Category: Travel

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
Traditional Baking at Lake Chapala

Two days a week, José Manuel Mora Velásquez continues a tradition that has been part of his family for more than 80 years. Long before dawn, he begins preparations for baking pan de tachigual, a type of bread so distinctly regional that Sr. Mora says that it has only been made in San Juan Cosalá and in Ajijic, (in the state of Jalisco, Mexico), although it's sold in other towns along the north shore of Lake Chapala.

In years gone by, natives of those two towns did not allow a wedding, baptism, First Communion or confirmation to pass without tachigual as part of the festivity rituals. Although times are changing, even today the most traditional celebrations of these life passages include the humble local loaves.

Sr. Mora showed me around the tiny bakery at his home in Ajijic. The ceiling is low and the only light comes from windows without glass. Loaves of freshly baked tachigual are piled high on a wooden shelf while dough rises in a warm corner, out of the way of any passing breeze.

Tachigual loaves stuffed with nuts and raisins rise on the bakery shelves.

"The oven is heated only by wood. It's not easy to keep a good supply of wood, but we collect it from all over the area. People usually tell me where a dry tree has fallen, or where someone has cut down a tree that will burn well when the wood is dry."

"Which days of the week do you bake?" I asked.

"Wednesdays, like today, and Saturdays. It's very time-consuming work and you have to pay very close attention to the masa (dough) or it won't turn out right." Sr. Mora turned to peer into the oven as he spoke to me.

"A full twenty-four hours before I bake, I have to prepare the harina fermentada (starter). It's a mixture of flour and water. I mix that, and then it sits in the warm bakery for a full day before I can use it for the bread.

"Early in the morning of the days I bake, I mix the dough. It's made with the starter dough I made the day before, plus additional flour, eggs, sugar, and lard. Some of the dough is made with whole wheat flour and some with white flour. The white flour dough has white sugar, raisins and toasted nuts blended into it. The whole wheat loaves are sweetened with piloncillo (cones of brown sugar)."

Sr. Mora showed me how he weighs each of the ingredients to make the bread. "I don't measure. The bread is better if each component is weighed. How many kilos of flour I use depends on how many loaves I need to bake on any given day. Usually I make enough dough to produce 400 loaves a day.

"Baking this traditional way is different from baking in a modern oven. The first difference, of course, is that the oven is made of bricks and clay. It's shaped like a beehive. And as I said before, I use wood fire for the heat. Temperature control is more difficult. I have to start the fire about three hours before the dough starts to bake. That's so the oven will reach the right temperature. It takes two hours for the coals to be at the right stage, then another hour for the temperature to go down enough so the bread will bake in the right amount of time."

Tachigual bakes right on the floor of the brick beehive oven.

I looked into the oven, which has no door, and saw that the baking bread was beginning to turn golden brown. "I don't see a thermometer, Sr. Mora. How do you know when the oven has reached the right temperature to begin baking?"

Sr. Mora checks the oven to make sure the temperature is right.

He laughed. "I put one loaf in to bake. It should be ready in about 30 to 40 minutes. If it takes longer than that, I put more wood on the fire. If it bakes too quickly, I wait a bit for the temperature to go down. Then I try again. Of course I've been doing this for so long that I can almost always tell when the temperature is right, but I still bake a trial loaf to be sure."

I asked Sr. Mora if there were other tachigual bakers in Ajijic. "Yes, my cousin still makes this bread the old way. She lives on Calle Constitución and bakes on Tuesday and Thursday. I think we're the only two left in Ajijic who bake this bread. There is a family in San Juan Cosalá that still has a bakery, but I don't know them personally."

Ojitos (little eyes) rise near the warmth of the oven.

An article about the San Juan Cosalá bakers appeared several years ago in the Lake Chapala Spanish-language weekly newspaper, El Charal. At that time, Sra. Margarita Villalobos and one of her daughters were baking pan de tachigual for distribution and sale in San Juan, in Nestipac, and in Jocotepec. Sra. Villalobos told El Charal that as a young girl, she had learned to make tachigual from her mother. Her methods hadn't changed over the years, she said, because making the bread in the traditional way gives it the delicious flavor that people want. Sra. Villalobos said that someone had offered her an electric mixer to help beat the dough, but she was not interested in changing her style of preparation. "Other bakers make it using the same recipe I do, but they don't mix it by hand. Their results aren't the same," she reported.

