Mexico Cooks!

South of the Border Tropical Fruits

A first trip to the local tianguis can be mind-boggling—there are so many sights and smells of so many unfamiliar foods. For now, let's take a tour of some of the tropical fruits that you'll want to try.

I saw so many marvelous tropical fruits on Wednesday at the tianguis (street market) where I usually shop: cherimoya, guanábana, mamey, and carambola. Papaya, mango, sapote, maracuyá, and bananas nearly the size of your forearm—and other tiny bananas, the ones that are the size of your thumb.

And then there were the tunas. Since when is a tuna a fruit and not a fish?

The fruits available in season in Mexico can be confusing when we're used to the ordinary apples, peaches, oranges, pears and plums in North of the Border supermarkets. We have those "normal" fruits here too, but wait till you try the exotic produce that awaits you in Mexican markets.

The cherimoya ranges from tennis ball size to a fruit the size of your head. The guanábana can have a size range equally wide. Either fruit should be eaten when the fruit is very soft but not mushy. At home, I often cut a small ripe cherimoya in half and eat it with a spoon right from the skin. It makes a wonderful light dessert. The seeds are big, black, shiny, and easily discarded.

Guanábana (soursop) flesh is eaten with a spoon or is used to make drinks and paletas (popsicles). Try this easy, delicious, and refreshing drink.

Agua Fresca de Guanábana
(Fresh Guanábana Juice Drink)
1 pound ripe guanábana
3/4 cup white sugar
8 cups water
1 cup milk (optional)

Cut the guanábana in half and scoop out the tender white flesh. Discard the bitter peel. Put the fruit flesh in a large bowl and reduce to a pulpy liquid, using a potato masher or the back of a large spoon. Discard the large black seeds as they appear.

When the fruit pulp is mostly liquefied, add the sugar and stir together with the fruit pulp and its juices. Put the fruit and sugar mixture in a 3-quart pitcher. Add the eight cups of water and the milk, if you wish. Stir well and chill for an hour or more.

The carambola (star fruit) is primarily used for decoration. Cut cross sections of the fruit, as you see them in the photo above, to use on the rim of a glass of your fresh guanábana fruit drink.

The papaya and the mango are two of the more familiar tropical fruits available in Mexican shops and stalls.

The deep orange-red flesh of the Mexican papaya is much richer and sweeter than its small yellow Hawaiian relative. The papaya is best eaten when very ripe; the flavor and sweetness have developed beautifully just when you think the fruit might need to be thrown in the trash can.

When the papaya is super ripe—even a little moldy in spots—peel it and cut away any small sections that might be overly soft (the overly ripe spots will be darker in color, translucent and softer than the rest of the fruit). It's delicious cut into chunks for breakfast, with a squeeze of limón criollo (the tiny round Mexican lime), a sprinkle of salt, and a dash of powdered chile if you like a little heat with your tropical fruit. For dinner, papaya slices combine with thinly sliced red onion, toasted pecans, and fresh watercress to make an exotic and refreshing salad. Try the salad with a raspberry vinaigrette dressing, either your own concoction or a bottled variety.

There are nearly 2,000 varieties of mango grown worldwide.  India produces more mangos than all other fruits produced in that country combined. The mango, king of fruits, is related—believe it or not—to poison ivy. Cultivated in Asia for more than 4,000 years, the growing of mangos has now spread to most parts of the tropical and sub-tropical world. The mango could well be the national fruit of Mexico.

A mango tree can grow 75 to 100 feet high and bears thousands of fruits each year. During mango season (June-August) here in the Guadalajara area, we use caution when walking under enormous mango trees; one of the heavy fruits could inflict a mighty thump to the top of an unsuspecting head.

Mangos are so wonderfully versatile that it's difficult to choose one particular mango recipe for you to try. Eaten fresh for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, the mango is unbeatable. One friend substitutes mango slices for fresh peaches when making cobbler, pie, or Brown Betty. Another makes a fantastic mango mousse, and yet another is renowned for her mango sorbet.

Cook's Tip:
Cutting up a mango can leave you with juice up to your elbows, stains on your clothing, and stringy shreds of fruit in your mixing bowl. Here's the simplest way to cut a mango with minimal mess, loss of fruit, and frustration. You'll be pleased that your mango, cut this way, will not be the least bit stringy.

