Category: Tours

A Few Little-Known Mexican Cold Drinks :: Unas Bebidas Mexicanas No Muy Conocidas

If you've shopped at any of Mexico's thousands of tianguis (street markets), municipal markets, or fairs, you may have wondered what certain vendors were ladling out of their frosty glass jugs. Those are aguas frescas, made in every fresh fruit flavor you can imagine. In general, these fruit waters are made from purified water and are safe to drink. The aguas frescas in the photo are at Aguas de Casilda, Mercado Benito Juárez, in the city of Oaxaca. The large, beautiful stand is an icon in Oaxaca.

In addition to aguas frescas, there are numerous fresh or fermented drinks along Mexico's way. At various hole-in-the-wall supper restaurants, pineapple tepache is the order of the day, served fizzing with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. And on the outskirts of one small town as you drive toward Guadalajara, a sign hangs from a guamúchil tree. It reads "Aquí Se Vende Pajarete" (Pajarete Sold Here) and advertises yet another unusual beverage.

Along many highways and byways, you'll regularly see someone selling aguamiel and pulque, the ancient drink of the Aztecs, from large jars positioned on a tiny table. By the same token, pulque, both unflavored and curado (flavored with fruit, vegetables, or nuts) is a favorite in bars called pulquerías.

Tuba

Tuba vendor, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.

If you've wandered along the magical beaches bordering Mexico's western coastlines, you may have noticed a man with a yoke-like pole across his shoulders, a red painted gourd suspended from the pole by a rope. His cry is "Tuba! Tubaaaaaaaaaaa!" and his hands are full of plastic cups.

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

A glassful of tuba, served with freshly chopped apple, salted peanuts, and ice.

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

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

Tejuino

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

Tejuino vendor, Tlaquepaque, Jalisco.

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

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

Tejuino, ready to drink–complete with its scoop of lemon ice!

Tejate

Tejate, a cold and foamy nixtamal-ized corn and chocolate drink, is particular to Oaxaca, especially found in the city's markets and in the small towns all around the area. Tejate is very refreshing on a hot day at the market–in this case, at the weekly market in Zaachila, Oaxaca. Compare the size of the jícara (the red enameled bowl afloat in the tejate) to the size of this very large clay vessel.

Tepache

I've found tepache in several cenadurías (restaurants open for supper only, usually from 7:00 PM until midnight) in Mexico, as well as at street stands and, occasionally, market stands. Tepache is simple to make and the ingredients are readily available whether you live North or South of the Border. You might like to try this at home.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Serve cold with ice cubes.

Tepache vendor, Zihuatanejo.

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

Pajarete

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

Aqui se vende pajarete: Pajarete sold here!

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

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

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

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

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

21 de March de 2020
The Evolution of the Mexican Kitchen :: 500 Years of Timelessness and Change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The metate is also used to grind dried chiles and other grains used to prepare moles and other complex dishes, and to prepare highly prized chocolate de metate used for both cooking and preparing hot chocolate.

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

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

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

Fortunately there is an easier way for most of us to find a traditional molcajete or metate. Next time you're on a shopping expedition to one of Mexico's regional mercados, ask the merchants where to find a vendor who sells them. They usually range in price from $125 pesos for a tiny molcajete just big enough to use for serving salsa at the table to the mother of all molcajetes priced at $250/350 pesos. The vendors may also sell even bigger ones carved with the head of a pig. Those are priced at approximately $600 pesos.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imelda, age two, grinding corn masa.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We flipped through the book. Familiar names in high-quality, high-price tag kitchen design jumped out at me: European lines like Miele and Smeg, United States manufacturers such as SubZero, Wolf, Viking, and Dacor, and the noteworthy Italian Valcucina line were just a few important manufacturers' names I noticed. "We can offer the client a stove for $5000 pesos or we can offer the client a stove for $15,000 U.S. Usually we find a meeting place somewhere in between those figures," Lic. Jurado told me.

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

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

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

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

14 de March de 2020
Teocintle Maíz, Best Restaurant in Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico

Restaurante Teocintle Maíz, at the corner of Calle Miguel Blanco and Calle Constitución, Ajijic, Jalisco. You could have knocked me over with the proverbial feather. This charming restaurant is about three doors from where I once lived, more than 20 years ago. Back then, the location was called La Frontera, a tiny corner grocery store, owned by my wonderful neighbors don Alfredo Villaseñor and his wife, doña Simona Pineda (may they rest in peace). Today, Gloria Rodríguez Villaseñor, a delightful young woman and granddaughter of my longtime friends the grocers, operates Restaurante Teocintle Maíz together with her life (and business) partner, Ricardo Robles.

A couple of memories:

The wall of the house where I once lived on Calle Miguel Blanco. The wall is all that one one sees from the street–a Mexican street-side wall is usually very plain, giving away nothing of what might be just inside the door. I planted that beautiful vine when it was a baby vine, in about 2000. When I lived in the house, it was simple but comfortable, with lots of character. Now–I don't know what the house behind the wall looks like.

Open the street door and here's the lovely garden. My gardener and dear friend, Jorge Velázquez (RIP), worked with me to make barren, muddy ground into a showcase in the late 1990s. The current owner has made a few changes–the old orange tree is gone, the gazebo at the back left used to be a fountain, that stone retaining wall is new–but the form is pretty much what Jorge and I created.

Fast forward to July 6, 2018:

Where there once were shelves filled with cans of chiles and soups, boxes of laundry detergent, crates of eggs sold by weight, bottled soft drinks, boxes of juice, infant formula and disposable diapers, and doña Simona reading a book on her stool behind the counter, we have the cozy interior of Restaurante Teocintle Maíz. The rooms were beautifully created on a shoestring by Gloria and Ricardo, and the restaurant opened just over 18 months ago.

Today, Teocintle Maíz is listed on TripAdvisor as the #1 restaurant in Ajijic. Here, it's casa llena–full house–and it's almost always like that, especially for dinner in the evening. If you want a reservation, call ahead–way ahead! It's that popular, both with Mexican locals, with the large expatriate community in Ajijc, and with visitors to the area.

Ricardo Robles manages Teocintle Maíz, works the front of the house, and is an excellent host. He has also built a great deal of the furniture in the restaurant, including this beautiful table. The table was delivered the day I was there.

