Category: Restaurants

Food Wanderings in Mexico: Memories of 2014

In January 2014, Mexico Cooks! spent week in Oaxaca. One afternoon, three of us wolfed down a kilo of carne asada (grilled thinly sliced beef) plus various side dishes in the devilishly wonderful Pasillo de Humo inside Mercado 20 de Noviembre in the state capital.

In Zaachila, Oaxaca, we visited an outdoor market. These jitomates riñon (kidney shaped tomatoes) are all but unknown outside the state. Nonetheless, this tomato is identical in all but size to the coeurs-de-boeuf tomato in France. Exported from Mexico to France in the 1840s, the jitomate riñon has evolved into an icon in that faraway country.

France's coeurs-de-boeuf tomatoes have evolved to a fruit much larger than its Mexican ancestor. These French tomatoes were at the Marché d'Aligre in Paris, 2012.

Invited to attend Mesamérica's third annual big-deal festival of gastronomy–held just around the corner from our home in Mexico City–we spent time backstage interviewing illustrious chefs and eating as many gringas (flour tortillas, lightly toasted and piled with melting cheese, carne de cerdo al pastor [marinated pork meat roasted to order on a vertical spit], pineapple, cilantro, and guacamole) as we could.

Just in case you've never seen the trompo (rotating meat-filled vertical spit) for tacos al pastor and gringas, here's one we saw in Mexico City's Centro Histórico. As customers order, the pastorero (cook) turns the spit so that the meat roasts. See the gas fire behind the meat? As the outer edges of the pork sizzle and crisp, the pastorero flicks small slices of the meat into a lightly grilled corn tortilla. Then he uses a long knife to flip a slice of roasted pineapple into your taco. Trust me, you haven't lived till you've eaten tacos al pastor on one of Mexico City's nearly 1800 streets.

Early in 2014, we were invited to have cena (late supper) with the owners of Mexico City's Restaurant Palominos, which specializes in Sonoran beef, some of the finest in the world. Our friend Ricardo is gnawing the bone of an enormous Sonoran beef cut called "tomahawk". Eight of us ate until we could literally not eat another bite–be sure to take a look at the restaurant website to see the menu. We ate at least one of everything!

We admit that we had not eaten Spanish chiles padrón until 2014, and we further admit that now we are addicted to them. Quickly fry a dozen or so of these very mildly spicy, sweet and tender small chiles until the skin blisters a bit. I use a heavy skillet and two tablespoons of olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt. Then pop a chile in your mouth, pulling off the stem between your teeth and discarding it. I bet you can't eat just one!

2014 was otherwise known as "The Year of Jing Teng". Mexico Cooks! has taken countless groups for guided tours of this restaurant's menu, where we eat Hong Kong style dim sum (Chinese dumplings) and other delicious items. The dish in the photograph is Jing Teng-style Singapore noodles with chicken, shrimp, and roast pork.

Mercado Roma, an upscale market with enormous appeal to twenty-something hipsters and foodies with plenty of pocket money, opened its doors in trendy Colonia Roma Sur in 2014.

As in every year since we moved to Mexico City, I spent a lot of time in the state of Michoacán. Here's a fish dish bobbing with chiles manzano, cooking over a wood fire at the 12th Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales de Michoacán (Festival of Michoacán's Traditional Cooks), October 2014.

Michoacán's corundas (pyramid-shaped tamales steamed in corn leaves) as served at a press conference for an event in Mexico City.

We were back in Oaxaca in September 2014, where we loved this wheelbarrow filled with mamey, sweet and tropical. The mamey, sold all over Mexico, is about 6" to 7" long and 3" across the midpoint. It's brown and slightly fuzzy on the outside; the soft, ripe flesh is the brilliant red-orange color in the photo. Eat it with a spoon or out of hand, or blend it into your morning licuado (smoothy); the flavor is a little like a baked sweet potato.

Thanksgiving turkey, delivered by bicycle! This fresh-never-frozen bird weighed in at about 22 pounds and the deliveryman said he had five just like it in the red basket. This particular turkey was destined for our neighbor's oven; the one he delivered to us weighed a bit more than 13 kilos. That's 28.5 pounds, for the metrically challenged.

Imelda in a pensive mood. Purépecha child, 2014.

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21 de March de 2015
Fonda Los Burritos de Moyahua: Central Jalisco’s Unique Burrito Stop

An actual burrito–the Spanish word means 'little donkey'.

A huge California-style burrito in a to-go container. This burrito is 'wet'–served slathered with sauce and dripping with shredded yellow cheese. You can also order yours 'dry'–just the burrito, usually served wrapped in either aluminum foil or paper.

For those of you who live in most parts of the United States, the burrito is a fast-food fact of life. Southern California in particular has its Mexican drive-through joints where the burrito is king. You can order a burrito stuffed with anything from ground beef to shrimp; some burritos are advertised as being as big as your head. Most are dubiously the equivalent of an entire meal, often eaten from your dripping hands as you whiz along a freeway. One burrito that has come to enjoy raging popularity is stuffed with all the usual items (a meat, rice, beans, plus guacamole) and adds french fries!

Here in Mexico, the burrito is a little more elusive. Not a native of the central or southern part of Mexico, it's been imported from the northern regions of Mexico to fill a niche in some local menus.

