Mexico Cooks!

Restaurante Los Comensales in Morelia, Michoacán :: How We Dined in Morelia in the Past

The covered dining terraza at Los Comensales bordered the restaurant's central garden, beautifully in bloom in rain or sunshine.  Indoor dining was also available, but I loved to sit on the covered terraza to hear the sweet song of birds or to listen to the rain dripping on the greenery.

In years gone by, when Mexico Cooks! was looking for a traditional old-style Morelia comida corrida (soup-to-nuts main meal of the day, usually inexpensive), I often headed to Restaurante Los Comensales, on Calle Zaragoza in the Centro Histórico.  A Morelia tradition since 1980, Los Comensales (the name means 'the diners') satisfied its clients' hunger very well, and in a genteel, old-fashioned way.

A small plate of verduras en escabeche (pickled vegetables) was the first dish to arrive at our table.  This little plate holds carrots, cauliflower, green beans, chayote, and onions--along with a bay leaf or two and a sprig of oregano.

The lovely terraza and dining rooms at Los Comensales were filled with memories of days gone by.  Photographs of the founders--Señora Aguirre has survived her husband by many years--are scattered on the walls.  He was a bullfight aficionado; she was a great home cook, specializing in the broad gamut of Michoacán comida casera (home cooking).  In 19th and 20th Century Mexico, French and Spanish cuisine were the sought-after flavors when Mexicans dined out in style.  Mexican cooking was considered second-class restaurant cooking at best.  Nevertheless, Sra. Aguirre and her husband decided to feature typical Michoacán cuisine when they opened Los Comensales in their own home in early 1980. 

One always had a choice between at least two soups of the day.  The last time Mexico Cooks! enjoyed comida at Los Comensales, the choices were between caldo tlalpeño that traditionally featured tender garbanzos and a touch of chile chipotle (pictured above) and crema de zanahoria (cream of carrot).   We've also loved the delicious leek, mushroom, and potato soup and the simple consomé de pollo (chicken consommé).

Los Comensales was the first private home in Morelia to be converted into a restaurant.  It immediately became a great success.  In 1989, the pair opened a second downtown Morelia restaurant.  Las Viandas de San José (The Foods of Saint Joseph), located directly in front of Morelia's Templo San José, was in the same style as Los Comensales: the rich and varied cuisine of the couple's beloved home state, Michoacán.

This tortita de calabacita was a tremendous hit, fresh and delicious in its pool of caldillo (thin tomato sauce).  We chose it from the sopas section of the comida corrida menu.  Other choices were spaghetti in cream sauce or standard Mexican red rice with diced vegetables.

Mexican sopas are divided into two classes: sopa aguada (wet soup) and sopa seca (dry soup). 

Sopa aguada is divided into three further categories: caldos, consomés, and cremas.  Caldos are clear broths, usually with other ingredients like vegetables and meat.  Consomés are similar to caldos, but may not have vegetables or meat in their ingredients.  Cremas are cream soups; the different possibilities are endless.

Sopa seca includes dishes such as pastas, rice, and vegetable tortitas--like the tortitas de calabacita shown above.  These are easy to prepare and absolutely delicious.


Peeling one of the Roma tomatoes to make caldillo.  Don't worry, you won't burn your fingers!

Tortitas de Calabacita (Little Zucchini Fritters)
Ingredients
6 small calabacitas (or zucchini), no more than 3" long
6 1/4" thick slices mild white cheese (queso fresco or queso panela, if possible)
2 eggs, separated
Salt
Flour
Vegetable oil for frying

Slice the calabacitas in half, lengthwise.  Place one slice of cheese between the slices of each calabacita.  Hold the slices of calabacita and cheese together with toothpicks.  Dredge each calabacita with salted flour.

Beat the egg whites until stiff.  Beat the egg yolks until thick and pale lemon in color.  Gently fold the yolks into the whites.

Heat oil in a frying pan until hot but not smoking.

Coat the floured calabacitas in the egg batter and fry until golden brown.  Serve bathed with caldillo.

Caldillo (thin tomato sauce)
4 or 5 red-ripe Roma tomatoes
1/2 small white onion
Chicken broth, preferably home-made
Oregano, preferably Mexican
Sea salt to taste
Vegetable oil for frying the sauce.  

