Category: Restaurants

Mesamérica 2012: Mexican Gastronomic Summit (Cumbre Gastronómica de México 2012) DAY ONE

Chef Enrique Olvera of highly acclaimed Restaurante Pujol in Mexico City is the founder and guiding light of Mesamérica. Photo courtesy Adam Goldberg.

Mesamérica, highly touted as the Mexican culinary event of the year, opened on July 24 with a gala inaugural dinner at Mexico City's St. Regis Hotel. Forty or so rock-star chefs and other luminaries of the international gastronomic world converged on the city for five days of teaching conferences,food, drink, celebration, and general merry-making.

Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita of restaurants Azul/Condesa and Azul/Histórico gave a few opening remarks on July 25.

Chef Alicia Gironella d'Angeli, who together with her husband Giorgio d'Angeli founded Restaurante El Tajín in Mexico City as well as the Slow Food movement in Mexico, spoke from her long perspective as grande dame of Mexico's culinary world during Mesamérica's inauguration. In her talk, she quipped that she was speaking from her juventud acumulada–her accumulated youth.

The Mesamérica 2012 program included chefs from countries as diverse as England, Denmark, Chile, Mexico, and the United States. Names as well-known in Mexico as Diana Kennedy, Javier Plascencia, Mikel Alonso, and Mónica Patiño were among those who gave talks to the huge crowds–as many as 2,000 in attendance for each of two daily sessions. The names of James Casey (editor of SWALLOW magazine), Lars Williams (Nordic Food Labs, Copenhagen), and The Young Turks (Great Britain), which would previously have elicited a "Who?" from me and most of the attending throngs were common currency by the end of the conference.

Chef Javier Plascencia of Restaurante Misión 19, Baja California, along with (below)

Chef Jair Téllez from Restaurante Laja of Baja California and Restaurante MeroToro of Mexico City shared the podium on opening day and together spoke eloquently about the need to invent tradition in Baja California. Chef Javier said, "I am very much inspired by street food, and Tijuana has become a culinary destination. We are living our dream."

ProEpta Mexican baking and tableware shared commercial space with several other culinary arts businesses.

Lars Williams, of Copenhagen's Nordic Food Lab, asked conference assistants to pass around pinches and liquid samples of flavors concocted of insect parts and essences. During his talk, he said that the basic tenet of the Food Lab is–and I quote–"Trying to get gringos to eat bugs". The tiny vial in the photo contains a liquid made from fermented grasshoppers. It smelled and tasted like soy sauce.

Next week, Mexico Cooks! will highlight chefs and other culinary professionals from Mesamérica Day Two. Stay tuned!

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

4 de August de 2012
Delicias de Noche en Pátzcuaro: Enchiladas Placeras (Night Pleasures in Pátzcuaro: Plaza-Style Enchiladas)
Over the course of nearly 30 years, Mexico Cooks! has visited Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, one of the most beautiful small colonial cities of Mexico, more times than we can count. Every visit is memorable for 16th and 17th Century architecture, fantastic decorative arts, and food. Food! The regional Michoacán kitchen is incomparably rich and delicious.

Super Pollo Emilio has been famous for 36 years for enchiladas placeras: plaza-style enchiladas, the only item on the menu. The cooks prepare approximately 400 orders of enchiladas every night.

Great quantities of enormous pechugas (chicken breast halves, each large enough to satisfy two people) and piernas (leg/thigh quarters) are simmered early in the day until they're just done. A bit later, preparation continues with vats of tender potatoes and fresh carrots.

The cook fans four tortillas at a time between his fingers and dips them into this enormous pot of house- made salsa para enchiladas (enchilada sauce). The recipe? Mexico Cooks! has wheedled and whined, but Super Pollo Emilio won't give it up.

The cook spreads the salsa-doused tortillas evenly into the sizzling grease in the industrial-strength comal (griddle), flipping them rapidly from one side to the other. The tortillas need to be cooked till they are hot and soft, but not crisp.

He gives each tortilla a dollop of freshly mashed potato. The tortillas are then folded in half: voilá, enchiladas ready for your platter. Each order contains eight enchiladas as well as–well, we'll see in a minute.

While we waited for our supper, we were treated to a serenata (serenade) sung by strolling local musicians. We were quite taken with the multi-colored strings of this big bass fiddle.

Our order. The platter, which looks fairly small in the photo, measures approximately 16 inches from side to side. The two forks are ordinary-size table forks. Each platter contains:
- eight potato-filled enchiladas
- freshly sautéed potatoes and carrots, enough for two or more people
- the amount and kind of chicken you prefer–we normally order a breast portion, which was more than enough for the two of us
- a sprinkle of thinly sliced onion
- large shreds of queso Oaxaca (Oaxaca cheese)
- shredded fresh cabbage
- crumbled queso fresco (fresh farmer-style cheese)
- fresh salsa roja (red sauce, different from the enchilada sauce)
- a base of fresh romaine lettuce
- chile perón en escabeche (locally grown and pickled yellow chile: HOT), as much as you want
Mexico Cooks! has never seen one person finish an entire platter of enchiladas placeras as prepared by Super Pollo Emilio. We were hard pressed, but in the interest of pure research we managed to eat most of this order. We accompanied the order with a glass of agua fresca de jamaica and a bottle of LIFT, an apple soda. Our total bill was 110 pesos.