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary defines burrito as a Mexican cooking term: a tortilla folded over a filling of ground meat, cheese, or refried beans. [1940-45; derived from Mexican Spanish: stuffed taco, Spanish: young donkey, foal, equivalent to burro or its diminutive, burr + ito]

In his book Chicano Folklore, Rafael Castro says that the burrito (the food) probably originated in Northern Mexico and was not known in other regions of Mexico. Chicanos in Texas have been making them since the 1920's. The origin and first use of the word burrito for a special type of taco is muddy, however. One story has it that the 'new' flour tortilla and bean tacos were better suited than the crisper, more fragile corn tortilla to withstand travel in the saddle bags of the vaqueros (cowboys). Castro says they came to be called burritos because young donkeys were often the "sidekick" of the vaquero's horse. Another story says that "burrito" comes from small children asking for a treat while their mother was making tortillas. She would form the masa (dough) into a small tortilla, heat it on a comal, smear it with beans, roll it up, and send each child away with one, satisfying them until it was time to eat. Another tale thinks the term came from a 1940's restaurant in Ciudad Juárez (just across the Mexican border from El Paso, Texas) called Los Burritos that sold these new flour tortilla creations.

Yet another theory says that the word burrito originated among migrant workers in California's Imperial Valley. The fields were often too far from the lodgings provided for the workers for them to return home for lunch, so their rice and beans were cooked up in the morning, portions were wrapped in a large flour tortilla to carry them out to the fields. Thus the tortilla more specifically was the "little burro" used to carry the lunch, but the term burrito was understood to mean the whole package.

Fonda Los Burritos de Moyahua

Out in the wilds of the state of Zacatecas, there is a little town called Moyahua (moy-AH-wah), where the burrito has reigned supreme since 1976, when the restaurant Fonda Los Burritos de Moyahua opened. Now world-renowned, the restaurant opened its branch on the Chapala-Guadalajara highway (about half way between Chapala and the Guadalajara airport) in 1989.

For 26 years, Jalisco's Los Burritos de Moyahua has served burritos to hungry truckers, to bus loads of travelers, to ravenous families, to workers taking a break—to anyone who turns in off the highway, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. On Sunday afternoons the line of folks waiting to be fed often stretches down the entry stairs and all the way out to the parking lot.

My friend Susan and I drove the 40 minutes from Guadalajara to Los Burritos for lunch a few years ago. The restaurant is essentially a cafeteria; we each grabbed a tray and started down the line. The choices were plentiful: the menu includes chiles rellenos, chicken, and a few other standard dishes as well as the famous burritos, which is what we were craving.

Typical table at Fonda Los Burritos de Moyahua. Note the variety of dishes, but pay special attention to the small burritos at the top right of the photo. Click on any photo for a larger view. Photo courtesy Fonda Los Burritos.

Every burrito is made in the same way: a freshly made flour tortilla about eight inches in diameter is smeared with a spoonful of frijoles refritos and filled with a good amount of your choice of eight to ten different guisados (stews). The day we were there, the guisados included cochinita pibil (pork cooked Yucatan style), tinga poblana (Puebla-style stew), carne de res a la mexicana (Mexican style beef, with tomatoes, onions, and chile), chicharrones con salsa verde (crispy fried pigskins with spicy green sauce), carne deshebrada (shredded beef cooked with tomatoes and spices), elote con rajas de chile (corn with green chile strips), and others, including my personal favorite, chilorio (cooked and shredded pork and diced potatoes, seasoned with chile and a variety of spices).

Interior at Fonda los Burritos de Moyahua. The hand made signs above the tables are a tradition of the restaurant, changing with the passing seasons. Photo courtesy Fonda los Burritos.

In addition to the burritos, you'll be tempted by chunks of cheese (queso fresco or panela) to add to your plate and desserts such as arroz con leche (Mexican rice pudding), flan (Mexican caramel custard), and jericailla (plain Mexican custard). Grab a soft drink or a beer, pay at the end of the cafeteria line, and head for a table. Place an order for quesadillas (and do order at least one; they're the best) and you'll be given a number to place on your tray; after you're seated a waitress will bring the quesadillas to you at your table.

Expect to pay very little for your meal. Susan and I ordered two chilorio burritos, one burrito of cochinita pibil, two quesadillas, a chile relleno, two chunks of queso fresco, and two soft drinks. The total bill for the two of us was under 80 pesos (Less than $8 USD). It's been a few years, so the price has undoubtedly increased.

Susan, chowing down on her first burrito.

La Fonda Los Burritos has three large dining rooms, two huge indoor rooms and another outdoors under a roof for shade. You'll find wonderful fresh salsas and pickled chiles jalapeños available on a table in each dining room. In addition, there are posters in hand-lettered Spanish hanging from the ceilings of all three areas. The posters are changed from time to time; when Susan and I were there, love poems by the romantic Spaniard, poet Gustavo Adolfo Becquer (1836-1870), were hung in honor of February, the month of love.

La Fonda Los Burritos de Moyahua is located on the west side of the Chapala-Guadalajara highway just past the exit for La Barca (as you're driving north), almost directly opposite the incredibly pink Motel Eddie's.

Breakfast burrito to make at home. Photo courtesy Jeff Miller.

Burritos in the Home Kitchen
It's simple and delicious to make burritos at home-and they're suitable for any meal from breakfast to a midnight snack. I talked to a favorite chef, who gave me this recipe for:

Mexican Style Breakfast Burritos
(Serves 4)

4 flour tortillas, 7-8 inches in diameter
4 thick slices of bacon
1/2 white onion, chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
3/4 pound new potatoes, boiled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
1/8 teaspoon ground cumin
salt and fresh ground pepper
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup chopped canned green chiles
1/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 ripe avocado, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice

Wrap the tortillas in foil and warm in a 250 degree oven.

Fry the bacon and remove from the skillet when crispy. Drain on absorbent paper and crumble. Add the onion to the skillet and sauté until softened. Stir in the potatoes and sprinkle with cumin, salt, and pepper to taste. Fry until the potatoes are well-browned; you may need to scrape the bottom of the skillet with a spatula so that the potatoes don't stick. Lower the heat and stir in the eggs and green chiles. Scramble with a fork until the eggs are completely set but still moist. Remove the skillet from the heat and stir in the cheese and the crumbled bacon.