Bring a small pot of water to a full rolling boil.  Add the tomatoes (I usually cut a 1/2" cross in the stem end) and boil till the skins split--just a single minute or a few seconds more.  Remove tomato peels; they'll slip off like gloves from your fingers.

Place the peeled tomatoes and the onion in a blender.  Add a very small amount of chicken broth and blend until smooth.

In a frying pan, fry the sauce in a bit of vegetable oil for about five minutes.  Add chicken broth until you have a very thin sauce.  Add a sprig of fresh oregano and salt to taste.  Cook for another five minutes and remove the oregano.  Strain the sauce through a wire strainer.

Plate each serving of calabacita on a small plate and pour enough sauce over each little squash--about 1/4 cup will do. 

Serves 6 as a side dish.

Carne de res en salsa chipotle (beef in a smoky chile sauce) was Mexico Cooks!' main dish.  Others sharing my table ordered milanesa de pollo (thinly sliced, lightly breaded chicken breast).

Los Comensales also offered an a la carta menu, but it never really tempted me.  The daily comida corrida offered such a wide variety of dishes that I always chose my meal from that menu.

Our dessert, Flan napolitano (Naples-style custard with caramel), is firmer than its ordinary cousin.  Flan napolitano is made with cream cheese, in addition to the usual milk and eggs.

The last time Mexico Cooks! dined at Los Comensales, my comida corrida was exactly what's pictured here.  The total cost for me and my two companions was $300 pesos; each comida corrida was $60 pesos, plus the addition to our order of a large jarra (pitcher) of naranjada (orangeade, made with freshly squeezed orange juice and sparkling water).  A tip was included in the cost of the meal.

Señora Catalina Aguirre Camacho, the owner of Los Comensales since 1980.  Because of her advanced age, she closed the restaurant in 2010, and passed away shortly thereafter.  She has gone to heaven to cook for God's angelitos.

Los Comensales was open for desayuno (breakfast) and comida every day except Wednesday.  I think of the restaurant so often, and miss it very much now that I am once again at home in Morelia.  Restaurants of this sort have all but disappeared in Mexico.

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Made At Home With Mexico-Grown Blackberries :: Not your Abuelita's Cobbler

Blackberries are one of the staples of the Mexico Cooks! kitchen.  In season nearly year-round, Mexico's blackberries are commercially grown primarily in the states of Michoacán and Jalisco.  I'm crushing this bowlful of delicious blackberries with Splenda® and a pinch of salt to add to breakfast yoghurt.  Wild blackberries (in the Purépecha language, tzitún) still grow in the oak and pine forests of Michoacán.

In 1994, the commercially cultivated blackberry first arrived in the area around Los Reyes, Michoacán.  High in the mountains, Los Reyes offered a perfect climate for the Brazos variety of erect blackberries.  Originally, the commercial growers planted only three hectáreas (about 6 acres) of berries.   Developed at Texas A&M University and introduced in 1959, 'Brazos' has been the Texas standard for years and is still a great variety. The berries are large and the plants produce heavily.  In Michoacán, this variety starts ripening early in May.  The berries are a just a little bit acid and are better for cooking and canning than fresh eating. This variety has more thorny plants and larger seeded fruit than many of the improved varieties.  In fact, the blackberries offered in Mexico's markets are huge, about an inch long by half an inch in diameter--as big as the ball of my thumb.


Brazos blackberries 'on the hoof'.

Since those 1994 beginnings, local growers have learned a tremendous amount about the cultivation of blackberries.  Today, the fruit fields cover more than 12,500 hectáreas in the area of Los Reyes, Tocumbo, and Peribán, and cultivation is currently underway in the area around Pátzcuaro--almost all in the west-central highlands of Michoacán.  The 2018 blackberry production reached a weight of more than 260,000 tons of blackberries--tons!  Ninety-five percent of those were exported to the United States, the primary foreign market.  The rest of those exported went to Europe and Japan.  This quantity of blackberries represents 95% of those grown in Michoacán and 90% of those grown anywhere in Mexico.  Next time you buy a plastic "clamshell" box of blackberries, look at the label.  Most labels will read, "Product of Mexico."  Mexico Cooks!' rinconcito (tiny corner) of Mexico produces more blackberries than anywhere else in the world.  Fortunately, enough of Michoacán's blackberries stay in Mexico to satisfy its population.


