Category: Mexican Tourism

I wrote and first published this article in 2010, in response to inquiries from readers who were confused about other authors' articles about "What is authentic Mexican food?"  The subject has come up again and again, most recently in comments and queries from readers and food professionals about Mexican and other cuisines. I still stand behind what I wrote nearly 10 years ago.

"Real" Mexican chile relleno (stuffed, battered, and fried chile poblano), caldillo de jitomate (thin tomato broth), and frijoles negros de la olla (freshly cooked black beans).  Notice that the chile is not suffocated with globs of melted cheese: the cheese is inside the chile, as its filling.  

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

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

It's my considered opinion that there is no such thing as one definition of authentic Mexican. Wait, before you start hopping up and down to refute that, consider that in my opinion, "authentic" is generally what you were raised to appreciate. Your mother's pot roast is authentic, but so is my mother's. Your aunt's tuna salad is the real deal, but so is my aunt's, and they're not the least bit similar.  And Señora Martínez in Mexico makes yet another version of tuna salad, very different from any I've eaten in the USA.

Carne de puerco en salsa verde (pork meat in green sauce), a traditional recipe as served at the restaurant Fonda Margarita in Mexico City.

Carne de puerco en salsa verde from the Mexico Cooks! home kitchen.  The preparation looks similar to that at Fonda Margarita, but I tweak a thing or two that make the recipe my personal tradition, different from the restaurant's.

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

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

A nearly 200-year-old tradition in Mexico that shows up every September on Mexico's home and restaurant tables: chiles en nogada (stuffed chiles poblano in a creamy sauce made with fresh (i.e., recently harvested) walnuts.  It's the Mexican flag on your plate: green chile poblano, creamy white walnut sauce, and red pomegranate arils.  But hoo boy–there are arguments to the death about the "authentic" way to prepare these chiles: battered or not battered?  Put up your dukes!  (I fall on the not-battered side, in case you wondered.  God help me.)

Traditional Mexican cooking is not a hit-or-miss let's-make-something-for-dinner proposition based on "let's see what we have in the despensa (pantry)." Traditional Mexican cooking is as complicated and precise as traditional French cooking, with just as many hidebound conventions as French cuisine imposes. You can't just throw some chiles and a glob of chocolate into a sauce and call it mole. You can't simply decide to call something "authentic" Mexican x, y, or z when it's not. There are specific recipes to follow, specific flavors and textures to expect, and specific results to attain. Yes, some liberties are taken, particularly in Mexico's new alta cocina mexicana (Mexican haute cuisine) and fusion restaurants, but even those liberties are based, we hope, on specific traditional recipes.  As Alicia Gironella d'Angeli (a true grande dame of Mexico's kitchen) often said to me, "Cristina, you cannot de-construct a dish until you have learned to construct it."  Amen.

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

Deep red, vine-ripened plum tomatoes, available all year long in central Mexico. The sign reads, "Don't think about it much–take home a little kilo!"  At twelve pesos the kilo, these Mexico-grown tomatoes, brought to market red-ripe, cost approximately 75 cents USD for 2.2 pounds.

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

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

It's the same with most meats: pork and chicken are head and shoulders above what you find in North of the Border supermarkets. Fish and seafood are direct-from-the-sea fresh and distributed by air within just an hour or two from any of Mexico's long coastlines.

Look at the quality of Mexico's fresh, locally grown, seasonal strawberries–and the season starts right now, in February.  Deep red to its center, a strawberry like this is hard to find in other countries.

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

Pozole blanco (white pozole) with delicious clear broth that starts with a a long-simmered whole pig's head, nixtamalized native white cacahuatzintle corn, and lots of tender, flavorful pork meat.  Add to the pot some herbs and spices.  Then add hunks of avocado at the table–along with a squeeze or two of limón criollo (you know it as Key lime), some crushed, dried Mexican oregano, crushed, dried chile de árbol, a raw egg fresh from the shell (it cooks in the hot broth), and, if you like, a tablespoon or two of mezcal.  Traditional and heavenly!

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

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

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

My dear friend Abigail Mendoza, cocinera tradicional (traditional home cook) from Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, prepares a vat of mole negro (black mole, the king of moles) for a large party she invited me to attend at her home.