Spoon 1/4 of the mixture across the middle of each warmed tortilla; be sure to leave room to fold the tortilla. Sprinkle on some diced avocado. Fold two sides of the tortilla over the filling, slightly overlapping. Fold up the bottom to cover more of the filling and roll into a cylinder.

Buen provecho!

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7 de March de 2015
Mexico’s Special Lenten Foods: Comida Mexicana para La Cuaresma

Tortitas de papa (potato croquettes, left) and frijoles negros (black beans, right) from the south of Mexico are ideal for a Lenten meal.

Catholic Mexicans observe la Cuaresma (Lent), the 40-day (excluding Sundays) penitential season that precedes Easter, with special prayers, vigils, and with extraordinary meatless meals cooked only on Ash Wednesday and during Lent. Many Mexican dishes–seafood, vegetable, and egg–are normally prepared without meat, but some other meatless dishes are particular to Lent. Known as comida cuaresmeña, many of these delicious Lenten foods are little-known outside Mexico and some other parts of Latin America.

Many observant Catholics believe that the personal reflection and meditation demanded by Lenten practices are more fruitful if the individual refrains from heavy food indulgence and makes a promise to abstain from other common habits such as eating candy, smoking cigarettes, and drinking alcohol.

Atole de grano, a Michoacán specialty made of tender corn and licorice-scented anís, is a perfect cena (supper) for Lenten Fridays.

Lent began this year on Ash Wednesday, February 18. Shortly before, certain food specialties began to appear in local markets.Vendors are currently offering very large dried shrimp for caldos (broths) and tortitas (croquettes), perfect heads of cauliflower for tortitas de coliflor (cauliflower croquettes), seasonal romeritos, and thick, dried slices of bolillo (small loaves of white bread) for capirotada (a kind of bread pudding).

This common Lenten preparation is romeritos en mole.  Romeritos, an acidic green vegetable, is in season at this time of year. Although it looks a little like rosemary, its taste is relatively sour, more like verdolagas (purslane).

You'll usually see tortitas de camarón (dried shrimp croquettes) paired for a Friday comida (midday meal) with romeritos en mole, although they are sometimes bathed in a caldillo de jitomate (tomato broth) and served with sliced nopalitos (cactus paddles).

During Lent, the price of fish and seafood in Mexico goes through the roof due to the huge seasonal demand for meatless meals. These beautiful huachinango (red snapper) come from Mexico's Pacific coast.

Chef Martín Rafael Mendizabal of La Trucha Alegre in Zitacuaro, Michoacán, prepared trucha deshuesada con agridulce de guayaba (boned trout with guava sweet and sour sauce) for the V Encuentro de Cocina Tradicional de Michoacán held in Morelia in December 2008. The dish would be ideal for an elegant Lenten dinner.

Capirotada (kah-pee-roh-TAH-dah, Lenten bread pudding) is almost unknown outside Mexico. Simple to prepare and absolutely delicious, it's hard to eat it sparingly if you're trying to keep a Lenten abstinence! This photo shows capirotada as served by Carmen Titita Ramírez Degollado at the El Bajío restaurants in Mexico City.

Every family makes a slightly different version of capirotada: a pinch more of this, leave out that, add such-and-such.  Mexico Cooks! prefers to leave out the apricots and add dried pineapple. Make it once and then tweak the recipe to your preference–but please do stick with traditional ingredients.

CAPIROTADA (Mexican Bread Pudding)

Ingredients

*4 bollilos, in 1" slices (small loaves of dense white bread)
5 stale tortillas
150 grams pecans
50 grams prunes
100 grams raisins
200 grams peanuts
100 grams dried apricots
1 large apple, peeled and sliced thin
100 grams grated Cotija cheese
Peel of one orange, two uses
*3 cones piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar)
Four 3" pieces of Mexican stick cinnamon
2 cloves
Butter
Salt

*If you don't have bolillo, substitute slices of very dense French bread. If you don't have piloncillo, substitute 1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar.

A large metal or clay baking dish.

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 300°F.

Toast the bread and spread with butter. Slightly overlap the tortillas in the bottom and along the sides of the baking dish to make a base for the capirotada. Prepare a thin syrup by boiling the piloncillo in 2 1/2 cups of water with a few shreds of cinnamon sticks, 2/3 of the orange peel, the cloves, and a pinch of salt.

Place the layers of bread rounds in the baking dish so as to allow for their expansion as the capirotada cooks. Lay down a layer of bread, then a layer of nuts, prunes, raisins, peanuts and apricots. Continue until all the bread is layered with the rest. For the final layer, sprinkle the capirotada with the grated Cotija cheese and the remaining third of the orange peel (grated). Add the syrup, moistening all the layers little by little. Reserve a portion of the syrup to add to the capirotada in case it becomes dry during baking.

Bake uncovered until the capirotada is golden brown and the syrup is absorbed. The bread will expand as it absorbs the syrup. Remember to add the rest of the syrup if the top of the capirotada looks dry, and reserve plenty of syrup to pour over each serving.

Cool the capirotada to room temperature. Do not cover until it is cool; even after it is cooled, leave the top ajar.

Try very hard not to eat the entire pan of capirotada at one sitting!

A positive thought for this Lent: give up discouragement, be an optimist.

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21 de February de 2015
There’s Nowhere Else Like Mexico City: Como México, No Hay Dos

Como México, no hay dos…there's nowhere else like Mexico!

That old saying, 'Como México, no hay dos', is so true. It's used with enormous pride, it's used ironically, it's used with colors-flying patriotic fervor. In the photo above, for example, the signs at these Mexico City outdoor fondas (food booths) read (left to right): Soft Drinks, Beer, and Fruit Drinks. Chicken Soup. We Repair Baby Jesuses. Only in Mexico can you find such wonderfully surrealistic juxtapositions. Como México, no hay dos.