Ajijic is a picturesque little town on the north shore of Lake Chapala, about an hour south of Guadalajara. The town is filled with life-long Mexican residents, a large quantity of gentrified shops and galleries, 200+ restaurants and innumerable street food stands. It suffers from horrendous traffic and boasts a very large population of foreign retirees who are alway looking for the next good place to eat. Several friends had told me about this delightful restaurant, and a few weeks ago, I was able to sneak in without a reservation, just before closing time, to see what all the buzz was about. I was, quite frankly, as dubious as I usually am about reportedly great restaurants, especially in the hinterlands.

The lovely and extremely talented chef Gloria Rodríguez Villaseñor is in charge of the kitchen at Teocintle Maíz. We chatted for a few minutes and she asked if I'd had supper. No…  She sat me at a little table by a window and gave me the menu. R
icardo came to take my order, and I asked him to choose something for me. "I prefer traditional Mexican food over modern Mexican food, and I leave myself in your hands."

My magnificent supper: one of the most traditional meals from Jalisco, the chamorro (pork shank), accompanied by superb, lardy, frijolitos refritos, arroz a la mexicana, avocado slices, and house-made corn tortillas. Chamorro is cooked over very low heat in a spicy red sauce until it is fall-off-the-bone tender. This one was perfect–no ifs, ands, or buts, perfect–and I ate the whole enormous thing. When you go, order it–and you'll eat the whole enormous thing, too. And the beans! It's extraordinary to be served beans of this quality: home-style, smooth and well-fried in just enough lard to make you think you've gone to what I've heard called 'hog heaven'. The tortillas were corny and delicious, and wrapped in a napkin as God intended. To drink, I had a refreshing house-made, just-sweet-enough agua fresca de jamaica ('fresh water', made from roselle, a type of hibiscus).

Chef Gloria studied at the acclaimed Centro Educativo Jaltepec and now gives courses at that culinary school. Her resumé shows tremendous drive and direction; she is extremely accomplished in all facets of a person moving toward a specific goal: owning a restaurant of her own. She has worked with the most outstanding and talented chefs in the Lake Chapala and Guadalajara area, and always with the goal to succeed and move forward. It's a joy to see that she absolutely knows what she's doing, both in the kitchen and in the front of the house, and yet is very humble about her accomplishments and her talents.

Fast forward to 2020: about 10 days ago, I was once again visiting friends in Ajijic and had the tremendous experience of two meals at Teocintle Maíz, once for comida (Mexico's midday main meal of the day) and once for cena (supper).

At both comida and cena, my companions and I ordered guacamole to share. Silky smooth and served with panela cheese, it is the perfect start for your meal.

For comida, my main dish was Jalisco-style birria (long-braised goat meat). It was simply heavenly: just spicy enough, served with a pitcher of its own consomé (the liquid it was simmered in), a bowl of perfectly cooked rice, and topped with edible nasturtium blossoms, a long house-made banana chip, and avocado slices. I ate it first with a fork, then with a soup spoon, and finally sopped up the consomé with native corn tortillas made on the premises.

At cena the next night, my companion ordered coconut shrimp served with sautéd mixed vegetables and freshly made mashed potatoes. She graciously allowed me to eat one of the shrimp. Crunchy with coconut, fried to just the right state of done-ness, the shrimp was sweet enough but not too sweet, the vegetables were perfectly cooked, the potatoes were flavorful and creamy. What more could a person as for?

I ordered the ribeye steak served with a baked potato; I asked the wait staff to ask that the steak be cooked between rare and medium rare, thinking my usual, "It will probably be be cooked medium to well-done." Oh ye of little faith! The steak was perfectly seared and right in the middle between rare and medium rare. The outside edges were crispy with blackened fat, the meat itself was silky and delicious. It's very, very difficult to find a piece of beef like this in most of Mexico, and I rarely order any kind of steak when I'm dining out. But this? Even the photo makes my mouth water.

The restaurant's multiple uses of corn bring me to the name of the restaurant: why Teocintle Maíz? It's not an easy name for Ajijic's foreign community to pronounce, many Mexicans have no idea what it means, and the evening I was there Ricardo and chef Gloria called the kitchen staff into the dining r
oom to talk about teocintle–and to show them what it is. What you see in the photo above is my 'trademark'–an actual mazorca (ear) of the ancient grain that was domesticated approximately 8,000 to 11,000 years ago by Mexico's Stone Age people to become what we know today as corn. Teocintle the wild grain still exists in Mexico; several years ago, a friend of mine cultivated quite a lot of it and was able to harvest a zillion seeds and 10 whole ears. He framed those 10 whole ears in silver, and I wear mine as a necklace every day–first, because I love it, and second, because it is a teaching tool about corn's domestication. I was touched to the heart to know that this small restaurant in this tiny town is named for the thousands of years old grain that became Mexico's heritage food and gift to the entire world. You can read more about that here.

At the end of the evening, Ricardo, Mexico Cooks!, and chef Gloria posed for posterity. We had a wonderful time together. When I first went to Teocintle Maíz, it was rated Number One in Ajijic on TripAdvisor. Ten days ago, when I went back, I discovered that it is still rated Number One and truly deserving of the rating.

A menu board announces each day's offerings. Clients truly rave about everything, and I need to go back soon to try some other dishes. Meantime, until I can get there, you go. Tell them Mexico Cooks! sent you. You'll be so glad you went.

Restaurante Teocintle Maíz
Constitución 52, at the corner of Miguel Blanco
Ajijic, Jalisco
01 33 1547 8968 for hours and reservations

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

7 de March de 2020
Mexican Food for Lent :: Comida Mexicana Cuaresmeña

Tortitas de papa (potato croquettes, left) and frijoles negros (black beans, right) from the state of Chiapas in far-southern Mexico are ideal for a Lenten meal.

Roman 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 February 26, Ash Wednesday. 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, a slightly acidic green vegetable, is in season at this time of year. Although it looks a little like rosemary, it has the texture of a succulent and its taste is relatively sour, more like verdolagas (purslane).

Beautiful fresh romeritos at a market in Morelia, Michoacán.

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 grilled and 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.

Caldo de habas secas (dry fava bean soup), delicious and thick even though meatless, warms you up from the inside as if your days are still frigid at the beginning of Lent.

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.