Sr. Mora's baking sheet is made of a flattened 5-gallon square tin can.

Sr. Mora tells a similar story. "A woman named Teresa taught my aunt how to make tachigual, and my aunt taught me," he reminisced. "And now there's no one left to teach. My children don't want to be bakers. It's sad to think that I might be the last in the family to keep this tradition alive."

Although Sr. Mora graciously told me about his work and the traditions of the bread he makes, there was never a time when he was not also paying strict attention to the rising loaves, the bread baking in the oven, and the bread that was cooling on primitive wooden shelves along three walls of the bakery. I watched quietly for a while as Sr. Mora worked.

With one eye on the oven, he picked up an escobilla (double-ended straw brush) and started rhythmically sweeping the wood ash from each cool loaf of tachigual. As he cleaned each loaf, he placed it in a pile.

When he noticed that the bread inside the oven had turned a deep golden brown, he set aside the escobilla and picked up a pala (literally a shovel, but in this case it resembled a long-handled wooden pizza peel). He used the pala to remove a metal tray holding the ojitos from the oven and placed it on a table near where I was standing. In one experienced and skillful motion, he scooped up as many small panes de tachigual as the pala would hold and transferred them from the oven to a shelf for cooling. With a similar movement, he loaded the pala with unbaked loaves of tachigual. Gently shoving the pala as far into the oven as he knew it needed to go so that the bread would bake evenly, he snapped his elbow back and the raw loaves landed evenly spaced on the oven floor. In just a few minutes he demonstrated skills he had acquired over his 22 years as a baker.

The sweet smell of baking tachigual was making me very hungry. "Sr. Mora, do you take all of the bread to be sold at stores here in town?" I was hoping he'd say no, and I was not disappointed.

"A lot of people come here to the bakery to buy bread. And the boys take some to be sold out on the streets in that washtub…" he gestured to a galvanized metal tub in the corner by the oven. "And of course some does go to stores around town."

"What does the tachigual cost?" I was fingering some coins in my pocket.

"The small loaves are four pesos, the big ones are ten pesos. And those mini-loaves are two pesos apiece. I sell the miniatures to mothers for little kids."

I bought four loaves, one large and three small. The large one came home with me and I took the three small ones to share with my neighbors. My car held the tantalizing scent of the fresh-baked bread for two days.

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

2 de June de 2012
Dr. Atl in Mexico: A Painter’s Eye, A Painter’s Passion

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

Gerardo Murillo was born in 1895 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. Since studying in Italy in 1921, Gerardo Murillo has 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.

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 Olín, pictured above in 1922, had a five-year romantic relationship with Dr. Atl. During the early part of her life, Nahui Olín'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 brushstroke 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 1942, 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 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 about this majestic and completely unexpected young volcano for more than seven 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: Tours.

19 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.

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

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
Out and About on Calle República de Uruguay in Mexico City: Places to Go and People to See

A large portion of Mexico City's Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Balvanera, Calle República de Uruguay #36, is given over to the veneration of San Charbel Makhlouf, a 19th century Lebanese Maronite hermit whom Roman Catholic Pope Paul VI canonized in 1927. During the last ten to fifteen years, San Charbel has acquired quite a large following in Mexico. The church features any number of images of the saint, some professionally made and others, like this one, made by the devout. Mexico Cooks! is particularly fond of this home-made image of him, with its cotton batting beard and jiggly plastic eyes like those found on some stuffed animals.

Calle República de Uruguay, just south of the Zócalo, the Metropolitan Cathedral, and the National Palace, is one of Mexico City's most interesting and varied streets. Mexico Cooks! loves to walk it block by block, discovering hidden and not-so-hidden treasures nearly every step of the way. The last time I took this walk, I noticed for the first time that one block was lined on both sides with mercerías (button and sewing notion shops) filled with hundreds, if not thousands, of different styles of buttons. AHA! A single button from one of my favorite dresses had recently gone missing in the washing machine. I found a similar button among the countless displays and asked the clerk the cost of just one. "Señora…," she hesitated, "solo se venden por cien." ('We only sell buttons in lots of one hundred.') We both laughed.

The ornately tiled dome of the Templo de Nuestra Señora de la Balvanera. The church, built in the 17th century, is open daily for all who care to visit.