Mexico Cooks! tacked four days in Mexico City onto the end of our February 2008 trip to Chiapas. It was Judy's first trip to Mexico's capital city and we packed in a lot. We'd been invited to stay at the home of a friend, and our time with her was a fast-forward speed combination of eating, yakking, and running around the city. Boy, did we have fun!

Our first order of business was a trip to the Basílica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the second most-visited religious shrine in the Western Hemisphere and a must in Mexico City.

This handy key chain with an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe comes complete with a bottle opener. Judy shook her head and rolled her eyes, but ended up buying this memento of the Basílica for her son.

Frida Kahlo's bedroom with her death mask.

Among our many recorridos (running around), we visited the Museo Frida Kahlo (also known as La Casa Azul), as well as the central plaza of Coyoacán.

The coyote fountain in the plaza principal of Coyoacán. The name means 'place of the coyote' and the fountain commemorates the animal.

One of the best times was a pozole outing with our newest acquaintances, Jim Johnston and Nick Gilman. Jim is the author of Mexico City: An Opinionated Guide for the Curious Traveler; Nick wrote Good Food in Mexico City: A Guide to Food Stalls, Fondas, and Fine Dining.

Who would know the best pozolería in Mexico City better than a passel of foodies? Our friend drove; she's intrepid behind the wheel, even in this city of nearly 25,000,000 souls. We voyaged north from our digs in south central Colonia Condesa, heading for Colonia Santa María La Ribera, near Alameda Norte. Mexico Cooks! has spent a lot of time in the Distrito Federal, but this was our first time in Colonia Santa María La Ribera. Nick assured us that we would love the pozolería.

The back of our waiter's shirt at La Casa de Toño, 'the home of eating well'.

Nick was right. La Casa de Toño is sheer heaven, from the salsas to the postres. The restaurant has been a Mexico City stronghold forever. It's open every day of the year, including Christmas. You can pay a virtual visit to La Casa de Toño here. We had a blast eating our way through a goodly part of the menu. We know we'll go back again next time we're in the city.

A night view of one of the patios at La Casa de Toño. The restaurant is housed in a converted mansion.

Of course we ordered pozole, the specialty of the house, but we also tried a quesadilla or two, a tostada de tinga, and some flautas. Four of us ordered pozole con maciza de puerco, the white meat of the pig. Jim ordered the pozole vegetariano, made with squash blossoms, mushrooms, and corn. I'm a confirmed meat-eater, but Jim's vegetarian pozole was just as delicious as the meat-filled bowl I ate.

Pozole con tostadas, the traditional combo.

Condiments for pozole: minced onion, thinly sliced radishes, shredded lettuce, and a variety of salsas. We also crumbled dried orégano into the bowl, along with powdered chile and sea salt.

Waiting for our cena (supper): Judy, Jim, Nick, and our friend.

The kitchen at La Casa de Toño is a hive of buzzing cooks, waiters, and busboys.

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17 de January de 2015
There’s Always Room for…Gelatina!

My friend Sra. Abundis prepared this clear gelatina. It's approximately 15" in diameter and stuffed with fresh red and green grapes, canned pineapple, and peaches.

Whether you're having a midday meal at a traditional Mexican restaurant anywhere in the República or celebrating at a private party at the home of Mexican friends, you can be almost 100% sure that a prominent item on the dessert menu will be gelatins. As you browse the produce at any town's tianguis (street market) or elbow your way through the crowds at a fiesta patronal (patron saint's celebration), you'll see vendors selling plastic cups and glasses of—you guessed it, jewel-colored gelatin desserts. Gelatina is a shimmering sweet fact of life in Mexico, popular with young and old alike.

What is this Mexican obsession with a food that smacks of 1950s Middle America? Delight in gelatin desserts has been prevalent in Mexico for years; marketing experts here report that it's eaten daily in nearly 90% of Mexican homes. Mexicans consume more gelatin desserts than nearly any other country in the world—three times the quantity of gelatin consumed in the United States alone. In restaurants, the dessert tray will almost always include a variety of gelatin desserts. When Señora Fulana (Mrs. So-and-So) is invited to a party at the home of her best friend, it's very traditional for her to take along a gelatin dessert, all fancied-up and ready for the admiration of the rest of the attendees. At a birthday party, the dessert of preference is rarely cake and ice cream. It's almost always a plate of cake and a jiggling serving of gelatin, which requires no refrigeration to maintain its shape.

There are far more ways to prepare gelatin desserts in Mexico than your mother's Jell-O™ mixed with fruit cocktail or shredded celery and carrots. Some of the desserts are prepared with water, some with milk, and some are prepared as a layered combination of both. Some are major productions involving hours of labor intensive preparation time.

Sra. Abundis and Cristina prepared and painted this marvelous tiger gelatina for a child's birthday party.

Several months ago it was my task to prepare individual serving cups of gelatin for a two-year-old neighbor's birthday party—it seemed like I made hundreds. I thought it would be a complicated and difficult project, but it turned out to be quite a lot of fun. After asking another neighbor's advice, I learned that it's possible to buy powdered gelatin at any dulcería (candy store) or grocery store. The variety of available flavors is amazing: in addition to the ordinary strawberry, lime, and orange, I also found pistachio, almond, tamarindo, and peach.

While I could have kept my project simple, I decided to get fancy. No single-flavor cups of gelatin for this party! I read the directions printed on each bag and learned to prepare this flavor with water, that one with milk. I combined a layer of strawberry (prepared with water) with a layer of pistachio (prepared with milk). Recklessly, I disregarded the instructions to use water to prepare the peach flavor and used milk instead, combining an opaque peach-flavored layer with a clear orange-flavored layer.

Commercially made in Guadalajara for sale in supermarkets, this three-layer single-serving gelatina includes a fruit layer (complete with a prune and its pit), a milk-based layer, and a clear layer. The gelatina comes with its own tiny yellow plastic spoon. These 200 gram gelatins are prepared with preservatives and artificial coloring. Each one costs 7.1 pesos, or 65 cents US.