At left, Mexican canela (long cinnamon sticks). At right, dark raisins. You'll need both of these for preparing capirotada.

Two different sizes of cones of piloncillo (raw brown sugar). For making capirotada, you'll want the bigger cones.

Pan bolillo (dense white bread), Tangancícuaro, Michoacán. Photo courtesy Silvia Sánchez Villegas.

CAPIROTADA (Mexican Bread Pudding for Lent)
Ingredients
*4 fresh bollilos, in 1" thick slices–after you slice the bread, dry it in a slow oven
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 of 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.

Spread the dried bolillo slices 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 Lenten season: give up discouragement, be an optimist.

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

29 de February de 2020
Chicken Meatballs in Green Sauce from Doña Yolanda :: Albóndigas de Pollo en Salsa Verde Estilo Doña Yolanda

Several years ago, Mexico Cooks! was thrilled to meet doña Yolanda Rodríguez Orozco. At the time, she was cooking at a now-defunct buffet restaurant in Morelia, Michoacán. In Mexico, 'doña' is an honorific indicating true respect for a woman (it's don for a man). Affectionately known to one and all as doña Yola, she cooked with tremendous love as the primary seasoning for whatever she put on the table.

One of the most delicious items on the menu at that restaurant was albóndigas de pollo en salsa verde (chicken meatballs in green sauce). Because I promised that I would share the recipe with all of you, doña Yola graciously shared her amazingly easy recipe with me. Quick and simple to prepare and marvelous to taste, these meatballs instantly made it to star status on Mexico Cooks! dining table. These albóndigas are entirely different from the better-known Mexican meatballs in red sauce.

A chicken vendor grinds fresh boneless, skinless chicken breast to order for me at the weekly tianguis (street market) in my neighborhood. You can ask the butcher at your supermarket to grind the breasts for you. Bring the skin and bones home to freeze for another day–for chicken broth.

Gorgeous dark green vitamin-rich spinach, ready to chop for the albóndigas.

Fresh mint grown in a pot on my terrace or available at any market, along with beautiful local red-shelled eggs.

Albóndigas de Pollo en Salsa Verde Estilo doña Yola
Chicken Meatballs in Green Sauce, doña Yola's Way

Ingredients for the meatballs
1 kilo (2.2 lbs) freshly ground boneless, skinless chicken breast
100 grams (1/4 lb) raw fresh spinach (stems removed), finely chopped
1 small white onion, finely minced
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 Tbsp fresh mint, finely minced
1 chile serrano, finely minced
1/2 cup cooked white rice
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
Sea salt to taste
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 tsp cornstarch or as needed

Ground chicken, spinach, onion, garlic, mint, and chile serrano, ready to mix with cooked rice.

Procedure
Lightly mix the first seven ingredients together. Beat the eggs and Worcestershire sauce together and mix by hand into the mixture. Add sea salt and ground black pepper to taste. Add cornstarch until the mixture holds together well when you form a small amount into a ball. Form the mixture into balls approximately 2" in diameter. Makes 20 albóndigas. Plate the meatballs in a single layer (Mexico Cooks! likes to re-use well-washed Styrofoam meat trays from the supermarket for holding the albóndigas), then cover and refrigerate until ready to cook.

Tomates verdes (tomatillos) and chiles serranos for preparing salsa verde. Remove the tomatillos' papery husks and wash the sticky tomatillos thoroughly.

Ingredients for Salsa Verde
10-12 tomatillos (known in Mexico as tomate verde), husks removed
3 or 4 whole chiles serranos
1 bunch fresh cilantro, largest stems removed
Sea salt to taste

Procedure
In a large pot of water, bring the tomatillos and chiles to a full rolling boil. Boil just until the tomatillos begin to crack; watch them closely or they will disintegrate in the water.

Using a slotted spoon, scoop the cooked tomatillos and chiles into your blender jar. Allow to cool slightly There's no need to add liquid. Cover, hold the blender cap on, and blend until smooth. Be careful not to burn yourself, if you try to blend this mixture before it cools, it tends to react like lava in the blender. Don't ask me how I know this.

While the blender is running, remove the center of its cap and, little by little, push the cilantro into the whizzing sauce. Blend just until smooth; you should still see big flecks of dark green cilantro in the lighter green sauce. Add sea salt to taste and stir.

Pour the salsa into a 2-quart pot. Add the meatballs and bring to a simmer. Cover and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes. Mexico Cooks! prepared six meatballs for comida (main meal of the day) for two, but two meatballs apiece were plenty for us. We ate the leftovers (and another two meatballs) the following day. We froze twelve raw meatballs without salsa for subsequent meals.

Albóndigas de pollo en salsa verde, plated with white rice cooked with carrots, Mexican style.

Mexico Cooks! is so grateful to doña Yola for sharing her recipe with us. These albóndigas de pollo are not only easy to prepare and very healthy (with high vitamin K and beta carotene content and no added fat), but they are also absolutely delicious.

Provecho!

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

22 de February de 2020
Ingredients You Might Never See (Or Even Want to See) Where You LIve

If you've been reading Mexico Cooks! for long, you know that I photograph a lot of ripe and colorful fruits, vegetables, and other edibles in Mexico's markets. This gorgeous turkey, for example, was tethered with some others at the Thursday weekly market in Zaachila, Oaxaca. She didn't know it, of course, but she would soon be purchased and…well, you can imagine. Mexico Cooks! is a food website, after all. Think mole negro oaxaqueño (Oaxacan black mole).

In the interest of early and full disclosure, the rest of the photos in this article might just gross you out. It turns out that for reasons unknown even to myself, I have, in addition to taking lots of market photos of benign and lovely fruits and vegetables, taken lots of head shots. Disembodied heads of animals, and primarily pig heads. Be warned.

This Mexico City butcher saw me approaching with the camera and obligingly sat the pig head up straight for a portrait. He's shaving the head, which was to be sold either whole or in parts for making Jalisco-style pozole. Better he should shave it than you should have to do it!

That's a goat head at the left in the photo, at the Mercado de San Juan, Mexico City. To the right is a container of chinicuiles (red maguey worms). The goat head is for preparing birria, the chinicuiles are for roasting and eating as a snack.

I think this is the first pig head picture I took, years ago at Guadalajara's Mercado Libertad. All the pigs' heads I've ever seen have had that same charming little smile.