This rolling contraption belongs to an old-time camote (sweet potato) and plátano (banana) vendor. At the back of the three-wheeled cart is the steering wheel and a supply of plates and bags. In the center are the vendor's other supplies. The baked sweet potatoes and bananas are carefully lined up on the firebox and oven of the cart, where they stay hot until purchased. The firebox is stoked with carbón (Mexican real-wood charcoal). At the very front of the cart is the smokestack, with its traditional ear-shattering steam powered whistle. If you listen during the evenings in some of Mexico City's neighborhoods, you'll still hear the sound of that whistle–the camotero's call for you to run out to the street to buy a hot baked camote for your cena (supper). Click on any photograph to enlarge it and see the details.

Detail, camotes y plátanos–with the ubiquitous can of La Lechera (sweetened condensed milk) that is poured generously over your purchase of either a delicious newly baked sweet potato or a freshly baked banana. Little by little, these wonderfully fragrant carts are disappearing from Mexico City's streets. As I chatted with the camotero, I mentioned that quite late most nights–as late as one in the morning–a vendor passes my building and blows his whistle. The camotero on Calle República de Uruguay scoffed and said that the vendor in my neighborhood is probably selling something other than camotes. "Quién va a querer un camote a estas horas?" (Who would want a sweet potato at that hour!)

Gorras (caps) for sale on the street. The embroidered purple cap featuring Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe particularly caught my attention. There is simply nowhere that her image is not.

Interior of a seriously deteriorated vecindad (essentially, a tenement house) on Calle República de Uruguay. Restoration work is underway, as you can see from the heavily braced walls.

Package tied up with string from the famous Pastelería La Ideal, which has a branch located at República de Uruguay #74. It's almost guaranteed that as you stroll along this street, especially in the early morning or in the evening, you will see hordes of people carrying boxes and packages with this design. Everyone wants pan dulce (sweet bread) from La Ideal! The extraordinary pan from the bakery is (pardon me) ideal for breakfast or supper. Pastelería La Ideal, with its three branches, is arguably the most famous bakery in Mexico City.

Almond-topped coffee cake from Pastelería La Ideal. It tastes even better than it looks.

Hanging menu outside Los Tacos, Calle República de Uruguay #117. This partial menu only serves as an enticement to step inside: the full menu is enormous, running from the simplest quesadilla (a tortilla folded over cheese and toasted or fried) to delicious chiles en nogada (stuffed chiles in walnut sauce). It's a dandy place to stop for an energy boost while strolling down this street.

The trompo (vertical spit) for tacos al pastor (shepherd-style roast pork) is just outside the door at Los Tacos. Thinly sliced pork is marinated in an adobo sauce, then stacked onto the spit–with a pineapple at the top. The pineapple juices run steadily into the meat as it cooks. The meat spins around and is roasted to order using the gas grate just behind it. The pastorero (specialized cook for tacos al pastor) receives your order (seis de pastor, por favor–six tacos al pastor, please) from the waiter, then turns and turns the spit until he can shave off slivers of pork for your tacos. The slivers go directly from the freshly grilled meat on the spit into a hot tortilla–you can just see that the pastorero is holding a tortilla in his left hand. The order of tacos on the plate in front of him is almost ready. The coup de grace: the skillful pastorero fills your tortilla with meat and then with a quick flick of the knife, sends a portion of roasted, slightly caramelized sweet pineapple flying from the whole fruit straight into your taco while it's still in his hand. As far as I could see, he never misses. What a guy! And needless to say, what a taco! Top it yourself with finely chopped onion, cilantro, and the salsa of your choice. It's a fiesta of flavors in your mouth.

Mexico Cooks! would be delighted to tour you along Calle República de Uruaguay, as well as along any of the fascinating neighboring streets in our Centro Histórico (Historic Center). Just let us know when you'd like to come visit us in Mexico City.

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24 de March de 2012
Sandra Gutiérrez and The New Southern-Latino Table: Cookbook from Heaven!

Sandra Gutiérrez's cookbook The New Southern-Latino Table landed on Mexico Cooks!' doorstep to a resounding HURRAY!