It's so simple. Of course you can do this at home, even North of the Border. Just buy two different flavors of your favorite brand of gelatin dessert powder, some four-ounce plastic glasses, and have at it. Prepare one flavor and fill each glass to the half-way point. Refrigerate and allow that flavor to set. Prepare the second flavor, using either milk or water, pour it on top of the already jelled flavor, and refrigerate until set.

One traditional recipe is for Mousse de Rompope (eggnog-flavored gelatin dessert). It is so delicious that it bears repeating now.

Rompope (rohm-POH-pay) Mousse with Strawberry Sauce

The mousse:
2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin
1/4 cup water
1 cup heavy cream
2 cups rompope (Mexican eggnog flavored liqueur)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg whites

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin onto the water and let stand until absorbed, about five minutes. Meanwhile, heat the cream slightly in a small saucepan. (Do not boil.) Remove from heat and stir in the gelatin, mixing well to dissolve. Strain into a bowl; add the rompope and vanilla and mix well. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold in the eggnog mixture, and then pour into a lightly greased 1.5 quart ring-mold, bowl or specialty pan. Refrigerate at least four hours, preferably overnight.

Strawberry Sauce:
1 pound strawberries, stems removed
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon almond extract, anisette or Frangelica (hazelnut flavored liqueur)

Place strawberries, sugar and flavoring in a bowl and let stand for two hours. Purée in a blender, strain and set aside.

Just before serving, remove the mousse from its mold and drizzle with strawberry sauce. Garnish with slightly sweetened whipped cream. If desired, the mousse can be molded with a graham cracker crust.

The preparation of gelatin desserts has been raised to a fine art in Mexico. Special classes in gelatin preparation fascinate housewives and give rise to thriving cottage industry here. Recipes metamorphose from the relatively simple preparations in the preceding recipes to the most elaborate of flavor and design combinations. Recently, the craze for making individual clear gelatin desserts which contain flowers also made of gelatin has hit Mexico like a bombshell.

Flower gelatins like this one, made and copywrited by the Abundis family, are called gelatinas encapsuladas. The flowers are made with a syringe. Neither Sra. Abundis nor Cristina took classes in making the flowers, although many handicrafts schools and individuals offer those courses.

This week I was fortunate to spend some time with Sra. Abundis and her daughter, Cristina, who operate a small home-based business in Guadalajara. The Abundis family invited me to come watch and take pictures as they prepared special gelatinas for a child's birthday party. Mother and daughter have worked together for the last two to three years, preparing made-to-order gelatins for birthdays, baptisms, girls' fifteenth birthday parties, baby showers, engagement parties, and weddings.

The gelatina personality of the day was Spiderman. Cristina explained that the gelatin for the Spiderman mold and many more are milk-based, while other gelatins are water-based. Milk gives the gelatina a more nutritious aspect than does plain water and also makes Spiderman's features show up better after they're painted.

In the Abundis kitchen, Spiderman is fresh out of the mold. A selection of milk ingredients is lined up behind him, along with a small plate full of individual-serving Spiderman heads.

Sra. Abundis showed me the basic ingredients for the dessert; once the basics are assembled, they're flavored with vanilla. Spiderman is prepared with powdered milk. Other gelatinas are made with sweetened condensed milk or with evaporated milk. The Abundis family uses pure cane sugar and unflavored gelatin for its desserts. No preservatives are added. These home-prepared gelatinas must be consumed within 48 hours of their preparation.

Many fancy gelatinas are painted once they're chilled and set. Spiderman is no exception. The paints are special vegetable food coloring gel, manufactured here in Guadalajara.

Sra. Abundis watches closely as Cristina paints Spiderman's red base coat.

While Cristina painted, Sra. Abundis told me that when her relatives moved from Mexico City to Guadalajara in 1940, there was no gelatina in the city. Finally the relatives found a source–one stall at the Mercado Corona in Guadalajara's Centro Histórico sold it.

Cristina starts the initial work with black gel food coloring, outlining Spiderman's eyes. She holds a licenciatura (bachelor of arts) in graphic design from the University of Guadalajara.

"The gelatina has to be very cold in order to paint it," Cristina commented. "If it's not as cold and firm as possible, the paint will run." Spiderman stayed briefly in the freezer between coats of food coloring gel.

Spiderman's intricate thread work is complete.

I asked Sra. Abundis and Cristina which molds are most popular for parties. "Right now, Spiderman is the one all the kids want. Of course they also like Buzz Lightyear, Sponge Bob, all the Disney princesses, and Barbie. The old favorites like Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, and Tweetie Bird are always popular."

Josua Isai Abundis Linares, Cristina's nearly six year old nephew, participated eagerly in the time I spent with his family. He and I both anticipated our dessert: one of the individual Spiderman heads.

Cristina added, "For adult parties like weddings and baby showers, people want gelatinas encapsuladas, the ones with the flowers, to accompany their special cakes. And it's funny, the kids gobble down their gelatinas, but the adults want to save theirs. The flowers are so beautiful."

Cristina shows off the finished product: Spiderman in person! Sra. Abundis painted the blue base. The cost of this fantastic super hero is 130 pesos, approximately $11.50 USD.

"The people who ordered this Spiderman for their child's party will pick it up late this afternoon. The party is tomorrow." Cristina was happy that she finished the painting with no smears.

For dessert after your midday meal, for a snack or for a light supper, sweet wiggly gelatina satisfies every time. Cooling and slithery, a gelatina is just the ticket when you need a little something, but you don't want too much.

They knew what they were talking about, way back then, when they said, "There's always room for…"

If you happen to be in Guadalajara and need a gelatina for a special party, contact the Abundis family:

            Tiny Gelatinas
            Calle Ciprés #1819
            Colonia del Fresno
            Guadalajara, Jalisco
            Tel: 3812-8426 or 044-33-3815-1917

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

22 de November de 2014
Bread, the Staff of Life: Pan Dulce (Sweet Bread) in Mexico

Here's a steaming hot glass of café con leche (expresso with lots of milk), served with a basket of Mexico's pan dulce (sweet bread).