Recently Mexico Cooks! was unable to find unsweetened, unflavored yoghurt in our neighborhood shops--and there was nearly a kilo (2.2 pounds) of blackberries in the refrigerator that needed to be eaten immediately.  They had been destined for a week's worth of breakfasts, but one morning se me prendió el foco (the light bulb went on in my brain) and I thought: COBBLER!  In the bowl is the entire amount of berries, mixed with sugar, the juice and some grated zest of a limón (key lime), and a bit of cornstarch.

Blackberry cobbler, as you might have guessed, is not in the standard Mexican food repertoire.  However, when all of the ingredients are grown or made in Mexico, maybe it should be.  In the photo are salt, baking powder, an egg, two limones, wheat flour, standard-grade sugar,milk, and freshly rendered pork lard.  Lard, so shoot me!  You can substitute vegetable shortening, but lard tastes better.

Pre-heat the oven to 425ºF and butter a baking dish.  In this instance, I used an 8" square ovenproof glass baking dish.

Scoop the blackberry mixture into the pan and gently even it out.

Measure the shortening of your choice.  I always use the displacement method to measure solid shortening: for this 1/4 cup of lard, I started with 1 3/4 cups of cold water in this clear measuring cup.  I added lard until the water rose to the two-cup level, then emptied out the water.  Bingo, 1/4 cup of lard and no mess.

The flour mixture that will become the dough for topping the cobbler.  You see the lard on top of the flour mixture, ready to be worked into it.

The flour mixture should look like this when you finish working the lard into it.

Break an egg into the milk and beat with a fork till blended.

The cobbler, topped with raw dough and ready for the oven.  Sprinkle the raw dough with sugar to give it a finished look after baking.  The cornstarch that I mixed with the raw blackberries and sugar thickens the juices as the cobbler bakes.

Bake the cobbler for about half an hour, or until the dough is light golden brown.  Your house will smell heavenly!

Here's the entire recipe:

Blackberry Cobbler

Ingredients
4-6 cups fresh blackberries
3/4 cup sugar, divided use
1 Tbsp lemon juice
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 Tbsp cornstarch

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup shortening--in this instance, lard
4 Tbsp butter
1 whole egg
1/2 cup milk

Preparation
Preheat your oven to 425ºF.

Butter the glass baking dish.  Mix blackberries, 1/2 cup sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a large mixing bowl.  Reserve.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and 1 or 2 Tbsp sugar.  Add the shortening and butter and work them into the flour with your fingers, until the mixture looks like fairly coarse corn meal. 

Measure 1/2 cup milk into a large measuring cup; break the egg into the milk.  Beat with a fork until well blended.  Pour the milk/egg mixture into the flour/shortening mixture and stir until smooth.  The dough should not be sticky; if you need to add more flour, start with just an additional tablespoon.  When the dough is smooth but still quite damp, it's ready.

Pour the blackberry mixture into the glass baking dish and gently even out the berries with your fingers.  Put large spoonfuls of dough all over the berries, leaving some small spaces on top for the juice to bubble through.  Flatten the dough a little--use your fingers, and don't worry about how it looks.  Sprinkle the top of the dough with a tablespoon or two of sugar.

Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes.  A serving of blackberry cobbler, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, will look like this--truly a thing of beauty.

The finished product: blackberry cobbler, hot out of the oven and topped with rich real-cream vanilla ice cream.  The top diameter of the small white bowl in the photo above measures three inches.

What could be better for breakfast, or for dessert--a taste of Mexican blackberries, from a recipe straight out of your grandmother's kitchen! 

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Cena :: Late Evening "Supper", Just Enough to Tide You Over Until Morning

The man who operates this cart in Mexico City's Centro Histórico (Historic Center) wheels his baked plátanos y camotes (bananas and sweet potatoes) around during the day.  In residential areas, when downtown businesses are closed, you are most likely to hear the steam whistle's raucously, riotously eardrum bursting high-pitched TWEEEEEEEEEEET during mid-to-late evening hours.  Each plateful is either a roasted banana or a sweet potato dripping with La Lechera, a brand of sweetened condensed milk.  Either one is just right for your cena.  Enlarge the photo to get a better look at the front of the vehicle, where the bananas and sweet potatoes are kept warm over the cart's firebox.  See the can of La Lechera?