Mexico Cooks! does not often get excited about fusion of cuisines. As my friend Giorgio d'Angeli (may he rest in peace) always said, "It usually ends up being CON-fusion." However, every once in a while, a chef and a cookbook cross my path that are the exception to the rule, and Sandra Gutiérrez's new cookbook, The New Southern-Latino Table, is that exception. What marvelous and accessible recipes she offers us!

Jalapeño deviled eggs–an old southern favorite raised to new heights with minced chiles jalapeños. Deviled eggs have always been addictive, and these are even more so. Photo courtesy Sandra Gutiérrez.

To create this cookbook, Sandra took on the blending of ingredients, traditions, and culinary techniques from the United States, where she was born, and Guatemala, where she grew up, as well as combinations of other southern and Latin American traditions. Imagine: what could be more traditional in the American south than pimiento cheese, and what could be more Latin than the smoky taste of chile chipotle en adobo and powdered ancho chiles? Put the two traditions together in this simple recipe and the flavors explode in your mouth in the best possible way.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzmUm1BNLaw&w=400&h=233]
Sandra Gutiérrez shows you, step by step, the ease of preparing her pimiento cheese with chile chipotle. The adobo (marinating sauce) mentioned in the recipe comes right out of the can of chiles–this recipe could not be simpler or more delicious. You and your guests are going to love it! Video courtesy Cary Magazine.

Sandra assures us that if you live outside the United States, there is no such thing as "Latino". Her 150 original recipes–each developed personally in her test kitchens–are also not Latino, because there is no single "Latino" cuisine. She says, "The term 'Latino' only exists within the context of the United States and is used to define anyone who was either born in Latin America or is of Latin American heritage but lives in the United States. Latin Americans define themselves not as 'Latinos', but rather as Guatemalans, Bolivians, Colombians, Mexicans, etc.

"From a culinary perspective, this becomes very important because not all Latin Americans eat the same foods. Argentinians, for example, don't eat tacos unless they are at a Mexican restaurant; however, they do eat a lot of pasta, because their cuisine is heavily influenced by Italian flavors and ingredients. Each Latin cuisine has been shaped by different cultures and has its own native ingredients and each varies greatly from the other. I cannot stress this enough.

"The new Southern-Latino movement, therefore, does not represent the melding of one culinary tradition with another (as in the case of Southwestern cuisine, where Mexican flavors predominate), but represents the marriage of the culinary foodways of more than two dozen countries with those of the entire Southern region of the United States. For me, it is very, very exciting."

Peruvian classic causas con pulpo (mashed potato with octopus) at Mexico City's marvelous Japanese-Peruvian restaurant Rokkaku, in Colonia Polanco. Mexico Cooks! photo.

Causas (pronounced COW-sahs), Perú's classic potato dish, influenced this seven ingredient vegetarian potato salad casserole from The New Southern-Latino Table. Two hallmarks of Sandra Gutiérrez's recipes are their ease of preparation and the accessibility of their ingredients. Photo courtesy Sandra Gutiérrez.

Bite-size brownies that will bite you back! Sandra Gutiérrez's recipe for rich, moist, and dense brownies meet your mouth with the seductive sweetness of chocolate and sugar. Give them a second, though, and you'll find your palate titillated by the additional flavor of powdered ancho chile. One of these brownies will never be enough! Photo courtesy Sandra Gutiérrez.

Sandra's book includes a glossary of ingredient names, an excellent section on sourcing ingredients that might not be available where you live, and–best of all–a guide to navigating a Latin tienda (store). In the navigation guide, you'll find each section of the tienda explained: dairy, frozen goods, meats, dry goods, bakery, and so forth. It's easy to see that Sandra is a well-known teacher: she has taught literally thousands of people the joy and simplicity of her particular style of cooking. In addition, all of the recipes in The New Southern-Latino Table are superbly organized, beautiful to follow, and offer the home cook exactly what is necessary to achieve great culinary success.

Cajeta (burnt milk–it tastes like a cross between caramel and butterscotch) bread pudding. Buy the book for this recipe alone! Photo courtesy Sandra Gutiérrez.

The New Southern Latino Table has been featured in any number of newpapers and magazines. In the few short months since its publication, it has won several well-deserved awards. Look for the book cover photos to the left on this page: you'll see the book cover second from the top. Click on its thumbnail to be taken directly to the Amazon.com page for The New Southern-Latino Table. Buy it today: I recommend it without hesitation. You're going to love it, and you heard about it first right here on Mexico Cooks!.