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

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

Make-do old fashioned cooking technique in Tzintzuntzan, Michoacán.  Frijoles boil in a clay pot on what is usually a fogón.  In this case, the fire ring is the wheel rim of a truck; the wood is what was available at the time of need.  The clay pot ensures old-fashioned flavor and Mexico Cooks!' interest in the cooking process ensured old-fashioned hospitality.  "Come back at 1:30," the cook told us.  "The beans will be ready and I'll make you some tortillas."

I often talk about Mexico as 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 its tejolote (volcanic stone mortar and pestle) often sit on the counter next to a Kitchen-Aid mixer, and a wood-kiln fired olla de barro (clay bean pot) may well share cupboard space with a Le Creuset Dutch oven.

Outdoor kitchen in San José de la Torre, Michoacán.  In a few very rural parts of Mexico, it is still possible to find these old-style kitchens, built apart from the main house to keep the rest of the house cool.  Just inside the kitchen, to the left in the photograph, you can see steam rising from a boiling pot.

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 consist of the 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 mined predominantly in Mexico's central highlands.  Pre-hispanic utensils such as the molcajete, the comal (clay griddle), and the metate (flat rectangular grinding stone) were common. Most home cooks in the days of the Spanish colonial period were indigenous women who brought their milennia-old utensils with them into Spanish New World kitchens.

Metate y metlapil (volcanic grinding stone with its volcanic stone mano), similar to a rolling pin. The cook has been grinding masa de maíz azul (blue corn dough).  She will use some of the water in the small pot to dampen the dough as needed.  The white cloth both shades the dough and protects it from insects.

The volcanic stone metate, along with its metlapil de metate (similar to a rolling pin made of stone) was the principal cooking utensil in the pre-hispanic kitchen, and it's still used today in rural areas to grind nixtamal-ized corn for making tortilla masa (in this case, corn 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 highly prized chocolate de metate used for both cooking and preparing hot chocolate.

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.

Ingredients for salsa, ready to prepare in a volcanic stone molcajete.  At the bottom and top of the photograph are comal (griddle)-roasted Roma tomatoes.  You can also see roasted tomates verdes (tomatillos) and dried, toasted chiles.

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 $125 pesos for a tiny molcajete just big enough to use for serving salsa at the table to the mother of all molcajetes priced at $250/350 pesos. The vendors may also sell even bigger ones carved with the head of a pig. Those are priced at approximately $600 pesos.

Classic Mexican kitchen from the 1920s.  Casa Zuno, Guadalajara.

The basis and essence of the earliest and most current cuisines of Mexico is what is sometimes 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 pre-hispanic, colonial, or present-day eating habits could be. Corn was all, and in many Mexican homes today, corn is still all.

For millennia, corn tortillas have been made by hand.  Small balls of corn masa (dough) are rhythmically patted into near-perfect rounds, then toasted on a comal (griddle) over wood fire.  The technique is passed from mother to daughter and mother to daughter in families everywhere in Mexico; girls start pat-pat-patting masa into tortillas almost from the time they start to walk.

Blue corn gorditas (thick tortillas) toasting over wood fire on a clay comal.  These gorditas are also hand-patted, but are left relatively thick so that after toasting, they can be split and stuffed with your choice of delicious fillings and salsas.

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.

Imelda, age two, grinding corn masa.

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.

Metal tortilla press in use.  Note the sheets of plastic; one sheet is on the base of the press and the second is placed on the ball of dough.  Photo courtesy My Home Cooking.

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 mealtime 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.

Mexico Cooks!' former home kitchen in Morelia, Michoacán.  The pottery, tile countertops and copper sink–and the wooden trastero (dish cupboard)–are traditional styles.  The over-and-under-the-counter cupboards and the stove, washer, and dryer are new-fangled modern conveniences.

"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 high-quality, high-price tag 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.  "We can 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," Lic. Jurado told me.

Twenty-first century Mexicans have gone crazy for the minimalist look, even in their kitchens.  Sleek, modern design is most common in new construction.  Photo courtesy Dotavideo.

 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've traveled more than 500 years, from pre-colonial days to the 21st century, in the course of a brief article. The contradictions of Mexico, even in as small a detail as the utensils and design of a kitchen, still amaze me.

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