See what I mean? This fellow looks downright happy to have given his all for your bowl of Guerrero-style pozole.

Anyone for bouillabaisse? It's been a long time since I prepared this delicious French fish stew, but Mexican fish markets and individual fish vendors always have the ingredients. Like pozole, bouillabaisse starts its broth with heads–in this case, fish heads.

Doña Martha, may she rest in peace, has taken the cooked pig head out of the broth to remove its bones and teeth. At this point, the pozole is almost-but-not-quite ready to serve.

Admit it, you would have taken this picture, too. This beautiful cabeza de cerdo (pig head) at one of my favorite markets has a mouthful of fresh alfalfa! How could I resist?

These delightful people toured with me in Mexico City about five years ago, when Rocco was barely two years old. I was nervous that he would be frightened by the pig heads, but no! He fell in love with this one and wanted to–and did–kiss its snout. Suzanne, his mother, was tickled by his unexpectedly happy reaction.

You might want to click on this photo to enlarge it, for a better view. It's barbacoa de res (beef barbecue, Mexican style), wrapped in penca de maguey (cactus leaves) and cooked for hours in a pit. You can still see the teeth in the jaw.

A raw beef head, hung upside down in the butcher shop.

Chicken heads. I don't have a recipe nor do I know of a recipe for chicken heads. If you do, please let me know!

Stop the presses! Just this week, I was at a market in Morelia, Michoacán, shopping for milanesa de pollo (flattened raw chicken breast). A woman walked up beside me and asked the vendor for two chicken heads! While the vendor weighed them and slipped them into a plastic bag for her, you know I had to ask! "Señora, excuse me, but I have to ask: what are you going to prepare with those chicken heads?" She laughed for a minute and said, "Ay señora, I cook them for my two cats, one for each!" Then we both laughed. She said no one she knows cooks chicken heads to serve at table, but that her cats like them a lot. I told her about this article about heads, and we laughed again.

You'll be glad to know that this is the last pig head for this article. This one, at the Mercado de San Juan in Morelia, Michoacán, is thoroughly cleaned, shaven, and ready for you to take home to your pot and is merely waiting for a customer. The ears, snout, and tongue are delicacies in Mexico, as are the sesos (brains).

Has this photo essay driven any of you into the vegan camp? Here's a vegan head: half a head of cabbage, of course.

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

15 de February de 2020
Volcanos and Politics: Dr. Atl, A Painter’s Eye, A Painter’s Passions

This article originally published in 2014. It's particularly pertinent right now because there is currently an enormous amount of seismic activity occurring in the same area where Paricutín, the world's youngest volcano, began to erupt in 1943–after a month of precisely this sort of constant seismic activity! Paricutín is located approximately 2 hours west of Morelia, Michoacán, the city where Mexico Cooks! lives. During the month of January 2020, seismologists recorded 1,265 small earthquakes in and around the area of Paricutín.

The painter's eye. Detail of Dr. Atl (Gerardo Murillo) 1962 self-portrait, oil on cardboard. Private collection.

Gerardo Murillo was born in 1875 in the San Juan de Dios neighborhood of Guadalajara, at the height of the Francophile rule of Mexican president/dictator Porfirio Díaz. He began studying painting at the age of 19. After studying in Italy in 1921, Gerardo Murillo became been better known as 'Dr. Atl' (atl is the Náhuatl word for water), as he was re-christened by Leopoldo Lugones, an Argentine writer and leftist political colleague. After his death in 1964, his ashes were interred in Guadalajara in what is known today as the Rotonda de Jaliscienses Ilustres (the Rotunda of Illustrious People of Jalisco). During his life, Dr. Atl was profoundly eccentric, his entire being immersed in his passions for painting, for politics, and particularly for volcanos.

Gerardo Murillo, self portrait 1899. All photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

The Museo Colección Blaisten, part of Mexico City's Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco (part of the UNAM, the huge multi-campus National Autonomous University of Mexico), mounted a December 2011 through April 2012 exhibition if 190 of Dr. Atl's masterworks. Dr. Atl, one of Mexico's most prominent 20th century painters, is actually very little known in the United States. Mexico Cooks! thought you might like once again to see a part of this exhibit.

Volcán Iztaccíhuatl (the Sleeping Woman volcano), 1916. Colleción Museo Regional de Guadalajara-INAH. Labels of this and many other paintings in the exhibit indicate that they were painted using Atl color (a type of paint created by the artist). Atl color is similar to Greek encaustic paint. It contains resins, wax, and dry pigment which are melted, mixed, and hardened to form a medium similar to oil pastel. Dr. Atl used his eponymous colors on paper, cardboard, rough fabric such as jute, wood, and other bases.

Although Dr. Atl is best-known as the passionate painter of volcanos, he also painted portraits. Nahui Ollín, pictured above in 1922, had a five-year romantic relationship with Dr. Atl. During the early part of her life, Nahui Ollín's name was Carmen Mondragón. Dr. Atl gave her the Náhuatl name to honor the date in the Aztec calendar that commemorates the renovation of the cosmic cycles. Private collection.

The Valley of Mexico from the South, 1931, oil on fabric. Private collection.

Dr. Atl's scholarly observation and study of Mexican geography (he was not only a painter, but also a volcanologist and writer) combined perfectly with his travels in Europe to give him the tools necessary to become one of the outstanding landscape painters of the 20th century. In 1897, then-Presidente Porfirio Díaz gave young Gerardo Murillo a scholarship to study in Europe. Murillo studied not only Italian frescoes but also philosophy and penal law. He involved himself ever more deeply with leftist, anarchist politics, a consequence of his studies that President Díaz probably did not anticipate.

Dr. Atl was also an exceptional painter of clouds. This painting is Nubes sobre el Valle de México (Clouds over the Valley of Mexico), 1933, Atl color on asbestos. Collection Museo Nacional de Arte INBA.

Detail mid-right side, Nubes sobre el Valle de México. Note the variety of brushstrokes used to create texture in the painting. Click on any photograph to enlarge the detail.

Dr. Atl began studying volcanoes during a trip to Italy in 1911. Beginning in 1925, he spent long periods of time at Mexican volcanoes such as Popocatépetl, Iztaccíhuatl, and the Pico de Orizaba. A tireless traveler, Dr. Atl climbed Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. Later those volcanoes became an important theme in his body of work.