When my mother, may she rest in peace, visited me here in Mexico, one of her dearest wishes was to visit a Mexican bakery. For more than 40 years, Mother baked every crumb of bread that she consumed: white, rye, whole wheat, pumpernickel, sourdough, French baguette, and esoteric ethnic loaves that she just had to try. Mother wanted to see how it was done in Mexico. She even arrived with her baking apron, hoping to push her hands deep into some yeasty dough.

In those years, there was a tiny bakery just a block from my house. Shortly after Mom's arrival, I took her to meet Don Pedro, the master baker, and his helpers. For two hours, Don Pedro and my mother swapped bread stories—conversation about oven temperatures, yeast, flour densities, and tales of experiments, successes and failures.

Don Pedro spoke no English and my mother spoke no Spanish, but I interpreted between them and they discovered that they were soul mates. The day before Mother was to leave for home, she went to say goodbye to Don Pedro. They both cried and insisted that pictures be taken before they exchanged farewell hugs. Such is the bond of bread.

Bread fresh from the oven: the evocative aroma brings back timeworn memories of Mom's kitchen, filled with the yeasty perfume of twice-raised, golden-crusted hot bread. Here in Mexico, that redolent scent wafts through the air from bakeries scattered like hidden treasures through many neighborhoods. At certain hours of the early morning and mid-afternoon, barrio ovens disgorge mountains of pan dulce (sweet bread) destined for tiny corner mom-n-pop stores or for sale to individuals.

For a few pesos, an early breakfast of bread served with milk, juice, hot chocolate, or coffee gets Mexico up and off to work or school. For a few pesos more, the same sort of late supper rocks Mexico to sleep.

In the history of the world, bread has its own record and development. The making of wheat bread has evolved with the progress of world civilization. Particularly in gastronomic Mexico, bread has deep roots in the evolution of the República. The Spanish brought wheat, along with the flavors and recipes of all Europe with them to the New World. The 1860s era of Emperor Maximilian and his French wife, Charlotte, imposed a giddy 19th Century French influence—with puff pastries, whipped cream fillings, and sticky glazes—on the already extensive assortment of Mexican breads.

Tasty sugar-swirled conchas are ubiquitous throughout Mexico.

During the Mexican Revolution, soldiers from every region of Mexico came to know the foods of states far from their homes. When they returned to their own areas after the fighting, they took the recipes and flavors of other regions home with them. The south of Mexico incorporated northern bread recipes into its repertoire, the west took from the east, the north from the south.

Today, most panaderías (bakeries) in Mexico prepare similar assortments of pan dulce, along with a sampling of their own regional specialties.

Puerquitos (little pigs, on the right) taste very much like gingerbread.

It's been said that Mexico, of all the countries in the world, has the broadest and most delicious selection of breads. As a result of the mixture of cultures and regional flavors, today in Mexico you will find more than 2000 varieties of breads, and all will tempt your palate.

Pan dulce is just one variety, but there are hundreds upon hundreds of different sub-varieties. The great mosaic of Mexican bread making, inventiveness, and creativity is such that every variety of pan dulce has a name, usually associated with its appearance. That's why you'll see names of animals, objects, and even people gracing the breads on bakery shelves. Puerquitos (little pigs), moños (bowties or neckties), ojo de buey (ox eye), canastas (baskets), conchas (seashells), cuernos (horns),
chinos (Chinese), polvorones (shortbread), hojaldres (puffpaste),
empanadas (turn-overs), and espejos (mirrors): all are names of specific and very different sweet breads. My current favorite name for a pan dulce is niño envuelto (it means wrapped-up baby and it looks for all the world like a slice of jellyroll).

If you've never visited a Mexican bakery—a bakery where the breads are baked right on the premises—you have a real treat in store. One of my favorite bakeries is owned by the Rojas family. When the bolillos (crusty white rolls) come out of the oven in the early mornings and again when the roles (cinnamon rolls—they're addictive) are ready at about 12:30 PM, you'll find lines of locals waiting to carry home a bag of hot, fresh goodies.

At the Rojas bakery, the bakers will help you select the breads you want. There are no bakers' shelves at Rojas, and the selection of items is usually small. Most of the breads are delivered to shops and stores shortly after they're taken from the ovens. Larger Mexican bakeries can be a little intimidating when you first push that front door open and enter a warm, fragrant world of unfamiliar sights and smells.

Unsweetened biscochos are very similar to biscuits.

My most recent bakery excursion was to Panadería Pan Bueno, located at Avenida Vallarta #5295 in Guadalajara. The owner, Sr. Roberto Cárdenas González, graciously allowed me to take photographs with the assistance of his employee, Edith Hernández González.

When you go inside Pan Bueno–or for that matter, any Mexican bakery–take a minute to look around first to orient yourself. Right there by the door are the big metal trays and the tongs you need to gather up the breads you want to buy.

Edith shows off a huge rosca de reyes, a specialty bread for Día de los Reyes (Three Kings Day, January 6).

Flaky rings of sweet bread filled with figs.

As Edith and I made the rounds of the bakery, I asked her if she knew the origin of any of the names for pan dulce. With a charming smile, she admitted that they were just traditional inventos—made up titles. When I asked her if she ever got tired of eating the sweet breads, she shook her head emphatically. "Oh no, señora, we always love the pan."

You will always love the pan as well. And now, if you'll excuse me, a slice of niño envuelto is calling to me from my kitchen. How could I have resisted buying a pan dulce or two as I made the bakery tour? All right, it was four—but who's counting?