Super Pollo Emilio sets up every evening except Tuesdays, just around dusk on Pátzcuaro's Plaza Gertrudis Bocanegra (the plaza chica). It's the booth closest to the portal (covered walkway) on the market side of the square. The booth is open till the food runs out.

If you're still hungry after your platter of enchiladas is gone, there are buñuelos for dessert. You can order a buñuelo broken and softened in a bowl of syrup or still-crispy and dusted with sugar.

Our waiter Jesús and his sweet daughter Paola, who was helping take soft drink orders. Jesús has been a fixture at Super Pollo Emilio since long before his daughter was born.

When you're visiting Pátzcuaro, don't miss the enchiladas placeras at Super Pollo Emilio. If nothing else about this marvelous city brings you back again and again, you'll be pulled in by these addictive enchiladas, eaten on a chilly night under the stars, just by the market-side portales.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.
28 de July de 2012
Crafts, Food, and Mayan Culture in Zinacantán, Chiapas: Part Three

If you have not yet read Parts One and Two of Mexico Cooks! visit to San Lorenzo Zinacantán, Chiapas, please see the articles dated June 23 and June 30, 2012.

Restaurant J'Totik Lol, San Lorenzo Zinacantán, Chiapas

As we walked through the Templo San Lorenzo atrium to the main streets of Zinacantán, our stomachs grumbling for food, we noticed that the first three cocinas económicas (cheap-eats restaurants) were closed. At three o'clock in the afternoon–time for the main meal of the day–we couldn't understand what was (or better said, what wasn't) cooking. Then light dawned: it was a Lenten Friday. In Mexico, many restaurants serving primarily meat or chicken close on Fridays in Lent. It appeared that none of the restaurants around the plaza chose to offer a menú cuaresmeño (Lenten menu). Even though we were considerably past ready for lunch, we weren't ready to leave Zinacantán and head back to San Cristóbal de las Casas to find food. What to do!

"Look!" My partner pointed to a sign: Centro de Artesanía y Restaurantes. An arrow directed us to a short flight of steps carved into the hillside. We crossed our fingers and started up. At the top of the steps was Restaurant J'Totik Lol, jam-packed with San Cristóbal secundaria (middle school) kids on a field trip. We felt sure that unless the ravening teenage hordes had eaten all that there was to be had, we would soon have lunch.

The school group filled every table inside the restaurant and overflowed into the yard. We settled ourselves outside at the single remaining table and gratefully received menus from the wait staff. Would it be the menú del día or something a la carta? Our choice is usually the menú, and today was no exception. The menú at a home-style restaurant in Mexico is nearly always a treat. It normally includes a choice of two or three sopas aguadas (soups), choice of sopa seca (rice or pasta), choice of several guisados (main dishes), frijoles, tortillas, and dessert. Judy picked asado de puerco estilo chiapaneco as her main course and, at the waitress's recommendation, I asked for the menú con carne asada.

Restaurant J'Totik Lol interior with clay and brick oven.

The asado de puerco estilo chiapaneco was definitely the pick of the day. Fork-tender chunks of pork covered with a deep-brown sauce redolent of chiles filled Judy's plate, the thick sauce running gently into her rice. She tasted it and I knew from the ecstatic look on her face that I wasn't going to finagle more than a nibble. Yes, my carne asada was delicious. But after I snagged a shred of her pork and a bit of sauce, it was obvious that she had bet on the winner.

Both of us ate fresh tortilla after fresh tortilla as we enjoyed our meal. We were joined at table by a middle-size dog which had apparently recently delivered a litter of pups. Her beguilingly silent pleas for a snack resulted in a bone or two from Judy's asado and the crusty ends of my carne asada.

We all ate well. You will, too.

Asado de Puerco Estilo Chiapaneco

Ingredients
1/2 kilo (1 pound) fresh pork                   1 onion, quartered
1 kilo (2.2 pounds) small pork ribs          1 corn tortilla
2 cloves garlic                                        Thyme to taste
2 chiles cascabel                                     Oregano to taste
2 chiles pasilla                                        Salt and pepper to taste
1 large or two small tomatillos                Oil

Procedure
Cut the meat into 2" cubes. Cut the ribs into 2" sections. Salt and pepper well. Using a frying pan, sauté in hot oil until well-browned, adding the quartered onion to the meat. Reserve the meat and onion in the frying pan.

In another pan, carefully toast the garlic, the chiles cascabel and pasilla. Don't let them become too dark or they will be bitter. Reserve the mix in a separate bowl. In the same frying pan, sauté the corn tortilla. When all the ingredients are well-toasted, put them in the blender along with the raw tomatillos, add a bit of water, and blend until the ingredients are well blended. Add the blended mixture to the meat in its frying pan. Add the thyme and oregano to taste.

Allow to cook over a very low flame for about an hour, adding water little by little as needed so that the meat and sauce do not dry out.

Serves 4-6, accompanied by arroz a la mexicana (Mexican-style rice), frijolitos negros (black beans), and plenty of freshly made hot tortillas.

Provecho!

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

Mexico Cooks! is traveling. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in mid-July.

7 de July de 2012
Crafts, Food and Mayan Culture in Zinacantán, Chiapas: Part One

Part One of a three-part series of articles about Mexico Cooks!' explorations in the indigenous village of Zinacantán, Chiapas. All three articles were originally published in March, 2008. Enjoy!