In 1943, he visited the site of Mexico's newborn volcano Paricutín in the state of Michoacán. He said, “…El espectáculo del cono ardiente vertiendo aludes de materia ígnea, bajo un cielo de guijarros incandescentes, en sí mismo tan fuera de lo común que toda invención sale sobrando…” 'The spectacle of the burning cone spewing avalanches of lava under a sky of incandescent ash was by itself so far out of the ordinary that every other invention became like something left over…'

Volcán en la Noche Estrellada (Volcano on a Starry Night), 1950 (Paricutín). Atl color on plywood. Collection UNAM. Dr. Atl was the first artist to paint what he called 'aeropaisajes' (landscapes from the air); he took to the skies in small airplanes, flying over various volcano sites to immortalize them from above.

Life imitates art. April 16, 2012 photo of volcano Popocatépetl spewing flame, ash, and smoke. Popocatépetl straddles the state line between the Mexican states of Puebla and Morelos, approximately 40 miles south of Mexico City. Photo courtesy Todo Oaxaca.

Dr. Atl, astonished and awed to see a volcano born in his lifetime, lived for approximately a year near still-erupting Paricutín. He observed, painted, and wrote for more than seven years about this majestic and completely unexpected young volcano. The volcano continued to erupt for nine full years.

Cráter y La Vía Láctea (Crater and the Milky Way), 1960. Oil and Atl color on masonite. Private collection, courtesy of Galería Arvil.

Detail, Cráter y La Vía Láctea.

For his entire life, Dr. Atl involved himself in left-wing political movements. In 1914, he allegedly was part of the plot to assassinate then-President Victoriano Huerta, because of which he was imprisoned briefly. After his release, he lived in Los Angeles, California until 1920. When he returned to Mexico, revolutionary leader and President Venustiano Carranza named him director of the Escuela de Bellas Artes (School of Fine Arts) and then Jefe de Propaganda e Información en Europa y América del Sur (Head of Promotion and Information in Europe and South America), a position he held for only a short time.

In 1956 Mexico awarded him the Medalla Belisario Domínguez and, in 1958, the Premio Nacional de las Artes.

Gerardo Murillo Pintando en el Valle de Pihuamo (Gerardo Murillo painting in the Valley of Pihuamo), 1952. Photo by Ricardo Salazar. Dr. Atl's right leg was amputated in 1949. Popular legend has it that the amputation was due to the inhalation of gases at Paricutín, but it was actually necessary because of complications of diabetes.

Mexico gave poet Carlos Pellicer the task of writing Dr. Atl's biography. Dr. Atl wrote to him, "Now it looks like a biography will really get off the ground! A couple, nearly human, came from Los Angeles as if they had fallen from heaven, to write a biography of me. Then I remembered that you were writing one. To make a long story short, I make the following proposal: you finish the biography that you already started. I enclose a slip of paper with some suggestions for organizing it in the most convenient way…I send you the most cordial handshake…" Some of the biographical material was printed in Carlos Pellicer en el Espacio de la Plástica, Volume 1, by Elisa Garcìa Barragán and Carlos Pellicer, UNAM 1997.

Dr. Atl died in Mexico City on August 15, 1964. His ashes are buried in the Rotonda de Jalisciences Ilustres in Guadalajara, where this statue is part of the site. Photo courtesy Rodrigo_gh, Flickr.

The five-month exhibition was an opportunity to see, through the eyes of this genius painter, the Valley of Mexico before Mexico City's explosion of population with its lava-like rivers of concrete swallowed nature whole. We had the chance to see the Valley and its volcanos when they ran with rivers, when the mountains burgeoned with trees and flowers.

Today, even though the exhibition has closed, we can see Dr. Atl's vision of the Valley of Mexico every time we visit the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City's Historic Center. His design, executed by the house of Louis Comfort Tiffany, is immortalized in the theater's million-piece stained glass curtain.

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

8 de February de 2020
Morelia, Michoacán, and Its Sweet History :: Museo del Dulce De La Calle Real

Lilia Facio Hernández offers us one of the 30+ gorgeous varieties of cakes made at the Museo del Dulce de la Calle Real (the Royal Road Candy Museum). Buy as little as a slice to indulge yourself, or purchase as much as an entire cake for a party dessert. Each cake is more beautiful than the next and each one has a name from Mexico's history. This one is the Iturbide, named for General Agustín Iturbide, hero of Mexico's 1810 War of Independence and designer of Mexico's first flag.

Mexico Cooks! has had some very sweet interviews, but none has been sweeter than the time spent several years ago with Arquitecto Gerardo Torres, owner of Morelia's Museo del Dulce (candy museum). Imagine spending several hours in a 19th Century Morelia mansion presently converted into a real-life version of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory! Delicious aromas of melting sugar constantly waft through the air, sepia-tone photographs carry us back to earlier times in Morelia, and charmingly attractive employees treat each customer like visiting royalty.

Walking into the Museo del Dulce's retail chocolate and cake shop is a voyage to the Porfiriato (the era of Porfirio Díaz), a trip to the late 19th century.

De la Calle Real, the candy-making firm that's part of the Museo del Dulce, has been in constant business since 1840. This oldest family of candy makers in Morelia prides itself on the continuity of its passion for the sweet life. Family recipes, hand-written in spidery script on yellowing pages, family photographs dating over the last two centuries, and the importance of family heritage glow in every corner of the building that was at one time the Torres home. Every corner of the many rooms of the house, now converted to a museum and retail shop, breathes history and love of Mexico.

An old wooden carreta (cart) parked in one of the museum patios looks like it's just waiting to be hitched up to a team of draft animals.

The original De la Calle Real candy shop was located in Morelia's portales (arched, covered walkways) on Avenida Madero, across from the Cathedral. Later, the shop moved to its current spot–still on Avenida Madero, just a few blocks to the east. Now, De la Calle Real has locations in Morelia's upscale Plaza Fiesta Camelinas, in Mexico City's traditional neighborhood Coyoacán, and in both Sanborns and Palacio de Hierro, two of Mexico's swankiest department stores.

One room of the museum is set up with machinery used in the 1940s, when the family candy business was only 100 years old! This beautiful hand-made copper pot has a double bottom, like a bain-marie, to keep the cooking candy from burning.

