Mexico Cooks!

Cocido :: Home Made Beef and Vegetable soup, Also Known As Caldo de Res

A big pot of cocido, simmering last week in my kitchen.

Nearly 40 years ago, long before the website Mexico Cooks! was a possibility--when I was just beginning to learn Spanish and some simple things about the totally-new-to-me Mexican kitchen, I would occasionally hear the word cocido from friends in Tijuana.  I looked it up in my dictionary.  I learned that cocido was the past participle for the verb cocer, to cook, or to boil.  The dictionary gave this example: "Estoy a dieta, solo puedo comer pollo cocido." (I'm on a diet, I can only eat cooked [boiled] chicken.)  OK!  That was easy.  But no, cocido isn't chicken.  Back to the drawing board.  For literally years I thought that cocido was a mystery dish that I would never see, understand, or taste.

About 20 years ago, I was looking at a homestyle restaurant menu and the lightbulb finally went on in my brain.  I asked the waiter for a bowl of caldo de res (beef and vegetable soup), and he nodded as he wrote the order--and said, "Cocido para usted, señora."  Wait!  What?  He smiled and said, Sí, cocido.  O como dijo usted, caldo de res."  ('Yes, 'cocido', or as you said,)--well, you get it.)  Like many things in Spanish, there is an example of their being more than one word for the same thing.  Cultural literacy is learning what is colloquially used as a name for something that also has a more formal name. 

Now that I knew what cocido is, I found someone to teach me how to make it, and today--if you don't know how already--I'm going to teach you.  It's the simplest thing in the world, very healthy, and truly a Mexican home staple.  An all-but-boiling bowlful is just the ticket for a warming meal in the winter.

Cocido (Caldo de Res) from Michoacán

Ingredients
1/2 medium white onion
1 large clove garlic
1 medium bay leaf
2-3 Tbsp sea salt
4-5 liters cold water
1 kilo (2.2 pounds) bone-in chambarete (beef shank), cut across the bone
.5 kilo (1 pound) bone-in retazo de res (meaty beef trimmings)

3 or 4 medium carrots, peeled and cut into rounds
3 or 4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks or thick slices
1 middle-size chayote, cut into eighths, seed and all
1 small chile serrano, slit from tip almost to the stem end
4 small calabacitas (or zucchini), cut into thick slices
A quarter kilo (half pound) white cabbage, coarsely cut into chunks
A good-size fistful of cilantro, stems and all
2 or 3 ears of fresh corn, each ear cut into thirds (optional)

To season the broth
3 or 4 red, ripe Roma tomatoes, cut into chunks
1/4 white onion, cut into chunks
1 small chile serrano (optional)
2 cups cold water

Special equipment
A lidded pot that will hold approximately 14 liters
Long wooden spoon 


Bring 4 or 5 liters water, the half onion, the garlic clove, the salt, and the bay leaf to a boil.


The beef shanks and trimmings, rinsed, patted dry, and ready to go in the pot.


One piece at a time, quickly add the beef to the boiling water.  In just a minute or two, the beef will take on a deep brown color.  


Carrots and calabacita (zucchini), ready to go in the pot.


The other half of the chayote needs to be chopped.  When you're ready to chop the chayote, try to pierce the skin with your fingernail.  If it pierces easily, there's no need to peel the chayote, just chop it skin and all.  The seed is flat, round, white and soft.  The whitest part of the already cut chayote in the photograph is the seed--your knife will slide right through it, no need to remove it and cut it separately.


Coarsely chop the white cabbage.


Peel and cut up the potatoes.  These are the standard white potato in Mexico: the papa Alfa.  I started with three and added another.  You can use a different kind of potato: russet, Yukon Gold, whatever potato you prefer will be delicious.

For the tomato seasoning for the broth: put the coarsely chopped tomato, the 1/4 onion, a clove of garlic, and the chile serrano (if you're using it) into your blender.  Add the 2 cups water.  Cover and blend until smooth.   Pour this mixture into the boiling pot.

Add all of the vegetables, including the cilantro, to the pot.  Allow the pot to return just to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer and cover, leaving the cover slightly ajar.  After 15 minutes cooking, stir the pot--the vegetables will have softened enough to be completely under water.  Simmer for approximately 45 minutes.