Lay the mango on your cutting board with the narrowest side facing up. With a very sharp knife, cut completely through the mango along one side of the broad, flat seed. Then cut through the mango along the other side of the seed, leaving a narrow strip of skin and flesh around the perimeter of the seed. Set the seed portion aside.

Lay the two halves of the mango skin-side down on the cutting board. Cut through the mango flesh (but not through the skin) to make approximately nine diamond-shaped pieces in each mango half. Then gently flip each half of the mango inside out, so that the diamond-shaped pieces pop up. Use your knife to cut each piece free of the skin.

Next, cut the skin from the strip of mango surrounding the seed. Cut the flesh in pieces as large and as close to the seed as you can.  Cut all the mango flesh into pieces the size you need.

Voilà, no strings, no shreds, and no lost juice.

My inviolable household rule is that the one who cuts up the mango gets to slurp any remaining fruit from the seed. Try to suck the seed until it's bone-white--that's how we do it South of the Border.

The banana is a familiar North of the Border favorite. Babies eat it as their first mashed fruit; older folks can eat one a day for an easy daily dose of potassium. Here in the subtropics, we have a huge variety of bananas that are just beginning to make their way north to Latin markets in the United   States and Canada.

The guineo (similar to the ordinary banana), the dominico (a tiny banana also known as the ladyfinger), the manzano (the 'apple' banana), and the plátano macho (the 'macho' banana) are only four of the many types of this fruit that we see regularly in our markets.

The tiny ladyfinger banana, three to four inches long, is delicious eaten as a snack. The peel is almost paper-thin and the firm flesh is sweeter than most full-size bananas. The manzano banana has reddish peel and a marked apple-banana flavor.

The plátano macho is my particular favorite, however. While it's still green and hard, it can be sliced into and fried into savory, salty chips called tostones. Fully ripened—the skin at this stage is dark brown or black—the plátano macho is called the maduro (mature or ripe). I don't get nervous even when I see that my maduros have a spot or two of mold on the skins. That's when they're the best, and this way to prepare them is my favorite. Be careful, they're addictive.

Plátanos Machos Fritos
Fried Sweet Plantains

2 very ripe plátanos machos (plantains)
vegetable oil

Peel the plaintains. Cut each plantain on the diagonal into pieces 1/4" thick.

Heat approximately 1/4" vegetable oil in a large non-stick or cast iron skillet. The oil should be quite hot but not smoking. If the oil starts to smoke, remove the skillet from the heat until the oil cools down slightly.

Put as many of the plaintain slices in the frying pan as will fit without touching one another. Fry on one side until golden brown. Flip each slice over and fry until golden on the other side. Add oil to the skillet if necessary and continue frying the plantain slices until all are done.

Drain thoroughly on paper toweling.

Serve for breakfast with fried or scrambled eggs, refried beans, and hot tortillas. The fried plantains are particularly delicious when topped with a dollop of Mexican crema (or sour cream).

The tuna (prickly pear cactus fruit) is an unlikely-looking addition to the table. The thick pale green or deep red skin is covered with spines, the fruit is filled with BB-size hard seeds, and the flesh is normally either pallid grayish-green or red. Nevertheless, the tuna is one of the most refreshing and delicious fruits of Mexico.  Chilled, peeled, and eaten either out of hand or (in a more refined style) from a plate, with a knife and fork, the tuna cools you from the inside, the way a cold slice of watermelon brings brief respite to a hot afternoon. Swallow the seeds along with the flesh; they cause no harm unless your doctor has suggested that you not eat seedy foods.

The maracuyá (passion fruit) is unusual even for the subtropics. It looks like a large greenish-yellow egg with a stem attached. The skin of the passion fruit is thin but hard. You will need a sharp or serrated knife to cut through the top third of the 'shell'. The pulp of the passion fruit is cradled in the bottom of the remaining shell. Pale green and filled with small seeds, the pulp honestly doesn't look like anything you would want to eat, but it has a sweetly tart flavor that's quite agreeable. Some people scoop the pulp and seeds out of the shell and stir them into a glass of orange juice to drink; others simply eat the pulp with a spoon, directly from the shell—seeds and all.

The mamey is a love-it-or-leave-it sort of fruit with a hairy brown shell and rich peachy-red flesh. Some folks crave its sweet, soft, candied yam-like flavor while others can't stand the thought of it. I'm in the latter category, but a California friend has to buy a ripe mamey or two immediately each time she visits me.