Not only does the company continue to produce candy from old family recipes, Arq. Torres also prides himself on participating in the rescue of recipes dating back as far as pre-Colonial days. Sweets composed of native fruits and vegetables were made with honey until the Spanish brought sugar cane to the New World. Chocolate, native to Mexico, was consumed only by the indigenous nobility as an unsweetened cold drink–served either as bitter chocolate or flavored with chile–prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Decorated like a convent shop, this museum and sales room carry us back to the time when fine candies were made in Morelia by cloistered Dominican nuns. Click on the picture to enlarge any photo.

In the demonstration kitchen, Mexico Cooks! watched as the cook combined equal parts fresh membrillo (quince) pulp and cane sugar in a copper pot. She was preparing ate de membrillo (quince candy somewhat like fruit leather). When the mixture formed una cortina (a curtain) without dripping as the wooden spoon was lifted from the pot, the ate was at its point of perfection. Everyone watching the demonstration got a small cup of freshly-made ate to taste.

It's an easy walk from the Centro Histórico (Morelia's historic center) to the Museo del Dulce, but why not take the little tourist trolley instead? Hop on in front of the Cathedral (buy tickets at the Department of Tourism kiosk in the Plaza de Armas, just to the right of the Cathedral). The trolley will take you from there to some of the most important historic sites in Morelia, including the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, the Conservatorio de las Rosas (the oldest music conservatory in the New World) and the lovely Templo de las Rosas (Church of St. Rose of Lima, originally the home of Morelia's 16th Century Dominican nuns), and the Museo del Dulce. The trolley trip, which lasts slightly over an hour, gives the tourist plenty of time to enjoy all of these Morelia traditions.

Dulces de la Calle Real (the candy maker's brand name) prepared specialty ates de membrillo in molds which were carved for the 200th anniversary of Mexico and which create the embossed images of some of Morelia's historic landmarks: (from left) Las Tarascas fountain, the 18th Century aqueduct, and the Cathedral.

The candy maker prepares and packages small gourmet ates made of strawberry, pineapple, blackberry, and other fruits that are little-used in this presentation. Each box tells a story, each ate is perfectly molded.

For special culinary events, the museum occasionally re-creates antique recipes, some of which date to Mexico's colonial days. This just-made historic ate contains chayote (vegetable pear, or mirleton) and fresh fig leaves.

An excellent video, shown for everyone visiting the Museo del Dulce, tracks the history of candy making in Morelia. Long known for ates and laminillas (fruit leathers), Morelia developed another culture of candies during the Porfiriato, the long presidency of Porfirio Díaz (1875-1910). During those 35 years, the influence of everything French invaded Mexico and colored the fashion of Mexico's upper-class society. French-style sweets became all the rage, and Morelia never lagged in preparing candies and cakes to meet the demand. Today, Porfiriato-style cakes, beautiful to see and delicious to taste, are made and sold by De la Calle Real. You can sit for a while in the cozy elegance of the Café del Patio de Atrás (the Back Patio) coffee shop and choose from a menu of more than 30 different cakes, house-made Mexican hot chocolate, delicious fresh-made ice creams, and a mind-boggling selection of other delights from the Museo del Dulce's menu.

The candy maker created beautiful embossed jamoncillo (milk candy similar to penuche) ovals to honor Mexico's 2010 Bicentennial. Each one carries the image of a hero of Mexico's independence. These candies represent Miguel Hidalgo, father of the Independence. The candy molds are hand-carved by a museum employee.

There's a room of the store where you can dress up in Victorian-era clothing–from elegant feathered hats to fancy silk dresses, from black top hats to cutaway suits–and a shop employee will take your picture. A Mexico Cooks! tour client in Morelia was so overwhelmed by seeing his wife and daughters dressed in such elegant clothing that he burst into tears. "They've never looked so beautiful!" What a terrific souvenir!

In part of the retail shop, lines of baskets hold individual candies for instant gratification of your sweet tooth–or to pack easily into your suitcase to carry home as gifts. These tissue-paper-wrapped candies are similar to jamoncillo.

Another entire room of the store is just stuffed with a variety of small toys, perfect for an inexpensive souvenir from Morelia. Inexpensive and easy to pack, they're exactly right for the child in all of us. These are baleros. The idea is to hold the long handle in your fist (with the cup on top) and catch the small wooden ball. It looks easy to accomplish–but it's quite a challenge!

Nuns originated Mexico's famously delicious rompope (a kind of eggnog). You'll find it in several flavors and bottles ranging from small to large, all made by the artisan candy makers at Dulces de la Calle Real.

Absolutely everything about the Museo del Dulce and De la Calle Real is devoted to reverence for the past, passion for perfection in the present, and devotion to the future preservation of Mexico's traditions. Every product and its packaging, designed and developed by Arq. Torres, is an homage to Mexico. Each candy box incorporates an old photo and a paragraph-long history lesson, with the treat you purchased as your sweet reward for learning.

Elia Ramírez Ramírez is packing small sweet treasures in Mexican pottery containers. The packaged candies are destined for the retail store. All employees who work directly with the public wear 19th Century costumes.

As Arq. Torres said during our time together, "We are the in-between generation. We still remember mothers and grandmothers who made candy at home. We still hold that tradition in our hearts. It's up to us to keep those memories alive, to pass them to our children and help them pass the traditions to the generations that follow. Otherwise, we will forget everything that truly makes us who we are."

Arquitecto Gerardo Torres, the delightful gentleman who runs this sweet business with passionate care, comes from a long line of candy makers. He showed Mexico Cooks! lovely old photos of his mother, his grandmother, and his great-grandmother–candy makers one and all.

Whether you are a fan of jamoncillo, ate, chocolate, rompope or another traditional Mexican sweet, you will be as thrilled as Mexico Cooks! was with everything about the Museo del Dulce and De la Calle Real. If De la Calle Real is your first experience of heavenly Mexican candy, it will spoil you for every other kind.

Come to visit, stay to give in to temptation! Employees at the Dulces de la Calle Real Museo del Dulce will be glad to help you find the perfect house-made candy for yourself, your relatives, and your friends.

