After returning home to Oaxaca from a recent two-week trip out of the country, I walked up to the corner produce stand to check out possibilities for dinner. The first thing that caught my eye was a neatly arranged pile of jicama, not because they are especially attractive (they’re not) but because jicama is one of the signs that […]
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When we moved to Mexico in the 1980s, berries were not a common sight in the produce markets. There was a seasonal appearance of local blackberries in cooler regions, and a spring strawberry season, but blueberries were nearly impossible to find in most town markets, and raspberries were even less common. Home cooks in the […]
Continue ReadingOne of the most recent topics of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, simply entitled “Eggs,” inspired a bit of research on the history and use of eggs in Mexican cooking. However fraught with symbolism the egg may be in many cultures, it is above all an economical source of protein. For this reason, […]
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Visitors to Mexico, most of whom are eager to explore the markets, nearly always have the same question when it comes to vegetables: Why, when there are so many of them in the market, does it seem that they are not an important part of Mexican meals? The answer lies in two words: home cooking. […]
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Step aside, kale. We’ve had you in everything from soup to lollypops, but it’s a New Year and there is a new title holder for Vegetable of the Year. According to Christine Couvelier, a culinary trendologist (yes, that’s the job title, not a word I made up, although somebody surely did) at Metro News, this […]
Continue ReadingWhen I told Carmen Titita Ramirez, owner of the highly acclaimed El Bajio restaurant in Mexico City, that I would be spending time in Xalapa, she responded with her usual exuberance and proceeded to write a list of regional dishes I had to try and where to try them. Titita was born and raised in […]
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In researching the origins of various foods, it is fascinating to contemplate how different so many of the world’s cuisines would be without the culinary exchanges that took place during the 15th to17th centuries — the Age of Exploration. New World food — generally referring to ingredients that existed in the Americas before the Europeans […]
Continue ReadingWhile passing the rows of restaurants surrounding downtown Puebla’s Parian crafts market, one cannot help but notice that every one of the many display bowls of mole poblano is adorned with a liberal sprinkling of sesame seeds. Walking past these displays not long ago, I began thinking about the part sesame seeds play in Mexican cooking, especially […]
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Timothy J. Knab Mescal, mescaline, mescal bean, mescal button; what are they? They are all intoxicants, which was what the word mescal meant in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Today mescal generally refers to a type of aguardiente – water with a bite, firewater, a liquor distilled from the agave, a relative of the century plant or maguey commonly used to […]
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Besides the seemingly endless string of fiestas, weddings, baptisms and saints’ days throughout the year, the warm months bring graduations galore. Everything from a kindergarten commencement to the completion of a PhD is celebrated exuberantly in Mexico. And the season’s balmy weather invites merrymakers to move outside. Even the start of the rainy season does […]
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