and celebrate the coming of the Niño Dios (the Child Jesus). Finally, all the children line up to put on a blindfold and take swings at a piñata stuffed with candy, seasonal fruits, and peanuts.

This five-pound bag of hard candies shows a blindfolded (but peeking) boy ready to break open the filled piñata. Luis Gómez, a merchant at Local 290, Mercado Independencia in Morelia, offers these and other bags of piñata candies.

Mandarinas (tangerines) are in season at Christmastime and round out the goodies in many piñatas.

The piñata, stuffed with all it will hold, hangs from a rope during the posada party. A parent or neighbor swings it back and forth, up and down, as each child takes a turn at breaking it open with a big stick. Watch these adorable kids whack away at one:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIOjDz0smFw&w=420&h=315]

The piñata, lovely though it may be, is purely temporary. Nevertheless, happy memories of childhood posadas with family and friends last a lifetime.

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

19 de December de 2015
Your Flaneur in Mexico City: Markets, Food, and Curiosities–Part 1, Summer 2015

Midsummer always gives us an abundance of flor de calabaza (squash flowers) to be used in the kitchen. Prepared as sopa de guias (squash vine soup), quesadillas, or stuffed with cheese, these flowers are delicious and are readily available in many Mexican markets. Did you know that only the male flowers are harvested? The female flowers are left to develop squash.

You might like to try this Mexico Cooks! recipe in your own kitchen.

Flor de Calabaza Estilo Cristina
Squash Flowers, Cristina's Style

Ingredients

1 or 2 large bunches flor de calabaza, washed and patted dry
1 medium white onion
4 chiles poblano
2 large russet or other large white potatoes
Flour
Sea salt to taste
Vegetable oil or half vegetable oil, half bacon grease for frying.

Procedure

Peel and dice potatoes. Boil until fork-tender. Drain, allow to dry, and reserve.

Roast chiles according to your preferred method until the skin is blistered and they are well-blackened. Sweat for 10 minutes in a closed plastic bag. Remove skin. Slice each chile lengthwise to remove seeds. Dice peppers in 1/2” squares.

Rough-chop flor de calabaza into 1 1/2" pieces.

Dice onion.

In a large sauté pan, heat the vegetable oil until it shimmers. While the oil is heating, shake the reserved potatoes in flour and salt in a plastic bag.

Sauté onions in oil or oil/bacon grease mixture. Add the potatoes and sauté until crisp and pale golden, adding oil if needed. Add the diced chiles and continue to sauté for about 1 minute.

Add the flor de calabaza and sauté just until tender.

Add sea salt to taste.

Serves 2-3 as a side dish.

Late in the spring, we were invited to attend the opening of El Rebozo: Made in Mexico at Mexico City's extraordinary Museo Franz Mayer. The exhibition, which was originally mounted in London, featured both old and new rebozos (long rectangular shawls) as well as some other typical Mexican garments. One of the many rebozos in the exhibit was an exquisitely embroidered shawl from Oaxaca. This is a detail of that rebozo.

This photograph of Evita Perón, wife of Argentina's Juan Domingo Perón during his first term as president of that country, was part of an exhibit at Mexico City's Museum of Modern Art (MAM) during the spring and summer. The photograph formed part of an exhibition of the works of Giselle Freund, a self-taught photographer who worked in Argentina and Mexico in the 1940s and 1950s.

This tiny ironwood mortar and pestle (the mortar is only about 2" high) comes from the state of Sonora, in northern Mexico. It is made specifically for use at the table, for a diner to grind one or two chiles chiltepín, which are highly spicy and famously used to season certain dishes from the cuisine of that state.

Chile chiltepín from Sonora. Each chile is tiny but extremely picante. Photo courtesy Hunter Angler Gardener Cook.

Beautiful ceremonial tortillas from the state of Guanajuato. The tortillas are made in the usual way and are then stamped prior to baking with a wooden stamp dipped in vegetable dye. Mexico Cooks! was privileged to see these twice this summer, first at an event at the Escuela de Gastronomía Mexicana in Mexico City and again at the Primer Encuentro Nacional de Cocineras Tradicionales (First National Meeting of Traditional Cooks) in Morelia, Michoacán.

This is the tamarillo or tomate del árbol (tree tomato), a native of the South American Andes. Each fruit is approximately 2.5" long. The flesh is fairly firm and deeply flavorful, both sweet and earthy. You never know what you'll see when you take a Mexico Cooks! tour–our group found these delicious fruits at a downtown Mexico City market.

Come back next week for more summertime wanderings with Mexico Cooks!. Our summer was far too interesting for just one article!

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

14 de November de 2015