Cena (supper) in Mexico is a mixed bag.  For an ordinary cena at home, it's a tiny meal: a cup of hot chocolate, herbal tea, or hot milk, a pan dulce (sweet bread), or a quick taco made with what's left over from comida (the main meal of the day).  Comida being the large meal that it usually is, cena is meant only to tide you over from just before bedtime till early the next morning.

If you're out partying till the wee hours, a few tacos al pastor (shepherd-style marinated pork tacos) on the street might be just the ticket for your cena.  See the whole pineapple at the top of the trompo (vertical spit)?  The pineapple cooks along with the meat--see the gas grate behind the cone of meat?--and the pastorero (the guy who prepares tacos al pastor) tosses a few small sweet slices into your grill-warmed tortilla.  Top your taco with red or green salsa (remember the green is almost always the hotter one!), a pinch of sea salt, and a shower of minced onion and cilantro for a taste of heaven.

Buñuelos are another favorite food for cena, either eaten at a cenaduría (supper spot) or purchased from a street vendor.  Some people still make them at home--the dough is very similar to that of a wheat flour tortilla, stretched until thin over the rounded bottom of a clay pot.  Traditionally, the dough was stretched over the maker's knee to achieve each buñuelo's large size and round shape!  They are usually served either whole, dusted with granulated sugar and cinnamon, or broken into pieces in a bowl and drizzled with piloncillo (raw brown sugar) syrup.

Conchas (pan dulce), reposted from the breakfast article: food for cena is often the same food we eat for desayuno.

Just as an aside: in addition to cena, some people in Mexico still partake of merienda, a light snack that can come sometime between comida and cena.  This 'light snack' can be as simple as a couple of cookies and a cup of té de manzanilla (chamomile tea) or it can be a more complex offering similar to an English tea.  Mexico Cooks! will leave the question of how to find stomach room for merienda up to you.

Not all food eaten for cena is sweet.  Case in point: this Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, specialty is atole de grano, a savory fresh-corn soup that's colored and flavored with anisillo, a wild anise that grows in this region.  Atole de grano is one of my favorite things to eat in Pátzcuaro.  Come touring in Michoacán with me, we'll have our cena there.

For an elegant and really delicious cena in what was originally an early 18th century home, an excellent option is Restaurante La Conspiración de 1809, located in Portal Allende near the corner of Calle Abasolo, Centro Histórico, Morelia, Michoacán.  While you're there, be sure to get the story of why the restaurant is called "La Conspiración".  You'll be glad you did.

Several Februarys ago, Mexico Cooks! and a group of friends attended a gala Valentine's Day cena at Restaurante Los Danzantes in Coyoacán, Mexico City.  The dinner was presented by chef Cynthia Martínez and a team from Morelia, Michoacán.

If you are invited to a late evening cena baile (dinner dance) or a cena de gala (black tie dinner) at a restaurant, events center, or private home, your hosts will pull out all the stops.  Champagne, beautiful entradas (appetizers), a superb multi-course meal, snazzy dessert, alcoholic beverages and music are de rigeur.


Mexico Cooks! researches possibilities for an elegant cena at Restaurante JASO, Colonia Polanco, Mexico City.  It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.


Above, my all-time favorite cena.  You can pretty much tell the size of the plate by comparing it to the normal-size forks stuck into the food.  These are enchiladas placeras (plaza-style enchiladas), as prepared by one special street stand in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán.  Open only in the evenings, there is nothing like them anywhere in Mexico.  Others try to imitate them, but forget it: these are the best.  I've been eating here for about 30 years.  Your plate (the photo is a normal-size order) will hold eight enchiladas stuffed with mashed potato.  The enchiladas are topped with freshly sautéed carrots, potatoes, and onions--the vegetables are just slightly caramelized.  On top of the vegetables, crisp fresh cabbage--and on top of the cabbage, pickled chile perón, Michoacán's favorite chile.  On top of the chile, shredded Oaxaca cheese!  Ask the waiter for the piece of chicken you want: leg and thigh, or breast. The skin will be crisp, the meat tender.  If you're splitting this platter full (and you should!), you can request two pieces of chicken.  No matter how big an eater you are, when you've finished eating all you can hold, the platter will still look full.  Takeout on request.  

From eating tacos on the street to dining in stilletos and tuxedos, cena in Mexico will keep you going till morning.  Provecho!

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Mexico's Main Meal of the Day: Comida--In Various Forms

Freshly made chicharrón (you might know it as pork rinds).  Chicharrón is frequently broken into small-ish pieces and served (instead of totopos [corn chips] with guacamole as an appetizer before comida, Mexico's main meal of the day.  Try it sometime, it's delicious.