The highlands of Chiapas, the southernmost state in Mexico, are unlike any region of the 27 other Mexican states I know. The indigenous culture of the highlands is still fiercely Mayan, albeit with a veneer of Catholicism. The Chiapanecan Maya are for the most part unwelcoming to outsiders, holding their customs and celebrations close to their chests as jealously guarded secrets. Some regions forbid entry to both mestizos and foreigners, some forbid the taking of photographs, and some have essentially seceded from Mexico, allowing no access to services commonly accepted as essential everywhere else in the country.

There are a few small indigenous towns where outside visitors are at least superficially welcome, including the pueblo called San Lorenzo Zinacantán, located in a valley at 8500 feet above sea level, just six miles from the small but cosmopolitan city of San Cristóbal de las Casas. In Zinacantán, where the women dress like flocks of exotically beautiful bluebirds, a prominent sign on the church door reads, "Se prohibe matar pollos durante sus rezos," ('Killing chickens during your prayers is forbidden'), and the vernacular is Tzotzil, derived from Mayan. The name Zinacantán means "place of the bats". Mexico Cooks! missed seeing bats, but we lucked upon certain mystically Mayan Zinacantán ceremonies that left us wide-eyed and pensive.

Zinacantecas Juana Hernández de la Cruz, Josefa Victoria González, Juana Adriana Hernández Hernández, and Yolanda Julieta González Hernández laughed with delight when they saw their photographs.

Village residents wear ropa típica (native dress) made by their own hands. Women use hand-woven long black wool skirts, hand-embroidered red or blue blouses embroidered in teal blue, deeper blue, and green thread, and stunning tassel-embellished shawls. It's possible to identify the families that men, boys, and young girls are from based on the style of weaving and embroidery in the garments their wives, mothers and aunts make for them.

For their weddings, Zinacantán women wear the k'uk'umal chilil, an elaborately woven huipil (long blouse). White feathers are woven among the colored borders of these wedding dresses, which are nearly long enough to reach the ground. Under the huipil, the bride wears a finely hand woven and embroidered navy blue woolen skirt. The bride's white dress takes approximately five months to weave on a back strap loom. The people of Zinacantán say that the hen is a domestic animal that has feathers but cannot fly, walks on two legs just like people, is dependent on them for its nourishment, and is always near the house even when it runs loose. So the feathers that women weave into the bridal garment represent the attitude of the hen, which the bride is expected to adopt: she will not leave the household, even though she is capable of doing so, and she will shape a relationship of interdependence with her husband. Hence the feathers are a symbol of good marriage, as are the three borders of multicolored embroidery. In addition to the long blouse and the navy blue skirt, the bride wears a long white embroidered shawl which covers most of her head and face during the marriage ceremony.

Zinacantán men wear short pants and a knee-length cotón (a sleeveless garment made of one piece of hand-woven fabric sewn up the sides to the armpits, with a cut-out for inserting the head). The cotón is fastened with a wide red cotton belt wrapped several times around the waist and knotted. Over that, a man wears a hand-woven and embroidered pink fabric vest with long, elaborate tassels. A large scarf wraps around the man's head, either with or without multi-colored ribbons trailing down his back, and over the scarf the men wear a handmade hat woven of palm fronds, long colorful ribbons cascading from the peak of the sombrero.

Because many people in Zinacantán are reluctant to have their pictures taken, I took the photo of traditional wedding clothing in a women's cooperative crafts store with the permission of the women in the second photograph, who staffed the store the day Mexico Cooks! visited.

Sra. Pascuala Pérez Pérez weaves using a back strap loom.

The loom with a portion of Doña Pascuala's weaving lies neatly where she left it momentarily to tend the cooperative store.

Crafts work such as weaving traditional brides' huipiles, rugs, tablecloths, blouses, shawls, and straw hats has become the major source of income for many zinacantecos (residents of Zinacantán). Doña Pascuala told me, "We start as children, learning to separate the colored threads and put the same colors together. Many learn how to embroider, but the bad thing is that no one helps us export our crafts to anywhere outside the area."

Next week, read Part Two as Mexico Cooks! continues its visit to San Lorenzo Zinacantán, Chiapas.

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

Mexico Cooks! is traveling. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in mid-July.

23 de June de 2012
Wheat, Flour, and Yeast: Basque Spanish Immigrants’ Bakeries in Mexico City

Pan Segura, Legítimo Estilo Jalisco (Bread Segura, Real Jalisco Style) is almost literally a hole in the wall on Calle 16 de septiembre in Mexico City's Centro Histórico. There's just enough open space for a person to squeeze single file and sideways past a bread case and into the slightly wider part of the bakery to pick up a tray and tongs. Buy bread here often enough and you probably won't fit through the door!

A few weeks ago, Mexico Cooks! received an email from a total stranger: Jane Mason, the owner of Virtuous Bread, asked me where to buy certain kinds of specialty flours in Mexico City or anywhere in the rest of the República. Originally based in England, Jane Mason has recently been working on a bread-baking project in the Distrito Federal. After exchanging several notes with me, she mentioned that she and her partner were taking a Centro Histórico tour of traditional bakeries that weekend. Would I like to join them? Did I leap at the chance? You bet!