Correct the salt. 


Freshly patted tortillas, toasting on a clay comal (griddle).  They're supposed to inflate as they toast!



An all-but-overflowing bowlful of cocido.  The house smelled delicious as it cooked, and the cocido itself was wonderful.  And there's plenty left for the next few tomorrows!

Serve with hot tortillas, with corn tostadas, or with toasted bolillos (white flour, super-dense Mexican rolls).

Serves 4 to 6 as a main dish.

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

Tamales! More Tamales! Everybody Wants Tamales! Qué Le Doy?

Tamales in the tamalera (the steamer) at Tamalería (tamales stand) Méndez, on the street at the corner of Av. Baja California and Av. Insurgentes, Colonia Condesa, Distrito Federal.  You can see that the tamalera is divided into three sections.  Each section can hold a different kind of tamal (that's the word for ONE of a group of tamales).  In this case, the tamales at the bottom left of the photo are Oaxaqueños (Oaxaca-style).  On the right of the divider are tamales rojos (with a red chile sauce) and tamales de mole (both with pork meat).  The third section of the tamalera holds just-out-of-sight tamales verdes (with chicken, in green chile sauce) and tamales con rajas y queso (with cheese and strips of chile poblano).

Older than an Aztec pyramid and fresh as this morning’s breakfast, a pot of newly-steamed tamales whets Mexico City’s appetite like nothing else in town.  Dating to pre-Hispanic times—most historians say tamales date to the time before the Christian era—the tamales of New Spain (now Mexico) were first documented in the Florentine Codex, a mid-16th century research project crafted by Spanish Franciscan monk Fray Bernadino Sahagún.


Traditionally, tamales are made by hand, not by machine.  At first, they seem to be exhaustingly labor-intensive and difficult.  Just as with most wonderful food, once you learn the techniques and tricks of making the various styles, they're not so hard to prepare--and they are so worth the time and effort!  In the photo above, Carmen Titita Ramírez Degollado, owner of Mexico City's Restaurante El Bajío, prepares masa cocida (cooked corn dough) for her special tamales pulacles from Papantla, Veracruz.

The ancients of the New World believed that humankind was created from corn.  Just as in pre-history, much of Mexico’s traditional and still current cuisine is based on corn, and corn-based recipes are still creating humankind.  A daily ration of corn tortillas, tacos, and tamales keeps us going strong in the Distrito Federal, Mexico’s capital city of more than twenty million corn-craving stomachs.  Tamales are created from dried corn reconstituted with builder’s lime and water.  The corn is then ground and beaten with lard or other fat into a thick, smooth masa (dough).  Filled with sauce and a bit of meat or vegetable, most tamales are wrapped in dried corn husks or banana leaves and steamed, to fill Mexico City’s corn hunger and keep her hustling.

Tamal-to-be at El Bajío: cut the banana leaf to the size and shape of the tamal you're making, then lightly toast each leaf to soften it for folding.  On the banana leaf, place a layer of masa, a strip of hoja santa (acuyo) leaf, and a big spoonful or two of cooked, shredded chicken in a sauce of chile guajillo, onion, and garlic.

Mexico’s capital city makes it easy to buy tamales any time the craving hits you.  Every day of the week, nearly five million riders pack the Metro (the city’s subway system) and are disgorged into approximately 200 Metro stations.  At any given Metro stop, a passenger is likely to find a tamales vendor.  Her huge stainless steel tamalera (tamales steamer) hisses heartily over a low flame until the tamales are sold out.  Each steamer can hold as many as two hundred tamales, and the vendor may preside over two or three or more of these vats.

Titita folds the tamal so that the banana leaf completely wraps the masa and filling.

