Mexico Cooks!

Witness to Life: The Rebozo in Mexico :: El Rebozo en México, Testigo de la Vida

Lovely young Agustina in her pink silk rebozo (long rectangular shawl).

A friend recently gave me a copy of an old and anonymous Mexican poem, written in Spanish, in homage to the rebozo.  The rebozo's importance to Mexican women cannot be exaggerated: from swaddled infancy to shrouded death, a rebozo accompanies our women throughout their days.  It is at once warmth, shade, infant's cradle, cargo-bearer, fancy dress, screen for delicious flirtation, and a sanctuary from prying eyes.

I hope you enjoy my translation.

Michoacán-made rebozos and guitar, on exhibit in Morelia.  Note the elaborate fringes on both rebozos.

My Rebozo

Rummaging through my closet one fine day
I found this garment—my old rebozo!
How long had it been resting there?
Even I can’t say exactly.
But seeing it brought back so many memories
Tears clouded my eyes and fell one by one as I held
My beloved rebozo!

Mother and infant daughter wear matching rebozos, Fiesta de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Morelia, Michoacán 2010.

What a faithful friend you have been.
Shall we relive just an instant of that far-distant past?
When I first showed you off, you were so beautiful, so new,
With your lively color and flowing fringe
Your reflection gleamed in the mirror like the morning star!


Fine lace rebozo still on the loom, from the Reboceros de Aranza (Aranza Rebozo Weavers Cooperative).

Come on, come on, let me fling you over my heart
The way I did in bygone years,
Next to this heart that disappointment has turned to ash!
Don’t you remember that beautiful blouse I wore,
Embroidered with poppies and carnations?
Don’t you remember all my triumphs and successes,
And my flounced skirt, so full of its pretty sequins, beads, and glitter?

Lavender and white rebozo with elaborate fringe.

See, tightened to the span of my narrow waist and
Crossed just so over my straight young back
Showing off my fresh round breasts,
With two vertical parallel lines.
We stepped out to the beat of those long-ago songs,
That dance that determined my life.
Your fringes hung down just so!
And the two of us formed one soul.

Finely woven black and red rebozo.

How was it that I wanted him?  You know!
Rebozo, you heard first how I loved him!
Your fringes were hopeful prisoners of my teeth
While I heard the soft slow songs of love
Oh perverse rebozo, unfaithful friend!
You were my confidante and my hiding place
You pushed me, burning, into romance
Wrapped in your fringes as if they were cherished arms.

Intricately patterned deep red rebozo.

But what’s this I see!
An ugly hole
That looks like a toothless mouth
Bursting out into furious laughter.
You laugh at my romantic memories?
You make fun of my long gone triumphs?
You know that the one who loved me has forgotten me
And that my soul, just like my love, is sacked and plundered?

Two elderly women share a secret joke in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán.

And you—you aren’t even a shadow of what you were
And because we don’t remember what we have been
We are betrayed!  Old!  Faded!
I’ll throw you in a box with other trash—
You, who are a traitor and so worn out!
How strange and how complicated
Just like you, I also betrayed—sometimes--in little ways!
Those sweet lies and silly nonsense
That made so many of my yesterdays happy.

White and black rebozo fringed with feathers.

Laugh, rebozo!  Don’t you see that I’m laughing--not angry?
The tears that spring from these eyes
Are just laughter, nothing more.  I’m not crying, I’m laughing!
But how can I be laughing, when I hate you so?
Let your mantel cover my head
The way it did in days long past, when I was possessed
By a kiss so strong, so violent.

Gold and salmon rebozo de gala (fancy dress).

No!  I will not throw you away, old rebozo!
You have a soul like mine
A Mexican woman's soul, wild, unmanageable
That will not bend even when faced with death itself!
I will fold you up and keep you in the closet
And there, like a holy relic,
My heart will once again put on
Your flowing fringe.

Elderly flower seller, Pátzcuaro, Michoacán.

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Comida Mexicana para La Cuaresma: Special Mexican Food for Lent

Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, was March 5, 2014.  The following article has been very popular as a reference since it was first published on Mexico Cooks! in 2009.  So many people want to know what we eat in Mexico when we're not eating meat!  Enjoy...and buen provecho!

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 on the Fridays of 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.

Ash Wednesday, February 22, marked the beginning of Lent in 2012.  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.


Tortita de calabacita (little squash fritter) from the sorely missed Restaurante Los Comensales in Morelia, Michoacán.  Mexico Cooks! featured the restaurant (the name means 'The Diners') in October 2009.  Less than a year after our interview with her, Señora Catalina Aguirre Camacho, the owner of Los Comensales since 1980, became too elderly and incapacitated to continue to operate her wonderful restaurant.  This dish is wonderful for a Lenten supper.

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.

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Stencil Graffiti: Art and Politics on Mexico's Walls

"Bush Eats Mexico's S**T".  San Cristóbal, Chiapas, 2006.  All photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

Looking around--really observing the flow of life--in Mexico, it's easy to see that the times, they are a-changing.  Whether you're watching the wall of a farmer's field or suddenly spying an all-but-hidden wall around an obscure corner in Mexico City, you become aware that art, both art-for-art's-sake and political art, is everywhere.  These days, street art is sometimes hand-painted but more often than not, it's a stencil.