Racks of Jalisco-style pan dulce (Mexican sweet breads) at Pan Segura. Their most famous sweet bread is the unique cuadros de queso (cheese squares). Large, densely textured, and completely delicious, the bread balances between sweet and salty. With a freshly squeezed glass of juice, it's big enough to be breakfast. It's also addictive. Trust me, eating one cuadro de queso today leaves you wanting another tomorrow.

Universidad Iberoamericana, in the person of Maestra Sandra Llamas, planned the bakery tour to explore the 19th century presence in Mexico of Basque immigrants from the province of Navarre, Spain. Those immigrants came from the Spanish Valley of Baztán to live in Mexico City at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Ultimately, they became the most important European influence on Mexico's commercial bakeries, flour sellers, and yeast purveyors.

Maestra Sandra Llamas begins the tour of traditional bakeries by offering an overview of prominent Basque bakers in 19th century Mexico City. Approximately 25 people of every young-adult and adult age participated in our three-bakery walking tour.

During Porfirio Díaz's long presidency/dictatorship (1876-1910), all things European were very much the rage in Mexico. Spanish and French goods were much more highly valued than goods made in Mexico. During the Porfiriato (the name used to describe those nearly 35 years), many Basque families were accustomed to sending their adolescent first-born sons to the New World. These young men arrived all but penniless in Mexico, and their families in Spain expected that they would make successes of themselves in their new homes.

In 1877, there were 68 bakeries in Mexico City. By 1898, the bakery count was up to 200. Most of the bakery owners were Basques from Navarre. They did not bring baking to Mexico, but they did bring a particular way of doing business. They bought wheat fields, built urban rather than rural flour mills, bought bakeries, and soon dominated the market that catered to one of humankind's basic needs: hunger.

Don Braulio Iriarte Goyeneche was born in Navarra, Spain, in 1860 and arrived in Mexico City in 1877.

Arguably the most successful of these young Basques was the teenager who, as an adult in Mexico City, would be known as don Braulio Iriarte Goyeneche. In 1877, his family forced him to leave Navarra and make a life for himself in this unknown world across the sea. Industrious, hard-working, and creative, the young Iriarte began his career as an employee at one of Mexico's first commercial bakeries. By the end of the 1800s, he was Mexico's king of flour, yeast, and bread. The two keys to his success were his business acumen and the trustworthy cleanliness of his bakeries.

Jalisco-style bread from Pan Segura. This tiny bakery has been in operation for 85 years.

During the fourth quarter of the 19th century, common practice meant that campesinos (country boys) worked barefoot in bakeries. In an attempt to keep their feet clean, they were not allowed to go outside the bakery during the day–locked in with the ovens, barefoot boys and young men clad in the white pants and shirts of the campesino, danced 17 hours a day in the heat of a wood-fired bakery to knead the fresh-made dough . It's no wonder that some customers complained occasionally that their bread was too salty: blame the extra salt on the campesinos' sweat blended into the flour mixture. Don Braulio's bakeries were considered to be extremely sanitary because, unlike in other Mexico City bakeries, machinery did all the kneading. No one's feet touched the dough.

Conchas (shells, a kind of sweet bread) from Panadería El Molino. These conchas are quiet large, and you can see that the price per piece is five pesos (at today's exchange rate, approximately 36 US cents).

At the end of the 19th century in Mexico, the salary for a Mexico City panadero (baker) was two pesos per month. Yes, two. In 1903, Mexico City's bakers began what is known as la huelga de los bolillos (the bread strike). Their demand? A raise in salary to 2.5 pesos per month. The bakers gave or threw away thousands of the individual loaves of white bread known as bolillos to protest the bakery owners' reluctance to pay them a half peso more per month. The bakery owners' main fear was that their young men would drink substantially more due to the salary increase.

Sr. Iriarte rapidly rose to the highest level of prominence in Mexico's world of wheat, flour, and yeast. Within 30 years of his arrival in Mexico City, he and a business partner owned numerous bakeries, had opened a flour mill in Toluca (near the urban center of Mexico City), and founded Mexico's first commercial yeast factory. By the end of the 1920s, he was grinding nearly all of Mexico's wheat.

In early 1922, Sr. Iriarte added another business to his stable: the Corona brewery, which has grown to become one of the largest and most important breweries in the world. Its flagship beer, Corona, is the largest-selling Mexican beer in the world. What's the connection between beer and bread? Yeast.

At El Molino, a bakery worker paints apricot syrup onto fresh-from-the-oven trenzas (braids) made of puff paste. She will then sprinkle the braids with sesame seeds.

You don't use your fingers to pick up bread in Mexico's bakeries. Near the entrance to any bakery, you'll find trays and tongs for choosing what you want to buy. The check-out clerk will use your tongs to put your bread in its bag or box, then bang the crumbs off the tray and back it goes for the next customer's use.

Our tour took in three bakeries, all within a few blocks on Calle 16 de septiembre in Mexico City's Centro Histórico. Pan Segura is the smallest of the three, barely big enough for four or five people to shop for bread at the same time. Pastelería El Molino, just down the street, has been in business since 1918 and was purchased first by Carlos Slim Helú's Panadería El Globo and then was sold to Grupo Bimbo, a giant international wholesale bread-baking concern which bought both bakeries in 2005.

