Mexico Cooks!

Panza Llena, Corazón Contento (Full Stomach, Happy Heart)

Frijoles boil in a clay pot on the fogón (on-the-ground cooking fire).  The fire ring is the wheel rim of a truck, the wood is what was available.  The clay pot ensures old-fashioned flavor and Mexico Cooks!' interest in the cooking process ensured old-fashioned hospitality.  "Come back at 1:30," the cook told us.  "The beans will be ready and I'll make some tortillas."

Twenty or more years ago, Mexico Cooks! ate a once-in-a-lifetime meal in Mexico.  Simplicity itself, the comida (midday meal) consisted of steamed white rice piled with home-grown sliced bananas, homemade fresh cheese, frijoles de la olla (beans in their pot liquor, freshly cooked as in the photo above), and hand-patted tortillas, hot from the comal (griddle).  That meal, served in an outdoor kitchen, was our introduction to Mexican tradition, authenticity, and hospitality, all on a level we had never known before.

Food, shared with friends and acquaintances, brings us together in elemental hospitality.  Food and the sharing of it in Mexico have, since earliest times, given rise to wonderful dichos (sayings) from the kitchen. 

This hand-embroidered tablecloth is on display at Pátzcuaro's Museo Regional del Arte Popular (Regional Folk Arts Museum).  Every saying sewn into the cloth is a dicho de la cocina.  Mexico Cooks! will publish an article about this beautiful museum on April 18, 2009.

Quoting a dicho de la cocina always brings a smile.  Here are a few favorites:

• Mujer que guisa, se casa a prisa.  (The woman who cooks is soon married.)
• A comer y a misa, a la primer llamada.  (To eat and to Mass, go at the first call.)
• Mejor llegar a tiempo que ser invitado.  (It's better to arrive on time than to be invited.)

Rich or poor, people always invite others to share their table.  It's seriously offensive to refuse an offered meal.

• Al que nace para tamal, del cielo le caen las hojas.  If you're born to be a tamal, your corn husks will fall from heaven.
• Come a gusto y placentero y que ayune tu heredero.  Eat what you like and at your pleasure--let your descendants fast!
• Cuando el ratón está lleno, hasta la harina le sabe amarga.  When the mouse is full, even flour tastes bitter to him.

Red pozole, made with pork, chiles, and nixtamal (processed dried corn), is one of Mexico's most comforting meals.  For a wonderfully rich recipe, try this one from our friend Rolly's favorite cook, Doña Martha.

• Desayunar como rey, comer como príncipe y cenar como mendigo.  Eat breakfast like a king, eat at midday like a prince, and have supper like a beggar.
• El hambre es la buena, no la comida.  Hunger is the good thing, not the food.
• El que parte y comparte, se queda con la mejor parte.  The one who cuts and serves the food gets the best part.

Uchepos de leche are a regional Michoacán specialty served for breakfast or supper.

• Fuchi… ¡quiero más!  It's AWFUL...give me some more!
• Gástalo en la cocina y no en medicina.  Spend it in the kitchen, not on medicine.
• Invierno buen tiempo para el herrero, el panadero y el chocolatero.  Winter's a good time for the ironworker, the baker, and the chocolate maker.
  

Mexican sopa de pan--bread soup--is hearty with shredded chicken, sliced boiled eggs, olives, raisins, capers and roasted tomatoes.

• La comida entra por los ojos. Food comes in through the eyes.
• La paciencia es amarga, pero sus frutos son dulces.  Patience is bitter, but its fruits are sweet.
• La venganza es dulce al paladar, pero amarga para la garganta.  Vengance is sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the throat.

An outdoor kitchen is still common in rural areas of Mexico.  This one is lovely, dressed in soft blue paint and flowers.

Later this year we'll have a look at more dichos de la cocina--kitchen sayings--and kitchen-related photos from Mexico Cooks!.

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

Rabbit Cook-A-Thon in San Miguel de Allende

Antique wooden crosses grace the light-filled comedor (dining room) at Rancho Casa Luna, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.

Three ranch-raised rabbits, ready to prepare in the professional kitchens at Rancho Casa Luna.