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17 de March de 2012
A Brief History of Comida China (Chinese Food) in Mexico–and Restaurante Dalian!

Update to the review of this restaurant: as of August 2013, its ownership has changed and the restaurant has lost all its former quality. What a huge loss to the very small community of worthwhile Chinese restaurants in Mexico City.

Barrio Chino de Noche (Chinatown at Night). Mexico City's tiny Chinatown is on Calle Dolores, between Av. Juárez and Ayuntamiento in the Centro Histórico (Historic Center). Photo courtesy Jesús E. Salgado, Skyscraper City.

Most of the Chinese who came to North America in the 19th and very early 20th centuries came in order to work constructing the railroads between the USA and Mexico, primarily on the USA side of the border. Almost all of the Chinese railroad construction workers were from the province of Canton, and ONLY Chinese men were allowed into either country. Generally, if a Chinese man could cook, he became the gang cook (railroad slang) for his particular railroad construction crew.

Chinese railroad workers in the United States, ca 1890. Photo courtesy Wikimedia.

Due to immigration quotas, none of the Chinese men were allowed to bring their families into the USA. Many wives and children traveled from Canton to the port of Veracruz, on Mexico's east coast, and from there made their way to the Mexico/USA border. Some sneaked across as undocumented aliens, while others were turned back. During Mexico's years of anti-Chinese expulsions (1920s-1930s), many Chinese, including men, women and children were forceably expelled from Mexico and were made to enter the United States illegally.

Chinese women cooking, 19th century. Photo courtesy A Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization.

If you're a man or woman with no marketable skill other than your skill in the kitchen, what's the best way to make a living for your family? Of course: prepare and sell food. From those original Chinese immigrants, a great tradition of Chinese restaurants grew up along both sides of the Mexico/USA border. All of them were and continue to be Cantonese. Today, there are thousands of Chinese restaurants–almost entirely Cantonese–everywhere in Mexico.

Update: this article, published on November 24, 2012, offers further insight into the Chinese situation in 20th century Mexico: Chinese-Mexicans celebrate repatriation to Mexico.

Commonly known in Mexico City as cafés de chinos (Chinese coffee houses), restaurants like La Nacional specialize in café con leche (a combination of hot expresso and equally hot milk, similar to latte), pan dulce (Mexican sweet bread), and–usually–very bad Chinese food. Photo courtesy Kairos.

Long ago, Mexico Cooks! began professional culinary life as a Chinese chef, specializing in the cuisines of Sichuan and Hunan–two of the spiciest kitchens in China, if not in the world. For years, I have told my Mexican friends that the people from those Chinese provinces eat more chile than the Mexicans. Until fairly recently, most of my friends have looked at me with profound disbelief: unless they had traveled outside Mexico and had eaten in other countries' Chinese restaurants, their experiences of Chinese food were limited to the Cantonese kitchen–and in fact, a highly Mexicanized Cantonese kitchen, light years and many generations removed from the province of Canton.

Now, however, there are two Sichuan restaurants in Mexico City. One, the Ka Won Seng, has steadfastly refused to be publicized no matter how long they have known me and no matter how much I plead. The answer is always the same: 'No pictures. No writing. No.' It's in a decent working class neighborhood, although not near any tourist attraction. My good friend and eating buddy David Lida got there before the publicity prohibition went into effect and wrote about it on his blog. It's hard to find and if you want to go there, you'll have to let David and me take you.

The corner of Calles Artículo 123 and Humboldt, across the street from Restaurante Dalian, one of just two Sichuan restaurants in Mexico City. This is not standard tourist territory. Notice, however, that Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Our Lady of Guadalupe) is here as well as everywhere else in Mexico, watching over her children.

Enter this building at Calle Humboldt #56 and at the very end of its long hallway, you'll find the fabulous Restaurante Dalian. This photo and the rest of the photos that accompany this article are copyright Mexico Cooks!.