One small room on the first floor of Pastelería La Ideal.

Cochinitos (gingerbread pigs), detail of one tray with stacks and stacks of one of the most traditional sweet breads in Mexico, Pastelería La Ideal. The number of trays of cochinitos is beyond comprehension. Seeing is almost–almost!–believing.

Little cookie men in their two-button suits at La Ideal.

The crown of our bakery tour was its visit to Pastelería La Ideal, long one of Mexico Cooks!' favorite spots in Mexico City. The bakery is enormous. Founded in 1927, the bakery specializes in…well, it specializes in being special. The first floor is devoted to decorative and delicious gelatins, flans, small cookies called pasta seca, everyday cakes, and breads. Hundreds of kinds of breads–350 different kinds, to be exact. Unbelievable amounts of bread, but there it is: right in front of your eyes and absolutely believable. This bakery alone (it has two more branches in the city) turns out 50 to 55 thousand pieces of bread every day, seven days a week.

Muffins with candied fruits, Pastelería La Ideal.

This branch of Pastelería La Ideal is closed for cleaning for exactly one hour a day. If you go between five and six o'clock in the morning, you'll find the doors locked. Otherwise, teams of master bakers (17 to 20 per shift, three eight-hour shifts per day) supervise and work with 350 workers to give us this day our daily bread.

La Ideal traditional package on Mexico Cooks!' dining room table. We bought our neighbor a coffee cake. Honest, it was for her, not for us.

During the early morning hours, you'll see men and women rushing up and down Calle 16 de septiembre and its surrounding streets, carrying packages from La Ideal, tied up with string, tucked under their arms or dangling from outstretched fingers. Mexico City's desayuno (breakfast), whether at home or at the office, almost always includes a pan, either salado or dulce (salty or sweet bread). Cuernitos (like croissants), biscoches (biscuits), panqué (poundcake), pan danés (Danish pastry), bigotes (bread shaped a bit like a moustache), orejas (elephant ears), and conchas (shells), plus bolillo, telera, and all the other kinds of breads fly off the shelves and into Mexico City kitchens, to be served with a coffee or hot chocolate.

Chocolate cake filled with strawberry marmalade and topped with cream horns, Pastelería La Ideal. In the evening, Mexico City stops back in at La Ideal to buy a little something for cena (light supper): a cake, a gelatin, or some cupcakes or cookies. This cake costs 190 pesos. Click on any photo to enlarge and show details.

The second floor of Pastelería La Ideal is entirely about big-deal party cakes. You and the person who is giving a party with you sit down at a tiny desk with a La Ideal sales associate to have a serious discussion about cake: how many people you plan to invite, how much other food there will be, what the occasion might be, how much you want to spend, and any other question you need to ask to have just the right cake made for your needs.

This six-kilo cake (model J-28) decorated with a chocolate basket and pink sugar roses would be perfect for your aunt's birthday, Mother's Day, or any occasion where a small cake is necessary. Hold onto your hats:

Model L-20, decorated with clowns, balloons, ribbons, and stalactites made of icing, weighs 25 kilos and is designed for a child's birthday party. Twenty-five kilos and four stories equal a mid-size cake at La Ideal. There are cakes for quinceañeras (girls' fifteenth birthday parties), engagement parties, first communion parties, and wedding receptions that weigh as much as 50 kilos or more. Those cakes are constructed with stories, bridges, and some have actual running-water waterfalls. The size of your expected crowd dictates the size of the cake.

Some things at your bakery are just about the same as they were when the Basques came to Mexico: bread is freshly baked throughout the day and night, it's affordable, and some is still quite delicious. Other things have changed completely: in most commercial bakeries, margarine or vegetable shortenings are used instead of butter, most everything is mechanized, and the lowly, delicious bolillo–Mexico's original white bread–is now more like cotton batting than like honest bread. But Jane Mason of Virtuous Bread and Mexico Cooks! have vowed to track down any real bolillo that still exists. It's the best thing since–since before sliced bread! I promise to report back.

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

26 de May de 2012
Zirita: Exciting Cooking School Experience of the Taste of Michoacán

Zirita, in a rural paradise mere minutes from Morelia's busy Centro Histórico (historic center), is a center of traditional culinary teaching and experiences. Photo courtesy Guillermo Martínez Acebo.

The frame for Michoacán's traditional cuisine, in one of its most genuine forms, with the warmth of a wood fire and the application of hereditary techniques passed down through generations, are the essence of Zirita. Its creator, owner of Morelia's Restaurante San Miguelito and culinary promoter Cynthia Martínez, prefers to call it 'a workshop of gastronomic experiences'.

The old saying "…the mountain goes to Mohammed…" is especially true in terms of the opening of Zirita. The great merit of Zirita is its nearness to Morelia, Michoacán's capital. In the last several years, various regions of the state of Michoacán have become known for its ancestral culinary values. The subtleties, secrets, flavors and perfumes of some of the most reknowned sanctuaries of Michoacán's cuisines–for example, in the case of Angahuan, where Purhépecha women have continued and spread the great expression of food in their communities–will be present in these remarkable cooking classes. Zirita brings the regional cuisines of the most remote pueblitos (small towns) of Michoacán into readily accessible Morelia.

Michoacán's oro verde (green gold): the ubiquitous Hass avocado, which over the last 30 years has become one of the state's most lucrative crops as well as a prominent fixture in its cuisines.