Hungry students on the way to and from classes, office workers with no time to eat breakfast at home, construction workers looking for a mid-morning pick-me-up: all line up at their favorite vendor’s spot on the sidewalk closest to a Metro exit.  Near the vibrant Chilpancingo Metro station at the corner of Av. Insurgentes and Av. Baja California, Sra. María de los Ángeles Chávez Hernández sells tamales out of two huge pots.  “Qué le doy?”  (‘What’ll you have?’) she raps out without ceremony to every hungry arrival.  The choices: rojo  (with pork and spicy red chile); verde (with chicken and even spicier green chile); rajas con queso (strips of chile poblano with melting white cheese); mole (a thick spicy sauce with a hint of chocolate); some Oaxaca-style tamales wrapped in banana leaves; and dulce (sweet, usually either pineapple or strawberry).  The stand sells about 200 tamales a day.  Sra. Chávez’s father, Ángel Méndez Rocha, has been selling tamales on this corner for more than 60 years.  Even at age 80, he alternates weeks at the stand with his brother, selling tamales by the hundreds.  

The masa and filling are centered in the banana leaf.  Titita is simultaneously pressing the masa toward the middle of the leaf and folding each end of the banana leaf toward the middle.


The pair of tamales in the center of the photo are filled with chicken and chile guajillo sauce.  The tamal closest to the bottom corner of the photo is made with black beans crushed with dried avocado leaves.  Avocado leaves give a delicious anise flavor and fragrance to the beans.  These tamales are ready to be steamed in the tamalera.

The tamal de chile guajillo, fresh out of the tamalera and unwrapped on my plate.

A specialty breakfast, unique to Mexico City, is the guajolota: a steaming hot tamal, divested of its corn husks and plopped into a split bolillo, a dense bread roll.  Folks from outside Mexico City think this combo is crazy, but one of these hefty and delicious carbohydrate bombs will easily keep your stomach filled until mid-afternoon, when Mexico eats its main meal of the day.  When I asked Sra. Chávez Hernández about the name of the sandwich, she laughed. “Nobody knows why this sandwich is called guajolota—the word means female turkey.  But everybody wants one!” 

If you'd rather take your tamales home to eat them, Sra. Chávez of Tamalería Méndez or her employee, Sra. Lucina Montel, will gladly wrap them in paper and send them along in a bag.

For steaming tamales, the bottom portion of a tamalera is filled with water.  Add a coin to the water and put the tamales vertically into the steamer, atop the perforated base that rests just above the water.  When the water boils, the coin will rattle.  When the rattle slows or stops, add more water.

Tamales can be a massive guajolota to eat on the street or the most delicate, upscale meal in a restaurant.  These, prepared by chef Gerardo Vázquez Lugo of Restaurante Nicos, are a degustación (tasting) at the Escuela de Oficios Gastronómicos operated by online magazine Culinaria Mexicana, where chef Vázquez offered a workshop teaching the history, ingredients, and preparation of tamales.  From left to right, the four tamales are: carnitas de pato en salsa de cítricos y chile chipotle (shredded duck confit in a citrus and chile chipotle sauce), tamal de tzotolbichay (with the herb chaya), tamal de mole negro (black mole),and tamal de frijol (beans).

Chef Gerardo Vázquez Lugo of Mexico City's Restaurante Nicos.

In addition to being daily sustenance, tamales are a fiesta, a party.  In Mexico City and every other part of Mexico, Christmas isn’t Christmas without tamales for the late-night family feasting on Christmas Eve.  Gather the women of the family together, grab the neighbors, and the preparation of tamales becomes a party called a tamalada.  Mexico City chef Margarita Carrillo tells us, “Mexican grandmothers from time immemorial say that the first ingredient for great tamales is a good sense of humor.  Tamales like it when you sing while you prepare them, they love to hear a little friendly gossip while you work, and if you make tamales in the good company of your family and friends, they’re sure to turn out just the way you want them: with fluffy, richly flavored corn dough on the outside and a delicious filling on the inside.”

A small and elegant tamal de chocolate for dessert, prepared by Restaurante Nicos for the tamales workshop.

Señora Elia Rodríguez Bravo, specialty cook at the original Restaurante El Bajío, strains masa cocida for tamales.  She gently shook a wooden spoon at me as she proclaimed, “You can’t make tamales without putting your hands in the masa (corn dough).  Your hand knows what it feels.  Your hand will tell you when the masa is beaten smooth, when the tamales are well-formed in their leaves, and when they have steamed long enough to be ready to eat.  Your hand knows!”