Restaurante Dalian is located on a not very far-off-the-beaten-tourist path street, but on a corner that is far from Mexico City's tiny Chinatown and which is exceptionally unsavory. Mexico Cooks! is far from squeamish and even farther from nervous about where I find myself, but this particular neighborhood almost put me off. The first time we visited Restaurante Dalian, we walked past a young man clad only in his underwear and soap bubbles, taking a shower on the street. Although the restaurant is only a few blocks from Mexico City's Centro Histórico (the historic downtown), it's not a place you'd think to go. The corner is a haven for unusually down-and-out street people. We had to get over ourselves, nod briefly to the homeless, and walk just around the corner to find the entrance to the building that houses the restaurant.

Fried squid with salt and Chinese anise at Restaurante Dalian. Tender baby squid are cut into bite-size pieces, coated with batter, and deep fried until crisp, then tossed with spicy hot chiles, chopped sweet red pepper, soft-fried diced onion, scallion greens, and sesame seeds.

Mexico Cooks! recently invited several friends to come along for their first taste of real Sichuan cooking. I admit that it wasn't easy for them to say yes–not because of the new cuisine, but because of the location. Restaurante Dalian is hidden in the back hallway of a Chinese business building. It may actually be the only thing in the building. The building watchman at the front desk just pointed to the end of the hall when we asked about the restaurant. But was it worth it and will we all go back again? Absolutely, the very first chance we get.

MaPo tofu at Restaurante Dalian. Tender tofu combined with ground pork in the typical and correct proportions of spicy, oily, and tongue-numbing sensations made this dish love at first bite.

It can be difficult to arrive for the first time at any restaurant, much less one with menus written in Chinese. Names of dishes translated into Spanish were none too helpful, but we were able to deduce from the full-color menu photos what each one was. Our very kind Mexican waiter, Marcos, is the only staff member at Restaurante Dalian who speaks Spanish. The owner, a lovely woman, made a gracious attempt to communicate with us; we all bowed, smiled, and shook hands a good deal. The rest of the waitstaff speaks only Chinese. No one speaks English. Other than my wife, our friends, and I, the other diners were native-born Mexicans–plus a Russian man eating with his Mexican friend.

Kung Pao chicken. The peanuts were fried correctly, the chicken were tender and juicy, the vegetables were crisp and appetizing, and the sauce was just right. The dish was spiced exactly to my taste: HOT. All of us were over the moon with the mix of textures and flavors.

Deep-fried green beans, chile de árbol, and garlic, served in a doily-lined bowl. The doily absorbed any residual grease. The quantity was enormous. The aromas, flavors and textures of the still-crisp beans are the stuff of dreams. This is one of the most delicious Chinese dishes I have ever eaten anywhere.

Steamed fish with scallion greens and julienned sweet red pepper, served in a heavenly soy and sesame oil sauce.

Marcos, our waiter, told me the name of this dish at least three times and I still did not understand. It's a mix of tender, lightly coated thin-sliced beef, stir-fried onions and chunks of sweet red and green peppers. It comes to the table crackling and hissing, in a red-hot pan lined with aluminum foil. The whole dish is perfectly cooked and delicious, but the caramelized bits at the bottom of the dish are particularly marvelous.

After all but licking our plates, we had to call it quits. Next time we go, we might order salt and pepper shrimp, or a huge bowl of spicy seafood soup, or a different preparation of baby squid. We might try something with beef, or a chicken dish even spicier than the ones we tried our first time out. We will have to have the green beans again, but there is an entire menu of other dishes to try. There is also an inexpensive and ordinary-looking full buffet, but the a la carta menu seems to be the way to order a Sichuan meal.

A typically Chinese dessert: complimentary fresh fruit. I'm ashamed to say that there was originally triple the amount of cantaloupe on the plate, but I remembered only at this point to take a photo.

Jian Deui: glutinous rice flour dough balls filled with sweet red bean paste, rolled in sesame seeds, and deep fried. These are my all-time favorite Chinese sweets; until dining at Restaurante Dalian, I have never before seen them in Mexico.

The tiny Restaurante Dalian kitchen consists of two (or maybe three) well-used woks on a wok stove. The non-Spanish-speaking cook was a bit nonplussed by my request to see the kitchen, but after a lot of gesturing and a call for Marcos's help, the restaurant owner was gracious enough to allow me a visit to the tiny center of operations.

Restaurante Dalian
Calle Humboldt #56, near the corner of Calle Artículo 123
Centro Histórico, Distrito Federal

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10 de March de 2012
James Metcalf and Ana Pellicer: Copper Artists in Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán

This article about Ana Pellicer and James Metcalf was originally published on September 19, 2009. I re-publish it today in homage to Jim, who passed away on January 27, 2012. Rest in peace, querido amigo.