Located close to Morelia's urban center and very nearly part of the city itself, Zirita is a space apart from the hustle and bustle of Morelia. The workshop location allows the visitor to experience the delights of country life, the sounds of nature, as well as the joys of flowers, fruits, and herbs as a daily recurring theme. Zirita is a small complex which has as its center a large troje (typical Purhépecha house). The troje, in turn, has, above all else, the kitchen as its heart: the place where supplies are stored, where preliminary food preparation is done. This is a traditional Purhépecha outdoor kitchen, supplied with all of the utensils used in any Purhépecha community's cooking techniques.

At Zirita, your hands-on experience will be preparing traditional foods typical of the pueblitos (small towns) of Michoacán as well as Mexican dishes common in other parts of the country. Photo courtesy Guillermo Martínez Acebo.

During a workshop experience, traditional cooks and visitors can prepare great delicacies from old family recetarios (collections of recipes). Those regional delights include atápakuas, corundas, uchepos, churipos, moles, adobos, and a thousand other culinary creations from the state of Michoacán. Needless to say, visitors learn to prepare tortillas from corn ground on the metate, patted out by hand, and cooked on a comal (clay griddle) placed over a fogón (cooking fire) contained by paranguas: the three stones which sustain the food world of the Purhépechas. The paranguas are a symbol of the cosmos, of family and community values, and of the relationship and harmony of humankind with nature and with the gods.

Chiles pasillas drying in the sun. When green, we know this long, fleshy chile as chilaca. Sun-dried in its mature (red) state, it is called chile pasilla. Typically part of the Michoacán chile repetoire, it is grown around north-central Queréndaro, Michoacán.

El Rincón de las Solteronas (the Old Maid's Corner), Restaurante San Miguelito. Photo courtesy Alejandro Canela.

Art and fine crafts are distinctive characteristics displayed at Restaurante San Miguelito, celebrated home of Saint Anthony standing on his head. The items displayed in the room, site of the hopes of so many women from Mexico and the world, are also a distinctive element of Zirita. In addition, Zirita has a great variety of herbs which complement the inventory of nuances, delicate touches, and details which nourish its cooking fires.

The wonderful Maestra Benedicta Alejo, fine regional cook and cornerstone of the Zirita experience, grinds green herbs and chile seeds on her metate. She is preparing tzirita, the typical Purhépecha dish that gives the cooking school its name.

Outdoor kitchen at Zirita, with its traditional fogón, comal, and all of the utensils common to the Purhépecha kitchen. Photo courtesy Guillermo Martínez Acebo.

Conceived as a cooking school, Zirita (which means 'seed' in the Purhépecha language) offers several different experiences to anyone who is interested in knowing the essence of Michoacán's culinary traditions. Those traditions, nourished by legends and family tips, by old sayings and anecdotes, by the wisdom of traditional cooks, is presented almost as if the women were in their own homes. However, in this case it is a shared home, completely outfitted as a faithful replica of the different processes of cooking. Broken down into specific themes, ranging from how to make a tortilla to the preparation of the most complex dish of mole de boda (wedding mole), Zirita offers an opportunity to learn these culinary traditions from their most worthy and authentic bearers. In addition, the visitor learns to use the tools and classical artifacts of the Mexican kitchen, right down to the teachers' secrets for their maintainance and use–including how to cure or 'educate' a metate.

The metate and metapil (three-legged volcanic stone grinding board and its roller). This kitchen tool has been used since well before the Spanish arrival in the New World.

Cynthia Martínez said, "This has been a very intense effort, from the construction of the site to the fitting-out of the different areas. To begin with, traditional cuisine is an authentic showcase of the riches of our people with the added factor that in addition to its beauty, everything in the cuisine has a use.

Zirita cooking class taught by Maestra Benedicta Alejo. Photo courtesy Rubén Hernández.

"Nevertheless, the intellectual and emotional richness, and the sum of so many lives are concentrated in this place with the presence of women like Benedicta Alejo, one of the most enthusiastic transmitters of our culinary inheritance. By way of the courses, local, national, and international visitors can live the excitement of making their own tortillas, of grinding chiles, of treasuring our wild herbs as part of one of life's rituals. The huge difference is doing these things in completely traditional terms, living the chat and the get-togethers which start in our markets. Much of the wisdom that our women possess makes them standard-bearers and the ones who will continue to impart the knowledge of food which is one of our great national treasures, as a culture and as a country."

Original article written by Rubén Hernández and published in Spanish at Crónicas del Sabor, translated by Mexico Cooks!.

Zirita
Zirita Culinary Experiences
Circuito de los Manzanos 250
Colonia Arcos de la Cascada
San José del Cerrito
Morelia, Michoacán
Tel. 011.52.443.275.4536 (from the United States)
All of the Zirita experiences are available in either Spanish or English.

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12 de May de 2012
Camera in Hand in Mexico City: Con la Cámara en la Mano en el DF

Where is the online game starring these birds NOT the latest craze? A couple of weeks ago, Mexico Cooks! took a small group tour to Mexico City's enormous Mercado de la Merced and was not the least surprised to find Angry Birds^®piñatas in every party goods stand. Red, yellow, blue, black and white birds were all there–but there was not a single green pig in sight.