A few months ago, Mexico Cooks! 'met' (in that 21st Century virtual way, via a social networking website) Dianne Kushner, owner of the fabulous Casa Luna bed and breakfast hotels and newly opened Rancho Casa Luna (for weddings, private parties, and cooking classes) in San Miguel de Allende.  As it turned out, Dianne and I had a number of real-life friends in common.  Dianne invited Mexico Cooks! to Rancho Casa Luna to cook with some old friends as well as with some new friends. 

Three teams of professional chefs and their assistants made the menu plans: rabbit, grown at Rancho Casa Luna and cooked in a variety of ways.  We chose a Mexican recipe, a French recipe, and a Spanish recipe and were happily surprised by a fourth recipe for a Moroccan tagine.

Billie Mercer, Judy McKnight, and Dianne Kushner worked as chef's assistants.  They're wearing their team aprons, embroidered with flags of Mexico, France, and Spain.  Each of the teams decided to cook in an unfamiliar cuisine, just for the exercise.  Mexico Cooks! was eager (and a little nervous) to be in charge of a French recipe.

It was hard to drag ourselves away from relaxing on the terrace at Dianne's heaven-on-earth. 

Rancho Casa Luna is perfectly designed for lounging on the terrace, watching the earth spin slowly from daybreak to its last purple light.  Nevertheless, Ruth Alegría, Ben, and Billie (the Mexican team); Henri, Jessica, and Dianne (the  Spanish team), and Judy and I (the French contingent) gathered at eleven o'clock Friday morning to start hopping (you should forgive the expression).  We had nine ranch-raised rabbits, what looked like a ton of fresh vegetables, and every pot, pan, spoon, and knife you can imagine.

A few of the ingredients for the Spanish rabbit preparation.  The photo shows about a quarter of the enormous bunch of gorgeous fresh rosemary that Henri and Jessica cut to bring for their dish.

Our teams of chefs and assistants prepared other dishes to accompany the rabbits.  By team:

• Mexico:  cold crema de chile poblano (creamed chile poblano soup) with minced apple, the Moroccan rabbit tagine, fresh mango pie.  Team Mexico prepared Conejo en Chile (Rabbit in Chile)from Diana Kennedy's Mexican Regional Cooking, pp. 74-75.
• Spain:  parsleyed new potatoes, braised acelgas (Swiss chard), salad of grated carrot, cilantro, and jugo de limón
• France: fresh green beans with diced fresh red pepper, mixed-greens salad with caramelized walnuts and balsamic vinaigrette. 

Jessica and Henri Moyal of San Miguel de Allende (with Dianne as their assistant on Team Spain) sliced and diced, chopped and peeled--and peered intently at the recipe for their rabbit.

Team Spain's rabbit, browning perfectly, had marinated overnight in balsamic vinegar.

Ben Wenske formerly owned the Tuba Garden restaurant in San Francisco, California.  He was one-third of Team Mexico for the rabbit marathon.  Judy of Team France is stealing secrets as Ben hands a recipe to one of the other teams.

Lapin aux Pruneaux, French rabbit with prunes, is ready for the oven.

Moroccan rabbit tagine, ready to bake.

Rabbit Tagine
(courtesy Ziryab Mediterranean Grill, San Francisco, CA)

Ingredients
16 garlic cloves, peeled
3/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley
2 cups chopped onions
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons paprika
4 teaspoons grated lemon peel
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon saffron threads
1 rabbit, approximately 1.5 kilos, cut in 8 pieces
3/4 cup olives, black or green
1 1/2 lemons, sliced thin

Procedure
In a food processor, finely chop garlic, cilantro, and parsley.  Transfer to a bowl.  Add onions and the next nine ingredients; mix well.  Add rabbit pieces, olives, and lemons; toss.  Cover and chill for at least two hours and up to one day.

Pre-heat oven to 450°F.  Put rabbit and seasonings in a large ovenproof pot.  Add 1.5 cups water.  Cover and bake until rabbit is cooked through, approximately one hour.  Serve from baking dish or transfer to a warm platter.

Billie surveys the peaceful dining room at Rancho Casa Luna, waiting for the arrival of massive amounts of food and happy cooks.

