Mexico presents a different face to each person that meets her. Traveling through the country is an experience unique to the individual, even to people on the same journey, whether they be tourists spending a week at an ultra-modern beach resort or ethnologists visiting remote indigenous villages. Each of us has a personal framework through […]
Continue ReadingWhen we first came to Mexico many years ago, a trip to the market was cause for both excitement and apprehension for my then ten-year-old younger daughter. There were beautiful things, like fragrant flowers and bundles of bright green herbs, as well as “yucky” things, like the heads of freshly slaughtered pigs. But one thing […]
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I recently watched a video of women in the lush, green Papaloapan region of Oaxaca making yucca tamales. As is quite often the case with tamales of all kinds, it was a group effort. The labor-intensive culinary ritual involved in their preparation seemed a lot easier with the conversation and camaraderie that went on with […]
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At this time of year, whether you find yourself warming up with a hearty soup or stew in the cool Mexican highlands, or enjoying a fish taco on a winter beach vacation on one of the country’s coasts, chances are that your meal will contain cabbage. From the Central Mexican stew called puchero — which uses a […]
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It would be difficult to think of a food more versatile than the empanada except, of course, the taco. Both consist of a dough-based wrapper around a filling, and both can hold a huge variety of ingredients within. But while the taco has its roots in the indigenous Mexican culinary tradition, the empanada was an […]
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Although grown most frequently in the tropical coastal areas of the country, plantains are found in markets all over Mexico, where they are called plátano macho and look like bananas on growth hormones, ranging in color from bright green and unripe to nearly black and looking overripe. Like the banana, the plantain is an herbaceous flowering plant, […]
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The two little girls were standing at the side of the winding mountain road, surrounded by plastic buckets of something whose shape we could barely distinguish in the fading daylight. Trying to get to the next town before darkness set in, we nevertheless stopped to ask what they were selling. “Mamey” was the answer, as […]
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Part One: Culinary guide to Mexican fish and shellfish: Las delicias del mar I Last month’s column presented the first part of an alphabetized list of Mexico’s most popular eating varieties of fish and shellfish, expanded beyond the literal meaning of mar – ocean – to include freshwater species. Throughout Lent, markets and supermarkets have been selling […]
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México está bendecido con abundantes frutas tropicales. Se sirven frutas en platos elegantes, vasos y bolsas desechables que se venden en las esquinas. No importa que tan humilde sea el lugar, las frutas en bolsa siempre se cortan en tiras o gajos uniformes y se sirven con limón fresco y chile en polvo si lo […]
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Mexican Kitchen Mexican markets, especially the open-air variety, still bear an uncanny resemblance to their pre-Hispanic predecessors. The colors and aromas of carefully arranged piles of fruit and vegetables, bundles of herbs, and all manner of corn dough-based food baking on the comal is not that much different from the descriptions given nearly five hundred […]
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