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

25 de October de 2014
Antojitos Mexicanos: “Little Whims” to Whet Your Appetite
Taquitos dorados (left) and sopes (center) are typical antojitos mexicanos. Antojo, a word that means whim, becomes antojito (little whim) when it refers to these corn-based fried treats that are eaten as street food everywhere in Mexico.

From Baja California and Nuevo León on the northern border to Oaxaca and Chiapas in the south, from Veracruz on the east coast to Nayarit on the west, Mexico loves to eat. Here in Mexico, there's nothing more common on any menu than antojitos mexicanos: literally, "little Mexican whims."

Mexicans get hungry at all hours, and it's not entirely about physical need. Seductive aromas, exciting presentations on the plate and the crunchy sounds of chewing entice them to the 'little whims'. From the hand-lettered banner at the smallest street stand to the menu of the most elegant of restaurants, antojitos mexicanos are a staple on almost any Mexican bill of fare.

Taquitos dorados. When you see tacos made in this way, they are always called by this name that means "little golden tacos".

Most Mexican restaurants in the United States specialize in only one aspect of Mexican cooking—antojitos mexicanos. These are the corn and tortilla-based specialties that include the enchiladas, taquitos dorados, tamales, quesadillas, and tostadas that all evolved directly from original indigenous cooking. In Mexico today, these corn-based antojitos mexicanos are popular with rich and poor alike.

Antojitos can include almost any traditional Mexican foods, but the term always refers to the corn kitchen. The gamut runs from budín azteca (a cream, cheese, chile and tortilla pie) to the numerous kinds of pozole (a hearty soup made with pork or chicken and fresh hominy) right through the alphabet to xolostle (a soup of chicken, corn and various spices).

Some of the most popular antojitos at restaurants and street stands are tacos, tostadas, sopes, gorditas, empanadas, enchiladas, and quesadillas. If you're North of the Border, most of those antojitos are not only easy to find in restaurants, but they're easy to prepare at home. Each is based on the same corn masa (dough).

The blue-gray oval antojitos are tlacoyos, a Mexico City specialty. They are ordinarly stuffed with either frijolitos refritos or requesón (a cheese similar to ricotta), toasted on a comal (griddle), and topped with red or green salsa, lettuce, cheese, and crema (Mexican table cream). The beige ovals to the left on the comal are for making quesadillas.

In some cities North of the Border, you can buy prepared masa at a tortillería (tortilla making shop). Even if you don't live next door to a tortillería (tortilla-making shop), masa harina (corn flour for dough) is available at supermarkets and Latin specialty shops all over the USA and Canada. You're sure to find common brands such as Quaker or Maseca. A word to the wise: don't try to use standard cornmeal to make masa. Masa harina and cornmeal are very different products. An antojito made from masa harina will not have the same texture and flavor as one prepared from a tortillería's fresh masa, but it will do in a pinch.

Once you've prepared a batch of masa, you're well on the way to a Mexican feast. Today, let's make gorditas. You'll need basic utensils:
- Large, deep frying pan or wok
- Flat strainer with long handle
- A comal or heavy griddle
These basic ingredients will be used for the two antojitos:
- Prepared corn masa
- Large quantity of oil or lard for frying
- You'll also need frijoles refritos (well-fried beans) for both the sopes and the gorditas. You can buy them in cans if you'd rather take a shortcut to preparation, but traditionally you would prepare dried beans at home.
The Michoacán gorditas in the photo are made of blue corn masa and stuffed with frijolitos refritos.

Gorditas
To prepare serving plates of the gorditas de frijoles, you'll need the following ingredients:
- Thinly shredded cabbage or lettuce
- Salsa verde or roja
- Crumbled queso Cotija or queso fresco
- Chopped fresh cilantro
- Small-diced, fresh white onion
Make a ball of masa a little larger than a tennis ball. Flatten it to about a five-inch round. On half of the round, heap a large spoonful of frijoles refritos and a small spoonful of cheese. Fold the filled masa in half and shape into a thick, flat disk approximately three inches in diameter. Fill and shape as many as you will need.

Heat enough lard or oil in the wok or large, deep frying pan to fry two or three gorditas at a time. Slide the gorditas into the fat and allow them to fry until deep golden brown. Remove the gorditas from the fat with the strainer and then keep them hot on the comal or griddle. Drain on paper towels if needed.

To serve, split each gordita in half approximately one-third of the way from one edge of the disk. Open a flap of the gordita and place on a plate. Top with either salsa verde or salsa roja, shredded cabbage or lettuce, the cilantro, the diced onion, and crumbled cheese.

These delicious antojitos mexicanos will give you a real sense of being right here in the heart of Mexico. Put a mariachi CD in the player and get the whole family to help you with the preparations for your meal. All of you will enjoy the fun of preparing these typical and simple dishes from South of the Border.

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4 de October de 2014
Tradition and Authenticity: What Is *Real* Mexican Food?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20 de September de 2014
Herbs from a Mexican Garden: Old Kitchen Pals and Exotic New Friends

Fresh hierbabuena (mint) growing in a Morelia friend's garden.

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.

Mexico Cooks! stores garlic in this 3" diameter wire basket, hanging from a cup hook on the side of a cupboard. Circulating air keeps the garlic fresh for quite a while.

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.

This herb, a large-leafed, strong-flavored variety of oregano called orégano orejón (big-ear oregano), is unusual even in Mexico. Mexico Cooks! once had a pot of it, but it has unfortunately gone to the great beyond. I'd love to have another pot of it.

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 a tianguis (street market) 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 might be smart to add it to the boiling bean pot.
Pescado en hoja de plátano (fish cooked in banana leaf). Restaurante San Miguelito, Morelia, Michoacán.

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 (holy leaf) is also known as acuyo.

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, and it combines exceptionally well with fish or chicken.

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. Dried avocado leaves are also used as a flavoring agent; like hoja santa, they have a mild taste similar to that of 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.