At last!  The nine of us sat down for comida (main meal of the day) at about four in the afternoon.  That's Dianne Kushner, with her back to us; to her left is Henri Moyal, then Judy McKnight, then the top of Ben Wenske's head, Jessica Moyal, Ruth Alegría, and Ned and Billie Mercer.  Mexico Cooks! took the photo.  Our meal started with Ruth's chilled crema de chile poblano.

One dinner plate, completely loaded!  We had almost enough food.  If the truth be known, we could easily have fed 20 or more guests, in addition to our teams of cooks and assistants. 

The rabbit cook-a-thon was an amazing combination of old friends, new friends, work, and fun.  Thanks to our generous and welcoming host Dianne Kushner at Rancho Casa Luna, to the openness, warmth, and spirit of sharing in the kitchens, to laughter and good people and best of all, to great eating. 

We're planning to produce more events--teaching, cooking, eating--and Mexico Cooks! would love for all of you to participate.  Let us know when you'd like to come to our newest outpost in San Miguel de Allende and we'll let YOU know all the details.

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

Comida Mexicana para La Cuaresma: Special Mexican Food for Lent

Tortitas de papa (potato croquettes, left) and frijoles negros (black beans, right) from the south of Mexico are ideal for a Lenten meal.

Catholic Mexicans observe la Cuaresma (Lent), the 40-day (excluding Sundays) penitential season that precedes Easter, with special prayers, vigils, and with extraordinary meatless meals cooked only on Ash Wednesday and during Lent.  Many Mexican dishes--seafood, vegetable, and egg--are normally prepared without meat, but some other meatless dishes are particular to Lent. Known as comida cuaresmeña, many of these delicious Lenten foods are little-known outside Mexico and some other parts of Latin America.

Many observant Catholics believe that the personal reflection and meditation demanded by Lenten practices are more fruitful if the individual refrains from heavy food indulgence and makes a promise to abstain from other common habits such as eating candy, smoking cigarettes, and drinking alcohol. 

Atole de grano, a Michoacán specialty made of tender corn and licorice-scented anís, is a perfect cena (supper) for Lenten Fridays.

Lent began this year on Ash Wednesday, February 25.  Shortly before, certain food specialties began to appear in local markets. Vendors are currently offering very large dried shrimp for caldos (broths) and tortitas (croquettes), perfect heads of cauliflower for tortitas de coliflor (cauliflower croquettes), seasonal romeritos, and thick, dried slices of bolillo (small loaves of white bread) for capirotada (a kind of bread pudding).

This common Lenten preparation is romeritos en mole.  Romeritos, an acidic green vegetable, is in season at this time of year.  Although it looks a little like rosemary, its taste is relatively sour, more like verdolagas (purslane).

You'll usually see tortitas de camarón (dried shrimp croquettes) paired for a Friday comida (midday meal) with romeritos en mole, although they are sometimes bathed in a caldillo de jitomate (tomato broth) and served with sliced nopalitos (cactus paddles).

During Lent, the price of fish and seafood in Mexico goes through the roof due to the huge seasonal demand for meatless meals.  These beautiful huachinango (red snapper) come from Mexico's Pacific coast.

Chef Martín Rafael Mendizabal of La Trucha Alegre in Zitacuaro, Michoacán, prepared trucha deshuesada con agridulce de guayaba (boned trout with guava sweet and sour sauce) for the V Encuentro de Cocina Tradicional de Michoacán held in Morelia in December 2008.  The dish would be ideal for an elegant Lenten dinner.

Capirotada (Lenten bread pudding) is almost unknown outside Mexico.  Simple to prepare and absolutely delicious, it's hard to eat it sparingly if you're trying to keep a Lenten abstinence! 

Every family makes a slightly different version of capirotada: a pinch more of this, leave out that, add such-and-such.  Mexico Cooks! prefers to leave out the apricots and add dried pineapple.  Make it once and then tweak the recipe to your preference--but please do stick with traditional ingredients.