Two trivets and a large olla de cobre con asa (copper kitchen pot with a handle), all hand-hammered in the French style by James Metcalf, catch the afternoon sun at the Metcalf/Pellicer home in Santa Clara del Cobre.

James Metcalf and Ana Pellicer, both important sculptors, choose not to live in Paris (where James worked early in his life, cheek by jowl with Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, René Magritte, and other seminal modern artists), New York (where both have exhibited their work in stellar galleries and museums), or Mexico City (where Mexico's hippest and most active artist's circle burgeons). Instead, the Metcalf/Pellicer household has built a better mousetrap in Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán. The world beats a path to their door in the heart of this tiny community of artisans.

One of Metcalf's small copper pots. Ana Pellicer told me, "We use this one every day, to heat the milk." He created an entire baterie de cuisine (set of cooking pots) for their personal use.

In 1950, James went to Majorca, where he studied ancient Mediterranean metallurgy and created the illustrations for poet Robert Graves' Adam's Rib. In the mid-1960s, James left Paris for Mexico, where he had heard that pre-Hispanic coppersmithing techniques were still in use. Told that what he searched for only existed in Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán, he set off to investigate. By the late 1960s, James Metcalf and Ana Pellicer, his former student, were living and working in Santa Clara.

Their early explorations were related to el cazo de Don Vasco, the 16th Century cooking kettle introduced to Santa Clara del Cobre by Don Vasco de Quiroga. The copper cazo, which ranges from stove-top size to immense (large enough to cook an entire cut-into-chunks pig) is still used wherever carnitas or candy are made in Mexico. It's safe to say that all of Mexico's copper cazos come from Santa Clara.

This hammered copper cazo has a diameter at the top of approximately 60 centimeters (two feet).

When James Metcalf arrived, Santa Clara del Cobre offered no luxury to the artist accustomed to life in Paris, New York, and other cosmopolitan centers. Houses in the town were little more than hovels. There was no indoor plumbing. Although nearly every man in town worked copper as a livelihood, with few exceptions the only items produced in the talleres (workshops) were cazos. All of the cazos were formed with a thin edge which was rolled around an iron wire to finish the piece. Metcalf, using clay pots from the nearby state of Colima as examples of shapes, taught the Santa Clara smiths the design and construction technique of the thick edge.

James Metcalf, extraordinary Renaissance man–elegantly knowledgeable, elegant as well in speech, dress, and manner. His work, sometimes classified as both surrealist and abstract expressionist, is an important force in 20th Century metal sculpture.

A few of the hundreds of tools in James Metcalf's work room. He crafted many of his own tools to accomplish the techniques of particular works. Until Metcalf's arrival, the coppersmiths of Santa Clara del Cobre had never seen the highly polished hammers commonly used in urban metalsmithing.

Metcalf's thick edge copper technique, completely different from the techniques used at the time in Santa Clara, revolutionized Santa Clara's artisanal copper production. The smiths slowly began to produce hollow ware other than cazos, including jugs, kitchenware, and other decorative work.

James Metcalf puts the final touches on his huge sculptural portrait of Mexican president (1934-1940) General. Lázaro Cárdenas Ríos. In 1985, Metcalf donated the sculpture to the town of Santa Clara del Cobre. Photo by Miguel Bracho, courtesy of Artisans of the Future by Jorge Pellicer, SEP, 1996.

Metcalf and the artisan coppersmiths of Santa Clara del Cobre received the commission to create the Pebetero Olímpico (cauldron which holds the Olympic Flame for the duration of the games) for the Olympic Games to be held in Mexico in 1968. The enormous cauldron, adorned with repousée decoration of maíz (corn, representing the life force of Mexico), brought world-wide attention to the traditional artisans of Santa Clara and their work.

Ana Pellicer, August 5, 2009, at home in Santa Clara del Cobre. Exquisitely talented, Ms. Pellicer continues to create beautiful art. "What else can I do? Making art is my life, it's always my salvation."