Delicately painted by hand, this peaceful, charmingly rendered bluebird (undoubtedly the bluebird of happiness) perches quietly on a light switch at Restaurante Rosetta.  Mexico City, 2013.


The chapulín (grasshopper) is an icon not only of Oaxaca's gastronomy, but also of the state's cultural identity.  It's about who we are, not simply what we eat.  "Made in Oaxaca" is the slogan's translation. Oaxaca de Juárez, 2013.


Another icon: in this case, art imitates art.  José María Hernández Urbina's original Art Deco-era statue, Fuente de los Cántaros (Water Jars Fountain), still graces the Teatro al Aire Libre Lindbergh (Lindbergh Open Air Theatre) wall in Parque México, Colonia La Condesa. This stencilled grafito graces the same wall. Mexico City,  November, 2013.


The actual fountain in Parque México.  Photo courtesy Judith McKnight.

Advertising Banda El Recodo (one of Mexico's most popular), this wall and others of its genre are hand-painted calls to party hearty.  These hand-painted advertisements are ubiquitous in every Mexican state, whether in huge cities or tiny villages.  The highly skilled but minimally paid graphics artists paint these signs freehand.  Photo courtesy theatlantic.com.


Mexico is a country of enormous and frequently surrealistic differences.  The stereotypical meek and humble Mexican contrasts sharply with the equally stereotypical highly politicized and revolution-hungry Mexican; the polemic is often contained in the self-same individual's mind and body.  These blood-red words read, "Mexico is no longer a country for cowards."  Mexico City, April 2013.

This wall in the State of Mexico originally held a no-nonsense civic-minded slogan: No Tirar Basura (Don't Throw Your Garbage Here).  One or two waggish political commentators superimposed stencils of (top, blue) former Mexican president Carlos Salina de Gortari kissing 2012 presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and (bottom, black) 2012 presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador.  No Tirar Basura, indeed. Estado de México, 2012. Photo courtesy hazmeelchinagdofavor.com.

Garage door, Mexico City, March 2014.

Calls to political action are common representations in urban street art.  At the end of 2013, Mexico's federal government voted to change the Constitution to allow some privatization of Mexico's petroleum industry.  That change has been argued all along the political spectrum. Is it good for Mexico?  Is it bad for Mexico?  This stencilled poster falls into the 'bad for' column.  The bureaucratic rats have parachuted onto our oil derricks, the police show up as granaderos (shield and truncheon-bearing 'crowd control' officers), and the poster calls for revolutionary action against so-called energy reform. Oaxaca de Juárez, January 2014.

Spirited.  Alive.  That's Mexico's graffiti, summed up in a single word on a tangerine wall.  Oaxaca de Juárez, January 2014.

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Adobo de Cerdo Huasteco, from Verde Blanco y Rojo by Ricardo Muñoz Zurita

Originally published in October 2011, this illustrated recipe for Adobo de Cerdo Huasteco is a perfect meal for February's cold weather.  Mexico Cooks! celebrates its seventh anniversary of publishing with this delicious meal to warm body and soul.  Enjoy!

Roasting roma tomatoes and onion quarters on a comal (in this case, a cast iron griddle).  That little tomato on the right looks downright happy to be toasting.

Several months ago, Mexico Cooks! was thrilled to receive a copy of Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita's newest recetario (cookbook), titled Verde, Blanco, y Rojo en la Cocina Mexicana.  Due to the pressures of moving and settling into a new and somewhat more frenetic life in Mexico City, the very attractive book sat patiently in the kitchen bookshelf with its 150 or so brother and sister cookbooks, waiting to be chosen.  'Choose me, choose me!' it whispered each time I passed by the shelf.  And finally I listened.

Serving-size pieces of maciza de cerdo (lean, fresh pork leg) simmering with onion and garlic.

My wife and I are very fond of traditional Mexican cuisine.  Like most people, we have our favorite dishes.  And like most people, I have a hard time breaking habits and wading into a new cookbook: it means learning a new format, a new organization of ingredients, and a new dish that I had never prepared. 

The first task was reading the recipe all the way through to the end to make sure that I had all of the ingredients and utensils on hand prior to starting to cook and that I understood the order of cooking.  It's really no fun at all to start the preparations and discover at the time of need that oops, there is no garlic and ouch, that one bowl I really wanted to use is full of last night's stew.  You'll want to organize yourself and prepare your mise en place well before you turn on the stove. 

Differentiating between dried chiles ancho and chiles mulato can be confusing.  If you open a chile ancho and hold it up to the light, it looks from the inside like red stained glass.  The mulato, on the other hand, looks brown when held to the light.  It's immediately apparent which this is.