The great violinist don Pepe Martínez, director of Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán–the self-described best mariachi in the world. It's true: there is no other mariachi that compares with the 114-year-old group founded in Tecalitlán, Jalisco by don Gaspar Vargas López. We were up-close-and-personal with them this past March, when we sat in the third row at their concert at the UNAM.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_YLg7w4y9w&w=350&h=267]
Just in case you haven't heard Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, listen to one of Mexico Cooks! favorites: Entra en Mi Vida (Come Into My Life). Part of the lyric goes like this: "Come into my life, I beg you! I started out missing you, then I needed you, now I don't want anyone else…I want you to be the owner of my heart." Of course I think the entire song expresses my feelings for my beloved wife.

This enormous Judas figure hangs in a stairwell at the Museo de Arte Popular (Popular Arts Museum) in Mexico City's Centro Histórico. Paper maché figures representing Judas Iscariot are traditionally hanged and burned in parts of Mexico on the Saturday night before Easter Sunday. They normally measure from this guy's shoe to his knee. This fellow is a giant, not to mention a fashion statement.

Can you look at the photo without tipping your head sideways? The green wall of plants, bringing a refreshing touch of the natural to downtown, makes up one side wall of Restaurante Padrino on Calle Isabel la Católica, Mexico City. The bicycle is parked on the–lawn? The doors lead into individual shops on the balcony of the former Palacio de los Condes de Miravalle, built in the mid-18th century. The former palace, which is now home to two restaurants (Azul/Histórico), a soon-to-open hotel, and some charming shops, is one of the Distrito Federal's oldest buildings.

Just when I think I have seen just about everything sweet or salty that people snack on here in the city, I learn about something I could not have imagined. A vendor outside the Mercado de la Merced sells these by the measure. I could not guess what I was seeing, can you? Click on the photo to enlarge it for a better view–but the who-knew secret is that these are salted wild cherry pits. Suck one for a while, then break it open and eat the tiny almond-shaped kernel inside. I regret not asking to try one.

Sometimes a person just has to show off a little. Mexico Cooks! was expecting company and decided to prepare a tortilla española–a Spanish omelet with potatoes and onions. This simple dish, served chilled or at room temperature, is a classic from Spain.

In Mexico, February 2 is el Día de la Candelaria (Candlemas Day). Candelaria marks the official end of the Christmas season; it comes forty days after the Christian celebration of the birth of Jesus. It's said to be the day that the Virgin Mary took the newborn Jesus to the temple for the first time. Here in Mexico, the feast day is celebrated by dressing a figure of the Niño Dios (Child God) in all sorts of finery and taking him to church like a babe in arms to be blessed. These Niños Dios representing various saints and traditions are for sale in shops along Calle Talavera in Mexico City, as well as in a number of other spots. There are a number of other customs for the day, and the celebration always includes eating tamales and drinking atole. Candelaria is linked to the Day of the Three Kings (January 6), when we eat rosca de reyes (a kind of sweet bread) that contains a tiny plastic figure of the Baby Jesus. Tradition says that the person who gets the little figure in his or her slice of rosca throws the tamales party on Candelaria.

Speaking of tamales, a gentleman vendor at our neighborhood tianguis (street market) gave me these on February 2 this year. They are made of typical corn masa (dough) and filled with refried black beans. Each tamalito (little tamal–that's the word for just one!) measures about three inches long by an inch in diameter. The little clay dish that holds them is about three inches across. The vendor told me that he makes them twice a year and he promised to invite me to the tamalada (tamales-making party) the next time the day rolls around. Rather than being twisted or tied closed, the ends of the corn husks are pushed into a dimple at the end of each tamal. These are a specialty of Milpa Alta in the southernmost part of Mexico City.

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5 de May de 2012
Amecameca, Kissing the Feet of Two Volcanoes

The active volcano Popocatépetl is the second-highest mountain in Mexico at 5,452 meters (17,887 feet) above sea level. Some sources say that Popocatépetl is slightly higher than those quoted figures. Only the Pico de Orizaba (5,610 meters or 18,406 feet) is higher. All photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

During the last few weeks, Mexico City's newspapers have been full of information about Popocatépetl, the Náhuatl word for 'smoking mountain'. This volcano, which sits in the very back yard of the city, has once again been growling and grumbling and belching gases, steam, smoke, and red-hot ash. Its last major 'exhalation' was in December of 2000 and everyone in this vicinity hopes the mountain won't explode again.

In mid-April, curiousity and excitement about Popocatépetl's current activities led us to make a Sunday afternoon trip to Amecameca in the State of Mexico, the town closest to the volcano from our Mexico City neighborhood. The town is southeast of Mexico City and we were there in a bit over an hour. Had we not stopped along the way to take photographs, we could have arrived sooner.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZAvtPJKg8U&w=350&h=267]
Popocatépetl erupts, December 2000. Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhautl straddle the boundaries of three states: Puebla, Morelos, and the State of Mexico. Video courtesy NBC news.