Ana Pellicer arrived in Santa Clara del Cobre fresh from a privileged life in Mexico City and New York. Santa Clara, a community bound in rigid traditional gender roles and attitudes, did not respond well to her desire to work in copper. Talented, young and beautiful, her life in the small town was frequently difficult. Nevertheless, committed to the philosophy of 'mexicanidad'–the internalization of being Mexican in every aspect of life, including their art–both Pellicer and Metcalf felt deeply obligated to live and work in the Santa Clara community of artisans.

The maquette (small scale model) for La Máquina Enamorada (the Machine In Love), Ana Pellicer's enormous sculpture. The actual sculpture, commissioned by Mexican industrialist Francisco Trouyet, is now part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City. La Máquina Enamorada weighs 250 kilos and measures nearly two meters high by nearly two meters wide and a meter and a half deep.

Over time, Pellicer to some degree gained the trust of the townspeople. In 1975, she and a group of artisan coppersmiths worked together to produce the commissioned piece La Máquina Enamorada (the Machine in Love). Enormous and enormously complex–made from nearly 300 kilos of solid copper ingot–the piece became the largest forged work ever made in Santa Clara and the first artisan-made work accepted by the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City.

La Ulama or La Pelota que Rebota (The Ball that Bounces), by Ana Pellicer. The hammered copper decorative ring represents the cartwheel ruff, a heavily starched collar that was muy de la moda española (very stylish with the Spanish) during the time of the conquest of Nueva España. The black rubber ball represents the Purhépecha fire ball played in the pre-Hispanic game called Ulama. Pellicer collected the resin for the ball in the traditional method, from Michoacán pine trees. Exhibited in Denver, Colorado, as part of a complex installation, the piece represents ideas that transcend ancient times as traditions and native peoples bounce between cultures.

One of Ana Pellicer's lasting and tremendous accomplishments in Santa Clara has been incorporating women of the community into artisanal copper making. Despite intense opposition from many male artisans, Pellicer taught jewelry-making to some artisans' wives, who began to create jewelry that subsequently has won prizes at the community's annual copper fair.

El Beso (The Kiss), hand-hammered copper, 35X40X15 centimeters, Ana Pellicer, 1995. This hinged sculpture is currently part of the traveling exhibit The Women of Michoacán, Art and Artists. Photo courtesy Fred Derosset.

James Metcalf and Ana Pellicer founded several schools in Santa Clara del Cobre. In 1973, they received the support of the Ministry of Popular Culture and opened La Casa del Artesano. La Casa del Artesano offered artisan training to Santa Clara coppersmiths apart from the traditional training they received as apprentices in local talleres. Later in the 1970s, La Casa del Artesano closed.

Ana Pellicer's double copper plaques, each one smaller than a postcard, with male and female figures.

In 1976, Metcalf and Pellicer began teaching classes in their home. All the while, deep tensions continued to exist, not only within the artisans' community but also between ancient and modern techniques and styles of work, dress, jewelry, and, at its essence, community life.

Metcalf and Pellicer later founded, under the auspices of Mexico's Secretaría de Educación Pública (Secretary of Public Education) what became the most important school for artisans in Santa Clara del Cobre and arguably in all of Mexico: the Adolfo Best Maugard Center for Technical/Industrial Training #166 (Cecati #166). Teaching different techniques of metalsmithing and jewelry making at all levels of production, the school incorporated traditional and European forging methods, taught blacksmithing, casting in both lost wax and sand, machine tools, lathing, enamel work, stone cutting, and electroplating. All of those techniques opened multi-faceted new horizons of artistic and commercial opportunity to Santa Clara artisans.

In 2002, a Michoacán branch of Mexico's teachers' union took over directorship of the school, displacing Metcalf and Pellicer. The move was highly politicized and its consequences spilled over into extreme community tensions and division between the copper artisans and the former directors of the school. Many members of the artisan community continued (and continue until today) to consider Metcalf and Pellicer to be outsiders, even after their more than 35 years' involvement in the life of Santa Clara del Cobre. The pain and stress of this division are still abundantly apparent in both Metcalf and Pellicer's recounting of its incidents.

Sala (living room), Casa Metcalf/Pellicer, August 2009.

The lives and work of James Metcalf and Ana Pellicer are profoundly rooted in both art and artesanía, in both an international community of artists and a local community of artisans. Richly philosophical and deeply reflective, the artists confront their life's mixture of joy and pain in their work. Their story continues to unfold.

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18 de February de 2012