Mexico's main meal of the day is comida, which is eaten sometime between two and five o'clock in the afternoon.  Prime time for comida is three o'clock; in many places all over the República, businesses still respect the old-time rule that closes business doors during mid-afternoon meal time.  In fact, unless the business mentions that it observes horario corrido (continuous work day) you can assume that from two until at least four in the afternoon, its doors are closed to business.  Our normal workday is from 10:00AM to 2:00PM and from 4:00PM to 8:00PM.

Crema de cilantro (cream of cilantro soup).  The soup course, which can be a caldo (clear broth), a consomé (another kind of clear broth, usually chicken), or a crema (cream soup), comes after the entrada. 


At the late, lamented Restaurante El Portalito in Mexico City, Mexico Cooks! usually ordered either the "menú sencillo" or the "menu ejecutivo".  Click on the photo to enlarge it--what deals these meals were!  Each of them included a freshly made agua fresca of the day, as well.  My particular favorite was melón (cantaloupe).


El Portalito agua fresca de melón.

In cities and towns all over Mexico, you'll find fondas, comida económica, and comida corrida restaurants.  All of these small, usually family-run restaurants specialize in full meals that stoke your furnace for the rest of your workday and beyond.  In addition, in many cities there are high-end restaurants that specialize in comidas for professional and business lunches, others that are designed for the ladies-who-lunch trade, and still other, family-style restaurants that invite everyone from the oldest great-grandpa to the newest newborn to enjoy time together.

A variety of prepared salads for sale in a market.  Sold by the kilo or portion of a kilo, these salads are meant to be taken home and eaten along with your comida.

Mexico's signature mole con pollo (mole with chicken) is always popular for the platillo fuerte (main dish) at a comida, whether served at home or in a restaurant.  Many regions of the country have special mole recipes; some, like the mole poblano found in Puebla or the mole negro that comes from Oaxaca, are very well known.  Others, especially some from the state of Michoacán, are less well known but equally delicious.

These Jalisco-style albóndigas (meatballs) are traditional and typically served as a platillo fuerte for comida, along with their delicious sauce, a big helping of steamed white rice, a garnish of avocado, and a tall stack of tortillas.

Many soon-to-be-visitors to Mexico write to me saying something like this: "I want to plan for breakfast in the hotel and a meal in such-and-such a restaurant at lunchtime.  Then we want to go for dinner at such-and-such restaurant."  Unless you are a professional eater--and I know that some of you are!--it's difficult to fit all of that food into one day, given the times of day that meals are usually eaten here.  If you're having breakfast at your hotel, many of the available dishes will look like those featured here last week.  They're very, very filling.  Just a few hours later, it's time for comida, an even more filling meal when eaten in a restaurant.

Carne de cerdo en salsa verde (pork in green sauce) is a typical home-style dish (in this instance, just being put into the Mexico Cooks! oven) often served for comida.  Of course it is preceded by an appetizer, a soup, and perhaps a salad; it's accompanied by red or white rice, refried beans, and a stack of tortillas--and followed by dessert!

Lonche de pechuga de pollo (cold chicken breast sandwich, garnished with lettuce, tomato, and pickled chiles jalapeños).  This kind of sandwich is neither lunch nor comida.  Photo courtesy Big Sky Southern Sky.


Photo courtesy Lonchería San Ignacio.  The awning offers lonches de guisado (one of many stew-like preparations), de pierna (pork leg), de jamón (ham), de panela (a soft, white cheese), and de queso de puerco (head cheese).

"Lunch" as it is eaten in the United States or elsewhere does not exist in Mexico.  You might see a restaurant sign reading "LONCHES" or "LONCHERÍA", but the words refer to a kind of cold sandwich known as a 'lonche', not to a place where you can have lunch--although a lonche late in the morning would be great!  A lonche can be eaten at any old time--between meals, instead of meals, before or after a movie, and so on.


One taco--I swear to you, ONE taco--of Michoacán carnitas: huge chunks of pork, boiled in freshly rendered lard until the pork is fork-tender with crisp, chewy outsides.  Coarsely chopped and served by the platter, ready to stuff into hot-off-the-fire tortillas and top with minced onions, chopped cilantro, super-spicy salsa, a sprinkle of sea salt and a squeeze of lime, carnitas can be a rustic and delicious comida all on their own.