De la Calle Real Museo del Dulce
Av. Madero #440
Colonia Centro
Morelia, Michoacán, México
443.312.8157

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

25 de January de 2020
Cocido :: Home Made Beef and Vegetable soup, Also Known As Caldo de Res

A big pot of cocido, simmering last week in my kitchen.

Nearly 40 years ago, long before the website Mexico Cooks! was a possibility–when I was just beginning to learn Spanish and some simple things about the totally-new-to-me Mexican kitchen, I would occasionally hear the word cocido from friends in Tijuana. I looked it up in my dictionary. I learned that cocido was the past participle for the verb cocer, to cook, or to boil. The dictionary gave this example: "Estoy a dieta, solo puedo comer pollo cocido." (I'm on a diet, I can only eat cooked [boiled] chicken.) OK! That was easy. But no, cocido isn't chicken. Back to the drawing board. For literally years I thought that cocido was a mystery dish that I would never see, understand, or taste.

About 20 years ago, I was looking at a homestyle restaurant menu and the lightbulb finally went on in my brain. I asked the waiter for a bowl of caldo de res (beef and vegetable soup), and he nodded as he wrote the order–and said, "Cocido para usted, señora." Wait! What? He smiled and said, Sí, cocido. O como dijo usted, caldo de res." ('Yes, 'cocido', or as you said,)–well, you get it.) Like many things in Spanish, there is an example of their being more than one word for the same thing. Cultural literacy is learning what is colloquially used as a name for something that also has a more formal name.

Now that I knew what cocido is, I found someone to teach me how to make it, and today–if you don't know how already–I'm going to teach you. It's the simplest thing in the world, very healthy, and truly a Mexican home staple. An all-but-boiling bowlful is just the ticket for a warming meal in the winter.

Cocido (Caldo de Res) from Michoacán

Ingredients
1/2 medium white onion
1 large clove garlic
1 medium bay leaf
2-3 Tbsp sea salt
4-5 liters cold water
1 kilo (2.2 pounds) bone-in chambarete (beef shank), cut across the bone
.5 kilo (1 pound) bone-in retazo de res (meaty beef trimmings)

3 or 4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
3 or 4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks or thick slices
1 middle-size chayote, cut into eighths, seed and all
1 small chile serrano, slit from tip almost to the stem end
4 small calabacitas (or zucchini), cut into thick slices
A quarter kilo (half pound) white cabbage, coarsely cut into chunks
A good-size fistful of cilantro, stems and all
2 or 3 ears of fresh corn, each ear cut into thirds (optional)

To season the broth
3 or 4 red, ripe Roma tomatoes, cut into chunks
1/4 white onion, cut into chunks
1 small chile serrano (optional)
2 cups cold water

Special equipment
A lidded pot that will hold approximately 14 liters
Long wooden spoon

Bring 4 or 5 liters water, the half onion, the garlic clove, the salt, and the bay leaf to a boil.

The beef shanks and trimmings, rinsed, patted dry, and ready to go in the pot.

One piece at a time, quickly add the beef to the boiling water. In just a minute or two, the beef will take on a deep brown color.

Carrots and calabacita (zucchini), ready to go in the pot.

The other half of the chayote needs to be chopped. When you're ready to chop the chayote, try to pierce the skin with your fingernail. If it pierces easily, there's no need to peel the chayote, just chop it skin and all. The seed is flat, round, white and soft. The whitest part of the already cut chayote in the photograph is the seed–your knife will slide right through it, no need to remove it and cut it separately.

Coarsely chop the white cabbage.

Peel and cut up the potatoes. These are the standard white potato in Mexico: the papa Alfa. I started with three and added another. You can use a different kind of potato: russet, Yukon Gold, whatever potato you prefer will be delicious.

For the tomato seasoning for the broth: put the coarsely chopped tomato, the 1/4 onion, a clove of garlic, and the chile serrano (if you're using it) into your blender. Add the 2 cups water. Cover and blend until smooth. Pour this mixture into the boiling pot.

Add all of the vegetables, including the cilantro, to the pot. Allow the pot to return just to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer and cover, leaving the cover slightly ajar. After 15 minutes cooking, stir the pot–the vegetables will have softened enough to be completely under water. Simmer for approximately 45 minutes.

Correct the salt.

Freshly patted tortillas, toasting on a clay comal (griddle). They're supposed to inflate as they toast!

An all-but-overflowing bowlful of cocido. The house smelled delicious as it cooked, and the cocido itself was wonderful. And there's plenty left for the next few tomorrows!

Serve with hot tortillas, with corn tostadas, or with toasted bolillos (white flour, super-dense Mexican rolls).

Serves 4 to 6 as a main dish.

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

18 de January de 2020
Tamales! More Tamales! Everybody Wants Tamales! Qué Le Doy?

Tamales in the tamalera (the steamer) at Tamalería (tamales stand) Méndez, on the street at the corner of Av. Baja California and Av. Insurgentes, Colonia Condesa, Distrito Federal. You can see that the tamalera is divided into three sections. Each section can hold a different kind of tamal (that's the word for ONE of a group of tamales). In this case, the tamales at the bottom left of the photo are Oaxaqueños (Oaxaca-style). On the right of the divider are tamales rojos (with a red chile sauce) and tamales de mole (both with pork meat). The third section of the tamalera holds just-out-of-sight tamales verdes (with chicken, in green chile sauce) and tamales con rajas y queso (with cheese and strips of chile poblano).

Older than an Aztec pyramid and fresh as this morning’s breakfast, a pot of newly-steamed tamales whets Mexico City’s appetite like nothing else in town. Dating to pre-Hispanic times—most historians say tamales date to the time before the Christian era—the tamales of New Spain (now Mexico) were first documented in the Florentine Codex, a mid-16th century research project crafted by Spanish Franciscan monk Fray Bernadino Sahagún.

Traditionally, tamales are made by hand, not by machine. At first, they seem to be exhaustingly labor-intensive and difficult. Just as with most wonderful food, once you learn the techniques and tricks of making the various styles, they're not so hard to prepare–and they are so worth the time and effort! In the photo above, Carmen Titita Ramírez Degollado, owner of Mexico City's Restaurante El Bajío, prepares masa cocida (cooked corn dough) for her special tamales pulacles from Papantla, Veracruz.