Here in Mexico, the flesh of the mamey is also used medicinally, as a cream to cure certain skin conditions. The inside part of the large seed can be toasted, ground, and rubbed on the eyelashes and eyebrows to prevent them from falling out.

This series of photographs, recipes, and descriptions is just the beginning of your knowledge of the tropical fruits available season by season here in Mexico. Each harvest time brings new and different produce to our markets. We learn as we live here to anticipate certain local fruits at certain times of the year: fresas (strawberries) starting in February; tiny orange-red ciruelas (plums) late in the summer; the tejocote (similar to a small crabapple) early in winter. There are other fruits gathered locally in the wild: the capulín (a kind of wild cherry) and the guamúchil (a small whitish, crisp fruit that grows on trees, in a twisted pod).

In addition, of course, we have oranges, grapefruit, pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, peaches, apricots, apples, pears, grapes, and tangerines in their seasons. All of these well-known fruits are generally picked in season and at the peak of ripeness here in Mexico and will cause you to lick your fingers, reach for seconds, and exclaim, "You know, I don't think I've ever really tasted one of these before!"

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme...And Then Some!

The  cuisines of Mexico--and there are many--are a fantastic amalgam of indigenous corn-based food preparations with a heavy overlay of Spanish ingredients, a strong influence of Moorish flavors, and a lagniappe of French artifice from the mid-19th Century. There is no one cuisine in this big country, although some popular dishes are found in every region. Not every cook prepares enchiladas with the same list of ingredients; tacos, although ubiquitous in Mexico, can be different at every crowded taco stand.

Many of the herbs and spices that you use in your own North of the Border kitchen are also used in the Mexican kitchen. Garlic, cinnamon, oregano, and thyme are in widespread use here. Cumin, cloves, tarragon, and mint show up frequently. Lemon grass, which we usually think of as an ingredient in Thai or Vietnamese dishes, is commonly grown in many parts of Mexico and is used to make tea.

A good part of the differences in the regional cuisines of Mexico is each region's use of herbs. Some of those herbs are completely unknown to those of us whose familiarity with Mexican food stops with Pepe's Taco Hut on Main Street, USA. Pepe, whose mother's family emigrated to the USA from the Mexican state of Hidalgo, prepares the restaurant's platillos fuertes (main dishes) from recipes passed down from his abuelita (grandmother), who lived for 97 years in the same Hidalgo village. He's adapted those recipes to include the ingredients he can find in the States and to the palates of his customers.

Oregano is quite common in Mexican cooking. It can be used either fresh or dried. A small pot of oregano in a sunny spot of your kitchen garden will usually be plenty for all your cooking needs. If you live in a place where the growing season is short, harvest oregano periodically through the summer, tie the stems in small bunches, and hang upside down in a dark place to dry. It dries very fast and retains most of its aroma and flavor. Discard the stems and store the crisp leaves in an airtight, lightproof containers.

Because the growing season in most parts of Mexico is almost year-round, I can always cut a fresh sprig of oregano or two to use when making spaghetti sauce, pescado a la veracruzana, (fish prepared in the style of Veracruz) or other tomato-based sauces. I wash the sprigs and either strip off the leaves into the pot or put the entire sprig into the sauce for seasoning.

The Mexican kitchen uses a wide range of other herbs. The Spanish names read like a mysterious litany: albahaca, epazote, estragón, hoja santa, hierbabuena; comino, clavo, and romero. In English, they are (in order) basil, wormweed, tarragon, holy leaf, mint, cumin, cloves, and rosemary.

Epazote grows wild all over Mexico and in parts of the United States. Several months ago I paid ten pesos at the tianguis (street market) in Ajijic for a pot of it to plant in my garden. As I was carrying the pot home, my neighbor, Doña Mago, saw me and exclaimed, "Porque compraste eso?" ("Why did you buy that?").

"Well, you know" I answered, "I like it to cook in my beans, to make quesadillas, for the flavor—"

"No, no, no, amiga!" she cried, and pointed a finger toward the corner. "It grows up through the cracks in the sidewalk just down the street. You should have asked me to show you where to find it. You could have saved your money. When I want some, I just go over there and cut a piece." It's true. When I was out for a walk the next day, I noticed for the first time the epazote plant she had mentioned.

Regardless of my profligate waste of ten pesos, I do like to cook a big sprig of epazote in a pot of beans. The herb is originally from Mexico and Central America. The indigenous language name that was given to epazote is derived from the Nahuatl words 'epti' and 'zotle': the combined word means 'skunk sweat'. As you can imagine, the herb has a very strong and distinctive flavor. According to Mexican kitchen lore, epazote also has anti-flatulent properties, which is why it's smart to add it to the boiling bean pot.