Gelatina is a common light dessert, particularly with a comida corrida (think of the old-time blue plate special: everything from soup to dessert for one price. 

On the other hand, you will almost always have room for a slice of old-fashioned creamy flan.

Next week, we finish our day of Mexico's meals with cena--supper!

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How Does Mexico Organize Its Meals? First, Let's Have Desayuno (Breakfast)

Mexico Cooks! receives many, many inquiries from foreigners planning a vacation in Mexico: "Where should I go for lunch?"  "What's a good time to go out for supper?"  "I want to eat lunch at (X high-end restaurant with a 12-course tasting menu) and supper at (Y restaurant with an 8-course tasting menu).  Will that work?" 

When I answer that the concepts of "lunch" and "supper" really don't exist in Mexico as one knows those meals, particularly in the USA or Canada, people are shocked.  Some come and try to acclimate to the Mexican way of eating, and others write to me later to say, "No wonder there was no one in the restaurant when my family was there at 6:30PM!  We thought it would be bustling, but no.  When we were finished with our meal, at about 8:30PM, people started arriving.  You were right!"  

Let's talk about mealtimes in Mexico, starting with breakfast.

A typical breakfast in the USA, circa 1950s: unsweetened cereal topped with sugar, a banana--often cut up into the cereal--and milk, poured over the cereal.  Many people in the USA and Canada still start the day with something similar.


The corunda is a regional tamal from Michoacán.  This modern-style corunda is filled with cream cheese and strips of roasted chile poblano, and then topped with Mexican table cream and a sauce made of chile perón (a local, Michoacán-grown chile).  This makes a great desayuno when accompanied by a cup of hot atole, made either with fresh guava or fresh blackberry.

People in Mexico frequently eat two morning meals. The first is desayuno, which comes from the root word ayunar, to fast.  Desayuno literally means "I un-fast" and is ordinarily eaten first thing in the morning, maybe before work while you are standing in the pre-dawn kitchen thinking about the coming day on the job or gobbled while you are hurrying the kids into their school uniforms.  This breakfast consists of something quick and simple or a smear of yesterday's frijolitos refritos on a leftover tortilla, washed down with a glass of fresh orange juice; a pan dulce fresh out of the oven from the corner bakery, accompanied by a cup of milky Nescafé (Mexico's ubiquitous instant coffee).  It's just enough to help your brain kick into gear.

This Mexico Cooks! desayuno includes home-made calabaza en tacha, ready to be bathed in hot milk--plus a slice of pan relleno con chilacayote (bread filled with sweetened chilacayote squash paste), served with fresh juice or coffee.

At home, Mexico Cooks! occasionally prepares molletes, an old-time family favorite.  I grill a bolillo (a dense-textured and crusty white bread roll), add a thick smear of chile-spiced refried beans, and top them with huevos volteados (over-easy eggs).  With a fresh fruit accompaniment, this almuerzo is really stick-to-your-ribs.

Around 10:30 or eleven o'clock in the morning, when the stomach starts to require something more substantial to keep the body going, many people take a break for almuerzo.  There really is no adequate word in English for this meal.  It's not breakfast and it's not a snack, and it's really not brunch, either.  Almuerzo is typically a larger meal than desayuno.  Workers on a construction job, for example, often stop work, build a little fire, and heat up yesterday's leftovers that they've brought along in a 'tupper'--the generic word for a covered plastic container.  Warmed-up leftovers, a stack of tortillas, and a fresh-made pot of coffee keep the girders going up. 

Another really hearty almuerzo: a plateful of enchiladas verdes con pollo deshebrado (enchiladas with shredded chicken in green sauce) topped with finely grated white cheese and minced onion, accompanied by a guarnición (side) of refried beans.

Here's another typical almuerzo in Mexico: chilaquiles verdes (fried tortilla strips simmered in green sauce), topped with grated white cheese and thinly sliced white onions, then crowned with huevos al gusto (eggs however you like them).  Add a side of frijolitos refritos, a plate of ripe seasonal fruit, a warm-from-the-oven bolillo, either salsa or butter for the bread, and a great cappuchino, all served on a sunny terrace.  Heaven...

Next week, next meal!  Comida, Mexico's main meal of the day, coming up.  We'll save your place at the table. 

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