Ingredients
2 kg (approximately 4.5 pounds) lean pork meat, cut into serving-size pieces
1 white onion, cut into quarters
1 head of garlic, split in half
4 liters water
6 tsp salt
8 chiles guajillo
5 large chiles ancho
3 large tomatos, roasted
1/2 white onion, quartered and roasted
5 garlic cloves
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dry Mexican oregano, crumbled
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 cloves
3 Tbsp pork lard (you can substitute oil if you can't get real rendered lard)
1/2 cup white vinegar
  

Toasting the chiles ancho on the comal.

Utensils 
Comal or griddle
Mesh strainer
Several small or medium-size mixing bowls
Mixing spoons
Heavy-bottom pot with lid
Blender

 
Toasting the chiles guajillo on the comal.

Procedure
Put the pork, onion, and head of garlic in a large pot.  Cover with water, add 4 tsp salt and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat until the water is simmering and cook until the pork is tender, about an hour.  Remove the pork from the water, drain the liquid into a bowl, and reserve both the meat and the cooking liquid for later use.

Remove the stems, seeds, and veins from all of the chiles and discard them.  Lightly toast the chiles on the comal, being careful not to burn them.  If they turn black, they will be bitter.  Soak the toasted chiles in four cups of the reserved cooking liquid from the pork.

Blend the soaked chiles with enough of the cooking liquid to make a smooth, somewhat liquid paste. 

Roast the tomatoes, onions, and garlic on the comal, then blend them until they make a very smooth sauce.  If necessary for blending, add just a little of the reserved meat cooking liquid.  Using the wire mesh strainer, strain and reserve. 

Grind the cumin, the oregano, the pepper, and the cloves together until they are powdered.  Set aside for later use.

Over a high flame, heat the lard or oil in a heavy-bottomed pot until it smokes slightly.  Add the ground chiles (splatter alert!) and fry for about 15 minutes or until the mixture is reduced by about one-fourth.  Add the blended tomato mixture, the spices, and two tablespoons of salt.  When the mixture comes to a boil, lower the fire and allow to simmer until the sauce has reduced a little.

Add the meat, the vinegar, and three cups of the reserved meat cooking liquid.  Correct the seasonings and cook with the lid ajar over low heat (or bake covered in a 350° oven) for about an hour.  The finished sauce should be thick enough to cover the meat without sliding off the pieces.  

Serves 12. 

The finished recipe also freezes very well.  Mexico Cooks! served half the recipe as comida for six and froze the rest for a later meal. 

Both types of toasted chiles then soaked for a few minutes in some of the freshly cooked hot pork broth.

The mix of various seasonings (foreground), the blended and strained chiles (left rear) and the blended tomato/onion/garlic mixture (right rear). 

The pork now needs to simmer in the adobo for an hour or more, either in the oven or over a very low fire.  The fragrance will drive you crazy, it is so tantalizing.  Mexico Cooks! prepared this recipe on top of the stove using the cast iron comal as a heat diffuser. 

Adobo de cerdo huasteco, ready to eat!  Serve the dish with steamed white rice and plenty of hot-off-the-comal corn tortillas.

The wonderful Spanish-language Verde, Blanco, Rojo en La Cocina Mexicana, by my friend Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita of Restaurante Azul/Condesa.

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Bazar Sábado, San Ángel, Mexico City

Sun-and-shade dappled Plaza San Jacinto, Colonia San Ángel (in the southern part of Mexico City) hosts the weekly Bazar Sábado (Saturday Bazaar).

Our favorite place for brunch at the Bazar Sábado is directly across the street from the scene in the first photo. This is the Fonda San Ángel, where the every-Saturday brunch will give you the fuel you need for shopping.  You will love it!  Photo courtesy Fonda San Ángel.

These hand-embroidered table runners are made in the state of Guerrero.  We also saw full-size table cloths, napkins, and place mats. We bought a dozen or two fabric coasters hand-embroidered with birds, fish, and flowers.

Napkin rings to match any decorator's color combination.

Crowds at Bazar Sábado tend to be large and shoppers are fairly aggressive.  Lots of tourists go: you'll hear Japanese, French, English, German, and a slew of other languages on the pathways of Plaza San Jacinto.  Be prepared to spend a little more money than you might in some other markets, but the atmosphere and the enormous selection of goods will give you great stories to tell back home.  Bazar Sábado is worth it!

Wooden boxes, the tops decorated with icons ranging from the sacred to the profane.  Frida Kahlo, Che Guevara, and Mexico's lucha libre (wrestling) stars are among the most popular secular images.

Children's toys made of wood.  A million years ago, Mexico Cooks! knew these toys as Jacob's ladders.  Remember the sound they make?  Click, clack, click, clack, click, clack--now turn it over and start again.

Woven straw soft baskets to match your napkin rings.  We loved them, although ultimately we decided not to buy them.  We have a lot of baskets already.

Mexico Cooks!' antique painted box from Olinalá, Guerrero may well have been sold originally at Bazar Sábado.  Booths there still sell similar examples--new, of course.

 
Mira, los títeres!  He's still young enough for the excitement of these simple fantasy-animal marionettes.

Maestro Enrique Segarra López, one of Mexico's most famous mid-20th Century photographers, holds court on Saturdays at his booth.  It's always a joy to spend some time with him.

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