The alert system for possible eruptions ranges from green (no danger) to red (extreme eruption). Currently, Popocatépetl has been at Alert Phase 3 Yellow (magma flow and growing explosions) for about three weeks. Phase 3 Yellow is the alert just before red. In spite of the high alert level, no evacuations from towns around the volcano have been ordered. Click the link for updates to the 'semáforo de alertas' (alert system stoplight): ALERTAS

Iztaccíhautl, the sleeping woman, lies northeast of Popocatépetl and east of the town of Amecameca in the State of Mexico. Mexico Cooks! took this photo from the atrium of the Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción (Church of Our Lady of the Assumption) in Amecameca; you can see one of the church arches in the foreground. The photo shows Iztaccíhuatl's head (far left) and chest.

Full view of volcano Iztaccíhuatl. Her head is at the far left in the photo. The clouds are in fact due to the accumulation of steam and ash emitted by Popocatépetl, just out of camera range to the right. The northwestern sky (behind me as I took the picture) was clear blue and brilliantly sunny.

Of course there is a romantic legend about Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhautl. At the beginning of history, when the Aztecs arrived in the Valley of Anáhuac and before the mountains had reached their permanent form, a beautiful princess named Mixtli was born in the city of Tenochtitlán–today's Mexico City. She was the daughter of Tizoc, the Tlatoani Emperor of the Mexicas (to be known later as the Aztecs). Mixtli was sought after by numerous noblemen, among them Axooxco, a cruel and bloodthirsty man, who demanded the hand of Mixtli in marriage. However, Mixtli's heart belonged instead to a humble peasant named Popoca. Popoca went into battle, to conquer the title of Caballero Aguila (Eagle Knight). If he claimed this title of nobility, Popoca would then be able to fight Axooxco for the hand of Mixtli.

Popoca carries his beloved Mixtli to the snowy mountains.

Mixtli knew the danger Popoca faced in this trial. Finally a messenger brought the news that he had been killed in battle. But the messenger was wrong: Popoca was returning victorious. Not realizing this, Mixtli killed herself, rather than live without Popoca.

When Popoca returned to find Mixtli dead, he picked her up and carried her body into the mountains. Hoping that the cold snow would wake her from sleep to reunite them, Popoca crouched at her feet until he froze there while he prayed for her to awaken.

They have remained there ever since. The body of Mixtli became the volcano Iztaccíhuatl (the Sleeping Woman), the ever-watchful Popoca became the volcano Popocatépetl (the Smoking Mountain). The evil Axooxco became the Cerro Ajusco (the highest point of the Distrito Federal). These volcanoes tower above Mexico City and the romantic legend of this couple has been passed on since the pre-Columbian era as a symbol of enduring and faithful love.

Popocatépetl exhales a huge cloud of steam, gases, and ash on April 18, 2012. Photo courtesy Notimex.

The volcano is generally known by a local nickname: don Goyo. Don is an honorific used to address or refer to any respected well-known man; Goyo is a nickname for Gregorio, in this instance specifically referring to San Gregorio (St. Gregory). Legend says that the volcano once erupted on San Gregorio's March 12 feast day and subsequently received the nickname, but the volcano's feast day (yes, he has one!) is celebrated annually on May 2. On that date, some local residencts carry gifts to the volcano: blankets and una copita (a shot of liquor) to keep him warm, and they pay him their continuing respects. As the white-haired toll booth attendant said when we told him we were on our way to pay a visit to don Goyo, "Be careful up there! He's making all this racket while he's sober–imagine if he had already had his tequila!"

The volcano on the night of April 24, 2012. Streams of molten lava flow down the sides of the crater while fire, steam, smoke, and sparks rise high into the evening sky. The volcano is so loud that some residents find it hard to get a good night's sleep. Photo courtesy MSNBC.

During volcanic activity of this kind, the world keeps turning. Residents in the several towns nearest the volcano go about their normal daily lives while keeping one eye on the top of the mountain and one ear out for the latest alerts. In Amecameca, a delightful old gentleman stopped to chat with us on the street while we were letting a local woman take a close look at the volcano through the camera's telephoto lens. "You know," he ruminated, "we still have to shop, cook, eat, and sleep even though we also have to be prepared for…" he laughed and threw his arms high into the air. "In case it blows!"

Life goes on: inside the municipal market in Amecameca, people shop for food, gossip with their neighbors, and laugh at the latest jokes. Click on any photo to enlarge it for a better view.

Our new guide continued, "You should go outside town for a better view. It's easy to get there…" He proceeded to give excellent directions for heading to the east into the foothills at the base of the volcano. We shook his hand and followed his directions as far as we could, but the rutted, stone-filled path we were driving outside Amecameca was too difficult for our vehicle. We turned onto another, even smaller road that took us to the crest of a hill. From there, we had an unobstructed view of the two lovers, Iztaccíhautl and Popocatépetl. While the wind blew from behind us, we watched as don Goyo sighed several times, sending heavy plumes of steam and ash into the heavens and away from Amecameca.

As the volcano steams and roars, commerce continues as it has for thousands of years. Amecameca has a huge Sunday market in the church atrium outside Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Asunciòn. The peaches, bright-green oval chilacayotes, and round calabacitas (zucchini-type squash) are offered for sale piled up in pyramids, the traditional vendors' display method.

Will the volcano blast off into a major eruption? Will it calm down and wait till another time? No one really knows for sure, not even the scientists who monitor its activity. On April 25, the winds shifted and small amounts of ash began to rain down on Amecameca and some of the other nearby towns. We're watching, along with the rest of the populace. And meantime, our lives go on as usual.

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28 de April de 2012