Señora María de los Ángeles Chávez Hernández (left) and her longtime employee Señora Lucina Montel (right) sell tamales at the street booth Tamalería Méndez seven days a week.  They and Sra. Chávez's staff prepare hundreds of tamales every night, for sale the next day.

Let's go on a Mexico City tamales tour!  Let Mexico Cooks! know when you're ready, and we'll be on our way.

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

 

Mexican Traditions from January 6, the Feast of the Three Kings to February 2, La Candelaria: The End of the Christmas Season

Most Mexicans eat traditional rosca de reyes (Three Kings' Bread) on January 6.  Its usual accompaniment is chocolate caliente (hot chocolate), often made in the pre-Hispanic way--with boiling water, not milk.  If you've ever wondered about the title of Laura Esquivel's book Like Water for Chocolate, this is the 'why' of the title.


The delightful Laura Esquivel with Mexico Cooks!, several years ago at a Mexico City museum opening.

The Día de los Reyes Magos (the celebratory Day of the Three Kings) falls on January 6 each year.  You might know the Christian feast day as Epiphany or as Little Christmas.  The festivities celebrate the arrival of the Three Kings at Bethlehem to visit the newborn Baby Jesus.  In Mexico and some other cultures, children receive gifts not on Christmas, but on the Feast of the Three Kings:  The Kings, not Santa Claus or even the Niño Dios (Baby Jesus) are the gift-givers, because legend tells us that they were the givers of the gold, frankincense, and myrrh that they carried to the Baby Jesus. Many, many children in Mexico still receive special gifts of toys from the Reyes (Kings) on January 6.

Typically, Mexican families celebrate the festival with a rosca de reyes (Three Kings' Bread).  The size of the family's rosca varies according to the size of the family, but everybody gets a slice, from the littlest toddler to great-grandpa.  Accompanied by a cup of chocolate caliente (hot chocolate), it's a great winter treat. 

Here's a delicious-looking rosca on the table at home.

A few years ago, a chef friend explained a little about the significance of the rosca.  He mused, "The rosca de reyes represents a crown; the colorful fruits simulate the jewels which covered the crowns of the Holy Kings.  The Kings themselves signify peace, love, and happiness.  The Niño Dios hidden in the rosca reminds us of the moment when Saint Joseph and the Virgin Mary hid the Baby Jesus in order to save him from King Herod, who wanted to kill him.  The three gifts that the Kings gave to the Niño Dios represent the Kings (gold), God (frankincense), and man (myrrh). 

"In Mexico, we consider that an oval or ring shape represents the movement of the sun and that the Niño Dios represents the Child Jesus in his apparition as the Sun God.  Others mention that the circular or oval form of the Rosca de Reyes, which has no beginning and no end, is a representation of heaven--which of course is the home of the Niño Dios." 

On January 4, 2019, the government of Soledad, San Luis Potosí, served an enormous rosca de reyes monumental, prepared jointly by bakeries from everywhere in the city.


In many places in Mexico, including Morelia, Michoacán, bakers prepare an annual monumental rosca for the whole city to share.  The rosca prepared just a year ago in Morelia contained nearly 3000 pounds of flour, 1500 pounds of margarine, 10,500 eggs, 150 liters of milk, 35 pounds of yeast, 35 pounds of salt, 225 pounds of butter, 2000 pounds of dried fruits, and 90 pounds of candied orange peel.  The completed cake, if stretched out straight, measured almost two kilometers in length!  Baked in sections, the gigantic rosca was the collaborative effort of ten bakeries in the city.  The city government as well as grocery wholesalers join together to see to it that the tradition of the rosca continues to be a vibrant custom. 

The plastic Niño Dios (Baby Jesus) baked into our rosca a few years ago measured less than 2" tall.  The figures used to be made of porcelain, but now they are generally made of plastic.  See the dent from a bite on the Niño's head?  Mexico Cooks! is the culprit.  Every rosca de reyes baked in Mexico contains at least one Niño Dios; larger roscas can hold two, three, or more.  Morelia's giant rosca normally contains 10,000 of these tiny figures. 