CAPIROTADA

Ingredients
*4 bollilos, in 1" slices (small loaves of dense white bread)
5 stale tortillas
150 grams pecans
50 grams prunes
100 grams raisins
200 grams peanuts
100 grams dried apricots
1 large apple, peeled and sliced thin
100 grams grated Cotija cheese
Peel of one orange, two uses
*3 cones piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar)
Four 3" pieces of Mexican stick cinnamon
2 cloves
Butter
Salt

*If you don't have bolillo, substitute slices of very dense French bread.  If you don't have piloncillo, substitute 1/2 cup tightly packed brown sugar.

A large metal or clay baking dish.

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 300°F.

Toast the bread and spread with butter.  Slightly overlap the tortillas in the bottom and along the sides of the baking dish to make a base for the capirotada.  Prepare a thin syrup by boiling the piloncillo in 2 1/2 cups of water with a few shreds of cinnamon sticks, 2/3 of the orange peel, the cloves, and a pinch of salt.

Place the layers of bread rounds in the baking dish so as to allow for their expansion as the capirotada cooks.  Lay down a layer of bread, then a layer of nuts, prunes, raisins, peanuts and apricots.  Continue until all the bread is layered with the rest.  For the final layer, sprinkle the capirotada with the grated Cotija cheese and the remaining third of the orange peel (grated).  Add the syrup, moistening all the layers  little by little.  Reserve a portion of the syrup to add to the capirotada in case it becomes dry during baking.

Bake uncovered until the capirotada is golden brown and the syrup is absorbed.  The bread will expand as it absorbs the syrup.  Remember to add the rest of the syrup if the top of the capirotada looks dry.

Cool the capirotada at room temperature.  Do not cover until it is cool; even then, leave the top ajar.

Try very hard not to eat the entire pan of capirotada at one sitting!

A positive thought for the remainder of Lent: give up discouragement, be an optimist.

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

Torito de Petate, February 2009: Carnaval en Morelia!

Morelia's 2009 Festival del Torito de Petate starred "El Michoacano" featuring Fuente Las Tarascas (the Tarascan fountain).

Morelia's annual Festival del Torito de Petate (literally, festival of the little bull made of woven reeds) ushers in Carnaval here in the city.  These little bulls are hardly little, and are hardly made of woven reeds.  Some measure as high as five meters (more than 15 feet) and weigh in at more than 110 kilos (nearly 250 pounds).  Built today by group members from Morelia's working-class neighborhoods, the danza del torito de petate stems from dances that date back as far as 1586, shortly after the Spanish conquest of the New World.

The towering Torito Azteca incorporates inventive components of pre-hispanic design.  You can see the little bull's red eyes, white nostrils and red tongue near the bottom center of the photograph.

This intricate guacamaya (macaw) measures at least five meters tall.  A strong young man carries the heavy torito on his shoulders and performs a several-minute-long dance.  Cheering crowds and a tumultuous local band urge him and his costumed companions to ever faster spins.

Children absolutely love the Festival del Torito de Petate.  The little boy on the left is wearing a horse costume held up by suspenders.  He's whipping his steed in more and more frenzied circles.  The taller boy in the center has a bull costume mounted on his shoulders; Mexico Cooks! could only capture the bull's umm...tail...as the boy whirled to the music.

Sixty neighborhoods participated in the 2009 edition of Morelia's Festival del Torito de Petate.  Mexico Cooks! watched the line of elaborately colorful creatures as it formed alongside Plaza Valladolid; the giant toritos were accompanied by crowds of whoop-it-up well-wishers, cheerleaders, and frenetic dancers.

Mexico Cooks! asked this young man why his face was painted half orange, half black.  "It matches our torito," he explained.

"I represent the devil, but you know it's not for real.  It's just for the toritos dance." 

Little ones perched high up on Dad's shoulders for a great view.

Every age celebrates Morelia's Carnaval.  The toy this elderly woman is holding is also a torito de petate.  Strolling vendors set up all over Plaza Valladolid hawk these little toritos to the crowd of thousands.

Here's information about the 2008 Festival del Torito de Petate, along with a lot more pictures.   Plan to be here in Morelia during Carnaval next year! We'll expect you on the Saturday before Ash Wednesday for this exciting party.

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