The ancients of the New World believed that humankind was created from corn. Just as in pre-history, much of Mexico’s traditional and still current cuisine is based on corn, and corn-based recipes are still creating humankind. A daily ration of corn tortillas, tacos, and tamales keeps us going strong in the Distrito Federal, Mexico’s capital city of more than twenty million corn-craving stomachs. Tamales are created from dried corn reconstituted with builder’s lime and water. The corn is then ground and beaten with lard or other fat into a thick, smooth masa (dough). Filled with sauce and a bit of meat or vegetable, most tamales are wrapped in dried corn husks or banana leaves and steamed, to fill Mexico City’s corn hunger and keep her hustling.

Tamal-to-be at El Bajío: cut the banana leaf to the size and shape of the tamal you're making, then lightly toast each leaf to soften it for folding. On the banana leaf, place a layer of masa, a strip of hoja santa (acuyo) leaf, and a big spoonful or two of cooked, shredded chicken in a sauce of chile guajillo, onion, and garlic.

Mexico’s capital city makes it easy to buy tamales any time the craving hits you. Every day of the week, nearly five million riders pack the Metro (the city’s subway system) and are disgorged into approximately 200 Metro stations. At any given Metro stop, a passenger is likely to find a tamales vendor. Her huge stainless steel tamalera (tamales steamer) hisses heartily over a low flame until the tamales are sold out. Each steamer can hold as many as two hundred tamales, and the vendor may preside over two or three or more of these vats.

Titita folds the tamal so that the banana leaf completely wraps the masa and filling.

Hungry students on the way to and from classes, office workers with no time to eat breakfast at home, construction workers looking for a mid-morning pick-me-up: all line up at their favorite vendor’s spot on the sidewalk closest to a Metro exit. Near the vibrant Chilpancingo Metro station at the corner of Av. Insurgentes and Av. Baja California, Sra. María de los Ángeles Chávez Hernández sells tamales out of two huge pots. “Qué le doy?” (‘What’ll you have?’) she raps out without ceremony to every hungry arrival. The choices: rojo (with pork and spicy red chile); verde (with chicken and even spicier green chile); rajas con queso (strips of chile poblano with melting white cheese); mole (a thick spicy sauce with a hint of chocolate); some Oaxaca-style tamales wrapped in banana leaves; and dulce (sweet, usually either pineapple or strawberry). The stand sells about 200 tamales a day. Sra. Chávez’s father, Ángel Méndez Rocha, has been selling tamales on this corner for more than 60 years. Even at age 80, he alternates weeks at the stand with his brother, selling tamales by the hundreds.

The masa and filling are centered in the banana leaf. Titita is simultaneously pressing the masa toward the middle of the leaf and folding each end of the banana leaf toward the middle.

The pair of tamales in the center of the photo are filled with chicken and chile guajillo sauce. The tamal closest to the bottom corner of the photo is made with black beans crushed with dried avocado leaves. Avocado leaves give a delicious anise flavor and fragrance to the beans. These tamales are ready to be steamed in the tamalera.

The tamal de chile guajillo, fresh out of the tamalera and unwrapped on my plate.

A specialty breakfast, unique to Mexico City, is the guajolota: a steaming hot tamal, divested of its corn husks and plopped into a split bolillo, a dense bread roll. Folks from outside Mexico City think this combo is crazy, but one of these hefty and delicious carbohydrate bombs will easily keep your stomach filled until mid-afternoon, when Mexico eats its main meal of the day. When I asked Sra. Chávez Hernández about the name of the sandwich, she laughed. “Nobody knows why this sandwich is called guajolota—the word means female turkey. But everybody wants one!”

If you'd rather take your tamales home to eat them, Sra. Chávez of Tamalería Méndez or her employee, Sra. Lucina Montel, will gladly wrap them in paper and send them along in a bag.

For steaming tamales, the bottom portion of a tamalera is filled with water. Add a coin to the water and put the tamales vertically into the steamer, atop the perforated base that rests just above the water. When the water boils, the coin will rattle. When the rattle slows or stops, add more water.

Tamales can be a massive guajolota to eat on the street or the most delicate, upscale meal in a restaurant. These, prepared by chef Gerardo Vázquez Lugo of Restaurante Nicos, are a degustación (tasting) at the Escuela de Oficios Gastronómicos operated by online magazine Culinaria Mexicana, where chef Vázquez offered a workshop teaching the history, ingredients, and preparation of tamales. From left to right, the four tamales are: carnitas de pato en salsa de cítricos y chile chipotle (shredded duck confit in a citrus and chile chipotle sauce), tamal de tzotolbichay (with the herb chaya), tamal de mole negro (black mole),and tamal de frijol (beans).

Chef Gerardo Vázquez Lugo of Mexico City's Restaurante Nicos.

In addition to being daily sustenance, tamales are a fiesta, a party. In Mexico City and every other part of Mexico, Christmas isn’t Christmas without tamales for the late-night family feasting on Christmas Eve. Gather the women of the family together, grab the neighbors, and the preparation of tamales becomes a party called a tamalada. Mexico City chef Margarita Carrillo tells us, “Mexican grandmothers from time immemorial say that the first ingredient for great tamales is a good sense of humor. Tamales like it when you sing while you prepare them, they love to hear a little friendly gossip while you work, and if you make tamales in the good company of your family and friends, they’re sure to turn out just the way you want them: with fluffy, richly flavored corn dough on the outside and a delicious filling on the inside.”

A small and elegant tamal de chocolate for dessert, prepared by Restaurante Nicos for the tamales workshop.

Señora Elia Rodríguez Bravo, specialty cook at the original Restaurante El Bajío, strains masa cocida for tamales. She gently shook a wooden spoon at me as she proclaimed, “You can’t make tamales without putting your hands in the masa (corn dough). Your hand knows what it feels. Your hand will tell you when the masa is beaten smooth, when the tamales are well-formed in their leaves, and when they have steamed long enough to be ready to eat. Your hand knows!”

Señora María de los Ángeles Chávez Hernández (left) and her longtime employee Señora Lucina Montel (right) sell tamales at the street booth Tamalería Méndez seven days a week. They and Sra. Chávez's staff prepare hundreds of tamales every night, for sale the next day.

Let's go on a Mexico City tamales tour! Let Mexico Cooks! know when you're ready, and we'll be on our way.

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

11 de January de 2020