Other plants used to give uncommon seasonings to the cuisines of Mexico are hoja de plátano (banana leaf) and hoja de aguacate (avocado leaf). You won't be able to run right out to your nearest Safeway or HEB store to find these. If you live in an area where there's a large Asian population, you'll find packages of frozen banana leaves in any well-stocked Asian food market. As for avocado leaves—well, if you or your neighbor are lucky enough to have an avocado tree, you can just go pick some. Unfortunately there's no seasoning substitute for them.

Hoja santa is used extensively in Mexican cooking. It's a large, heart-shaped leaf that comes from a tall, bushy plant—a plant that will take over the garden space that it's planted in and then some, if you let it. It's a native of Mexico and has medicinal properties as well as seasoning uses. The flavor of hoja santa is reminiscent of licorice.

Banana leaves are used for wrapping meats to prepare barbacoa (southeastern Mexican barbecue, cooked in a pit) and for wrapping and flavoring tamales from the Yucatán Peninsula in far southeastern Mexico. Avocado leaves are used as a flavoring agent; like hoja santa, they have a mild taste somewhat similar to licorice.

As you can see, Mexican home cooking is far more than tacos and enchiladas. The more unusual kitchen herbs of Mexican cuisine add intense flavor without adding that blast of spiciness that we so often mistake for the only seasoning of Mexico.

The Corn Kitchen

Corn is the staple and basic food of Mexico.  It's the place to begin this culinary journey.  There's nothing  in the food cultures of the rest of North America remotely comparable to the importance of corn in Mexico. 

Corn was so important in the lives of the Incas, Mayas and Aztecs that it was elevated to a special role in the culture. Centéotl, the corn god, and Xilonen, goddess of the corn ear, played a primary role in pre-Conquest mythology and religious practices. In some Mexican villages, it's still customary to make offerings to the corn plant itself prior to planting.  Farmers offer flowers, coffee, and aguardiente (a strong alcohol distilled from sugar cane) to the seed corn, along with prayers and songs specific to the occasion.

Another Mayan legend tells that when the gods had organized the earth, the water and the animals, they then turned to creating a being who would understand the goodness of life. First they tried molding a man of clay, but he was weak and inept. Then they attempted making a man and a woman of bark, but they lacked intelligence and gratitude. Finally the gods created beings whose flesh was made of corn and had the same colors as corn. These beings could think and could thank the gods that made them.

From that day forward--right up to the present moment--corn has been central to the Mexican diet and the Mexican way of life.  Think of its infinite uses: the ubiquitous tortilla (a family of five might consume as much as a kilogram--2.2 pounds--of tortillas per person in the course of a day's meals), antojitos (little whims) made of nixtamal-ized corn, and an assortment of delicious preparations that ranges from the hundreds of varieties of tamales to tiny region-specific soup dumplings. 

Corn can be yellow, white, blue, red, green, or black.   Any housewife can soak and boil the kernels and then grind them into dough--that's nixtamal-ization.  She can cook the prepared whole kernels in rich soups.  The variety of corn most often used in today's Mexico is cacahuacintle, Nahuatl for--what else--corn.  Cacahuacintle produces large ears and soft, broad kernels and makes an excellent pozole, a rich soup traditionally prepared with nixtamal-ized corn kernels and pork meat.  In Mexico, a whole cabeza de puerco (pig's head) is the foundation of the soup's broth. 

No matter how humble, it's rare to find a meal in Mexico that does not include corn.  For desayuno (breakfast), for comida (the main meal of the day), and for cena (late supper), corn's what's on the table.  We'll be talking much more about this gift of Centéotl as time goes by.

Beloved and Beautiful Mexico

The joy of Mexico rings out multi-colored, multi-faceted, multi-flavored, the adventure of a lifetime.  From the first tentative step across the border, we're led into a world that is not one we've known.  Whether we cross a culinary border that shoots us into a new sphere of Mexico's rich flavors, an intellectual border that makes the mind reel with new ways of thinking, or a spiritual border that leads us to reconsider our feelings about a country so 'other' that we might as well be on the moon, we'll never look at life quite the same way as before we crossed over.  Mexico, Mexico...beloved land of the sun...we greet you as we greet the dawn, with joy and gladness.