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30 de August de 2014
Pinche Gringo BBQ: The Silver Twinkie in Mexico City

In this mural around the corner from the restaurant, the silver Twinkie, icon of the Pinche Gringo BBQ joint, floats above Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes (Palace of Fine Arts), offering a bilingual welcome to everyone in the Distrito Federal who wants Texas-style barbecue. You might be amazed to see how many people line up every day for a pile of smokey pork meat and a couple of sides or a mile-high beef brisket sandwich. In just seven months, this BBQ heaven has had to expand twice to accommodate the crowds. G'wan, line up. We did. Photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

Pinche Gringo BBQ menu. Click on any photo to enlarge the image. Photo courtesy Pinche Gringo.

Mexico Cooks!, a person of a certain age, usually manages a fair degree of decorum when in public. "Pinche" is not a very nice word in Mexico, especially when attached to gringo, a word I certainly know but refuse to use either in writing or speaking. It surprises me no end when foreigners who hail from north of the Mexican border identify themselves with the derogatory term gringos, but Dan Defossey, the pinche gringo himself and founder of the feast, brings it off with grace.

Dan is a native New Yorker, transplanted to Austin, Texas and thence to Mexico City. He's a righteous smoked barbecue fiend. When he arrived in Mexico's capital, he had plenty of barbecue eating experience but no restaurant-running experience. It was the barbecue-eating experience he missed during his first four years in Mexico. Until his Pinche Gringo BBQ joint hit the scene in Colonia Narvarte, having a taste of 'cue meant an 11-hour drive to the Texas border.

Dan retrofitted the silver Twinkie, otherwise known as an Airstream travel trailer, for use as a cafeteria-style restaurant counter. Line up, study the wall-mounted menu while you wait, grab a tray and tell the genial (and bilingual) staff inside the trailer what you want to eat. A plated meat order (using the term loosely, since the Pinche Gringo piles your meat not on a plate but on a big sheet of paper on your tray) comes with two sides; you can order sides separately if you choose a sandwich. My order? "Carne de cerdo deshebrado (de-seh-BRAH-doh, Texas-style pulled pork), macaroni and cheese, and barbecue beans, please." My wife had ordered the pork ribs, with sides of potato salad and cole slaw; the plan was to share everything.

The line forms at the rear. The day Mexico Cooks! and a couple of boon companions went to eat BBQ, we purposely went quite early (1:00PM) to avoid a long wait. Mexico eats its main meal of the day at around three o'clock and we wanted to beat the rush. It turned out to be a strangely slow day; when there's a crowd, the line can snake all the way to the front door, down a step, and around the corner to the end of the building. Note the picnic table: at this very rustic restaurant, all seating is this type.

Pinche Gringo accepts cash payments and all credit cards. You can also pay via the PG iPad at the cashier–using PayPal Check-In, which takes the cost of your meal directly out of your PayPal account. It's a neat new wrinkle in payment processing. From the top down, the sign translates to, "Really damn practical, really damn easy, really damn fast!"

Time to cut to the chase: these are the pork ribs, a half-rack of smoked ribs, thickly drizzled with PG sauce and accommpanied by potato salad, cole slaw, a sesame-seeded roll, and Texas sweet tea. The flavor of the ribs was soft and smokey, but our companions, who also ordered ribs, said they weren't as fall-off-the-bone tender as he has eaten them the other four times he's been to Pinche Gringo. "Why did I pick the ribs? I love the pulled pork best," he regretted.

My other companion's potato salad tasted just like Mom used to make: rich with mayonnaise, slightly mustard-y, and just the right combo of tang and potato. The texture was strange to me, almost like mashed potato with lumps. I prefer my potato salad chunky, with the potatoes at a melt-in-the-mouth tenderness. The cole slaw, made with purple cabbage and carrots, was perfect.

The big pile-on-the-tray of pulled pork, sauced and with a side of mac'n'cheese and another of barbecue style beans. The fork-tender, slightly fatty pulled pork was the hands-down winner of the meal. I was loathe to share this pile with a companion in exchange for some of her ribs, but a deal is a deal.

The Texas-style beans were just right, sweet and smoky. The mac'n'cheese was slightly spicy, very cheesy, and creamy in the mouth. Score!

Smoked, tender beef brisket, chopped, stacked up six inches high and oozing out of the confines of its bun, served with onion and dill pickles and of course the standard PG sauce. A generous customer let me take this picture of his meal–but I noticed that he didn't offer me a taste. Some people just want it all for themselves!

Luis Urrutia Alonzo, one of the PGBB staff, let me sneak behind the scenes to photograph the four-door wood-fired gargantuan smoker. At the bottom left corner you can see the little burner. Gauges indicate that the heat is kept at a slow, even temperature. The meat is cooked for a while to seal in the juices, then wrapped in aluminum foil and smoked for ten hours–overnight. Dan Defossey brought the smoker from Texas, along with the elderly Airstream trailer. Sometime when you're at Pinche Gringo, ask him to tell you the tale of the trip.

Two of the several drink options: barrels of free-refill lemonade and Texas sweet tea. In addition, there's a good range of soft drinks and several kinds of beer.

Pie for dessert! The pies change every month. The pies for July, in this case: on the left, raspberry and cheese. On the right, real down-home apple pie. Which to choose! We all had the apple; it was as good as any I've ever had–really good.

So long for now, Pinche Gringo! We'll see you again soon to try more of your smokey Texas menu. You're a welcome addition to the Mexico City restaurant scene. Even though you don't offer tortillas or micheladas or Mexican salsas, everybody loves your style.

Pinche Gringo BBQ
Cumbres de Maltrata 360
Colonia Narvarte
Del. Benito Juárez 03020
Ciudad de México, Distrito Federal
Tel. 55 6389 1129
Hours: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 1PM – 7PM
Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Noon – 7PM
Monday and Tuesday: Closed

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2 de August de 2014