Tradition demands that the person who finds the Niño in his or her slice of rosca is required to give a party on February 2, el Día de La Candelaria (Candlemas Day).  The party for La Candelaria calls for tamales, more tamales, and their traditional companion, a rich atole flavored with vanilla, cinnamon, or chocolate.  Several years ago, an old friend, in the throes of a family economic downturn, was a guest at his relatives' Three Kings party.  He bit into the niño buried in his slice of rosca.  Embarrassed that he couldn't shoulder the expense of the following month's Candelaria party, he gulped--literally--and swallowed the Niño. 

El Día de La Candelaria celebrates the presentation of Jesus in the Jewish temple, forty days after his birth.  The traditions of La Candelaria encompass religious rituals of ancient Jews, of pre-hispanic rites indigenous to Mexico, of the Christian evangelization brought to Mexico by the Spanish, and of modern-day Catholicism. 

In Mexico, you'll find a Niño Dios of any size for your home nacimiento (nativity scene).  Traditionally, the Niño Dios is passed down, along with his wardrobe of special clothing, from generation to generation in a single family. 


Mexico Cooks!' Niño Dios.

The presentation of the child Jesus to the church is enormously important in Mexican Catholic life. February 2 marks the official end of the Christmas season, the day to put away the last of the holiday decorations.  On February 2, the figure of Jesus is gently lifted from the home nacimiento (manger scene, or creche).  His owners dress him in new clothing and gently carry him to the church, where he receives blessings and prayers.  He  is then carried home and rocked to sleep with tender lullabies, and is carefully seated in his very own throne or put away until the following year. 


The Niño Dios Doctor from Puebla.


The Niño Dios dressed as a PEMEX employee--PEMEX is the monolithic petroleum company of Mexico.  I took this picture while stopped for a fill-up during a trip to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the southernmost part of Mexico.

Each family dresses its Niño Dios according to its personal beliefs and traditions.  Some figures are dressed in clothing representing a Catholic saint particularly venerated in a family; others are dressed in the clothing typically worn by the patron saints of different Mexican states.  Some favorites are the Santo Niño de Atocha, venerated especially in Zacatecas; the Niño de Salud (Michoacán), the Santo Niño Doctor (Puebla), and, in Xochimilco (suburban Mexico City), the Niñopan (alternately spelled Niñopa or Niño-Pa).

This Xochimilco arch and the highly decorated street welcome the much-loved Niñopa figure.

The veneration of Xochimilco's beloved Niñopan follows centuries-old traditions.  The figure has a different mayordomo every year; the mayordomo is the person in whose house the baby sleeps every night.  Although the Niñopan (his name is a contraction of the words Niño Padre or Niño Patrón) travels from house to house, visiting his chosen hosts, he always returns to the mayordomo's house to spend the night.  One resident put it this way: "When the day is beautiful and it's really hot, we take him out on the canals.  In his special chalupita (little boat), he floats around all the chinampas (floating islands), wearing his little straw hat so that the heat won't bother him.  Then we take him back to his mayordomo, who dresses our Niñopan in his little pajamas, sings him a lullaby, and puts him to sleep, saying, 'Get in your little bed, it's sleepy time!"  Even though the Niñopan is always put properly to bed, folks in Xochimilco believe that he sneaks out of bed to play with his toys in the wee hours of the night.   

Trajineras (decorated boats) ready to receive tourists line the canals in Xochimilco.  The best days of the week to go to Xochimilco are Saturdays and Sundays, when boating on the canals is a constant party.

Although he is venerated in many Xochimilco houses during the course of every year, the Niñopan's major feast day is January 6.  The annual celebration takes place in Xochimilco's church of St. Bernard of Sienna.  On the feast of the Candelaria, fireworks, music, and dancers accompany the Niñopan as he processes through the streets of Xochimilco on his way to his presentation in the church.

Gloria in Xochimilco with Niñopan, April 2008.  Photo courtesy Colibrí.

Blue papel picado (cut paper decoration) floating in the deep-blue Xochimilco sky wishes the Niñopan welcome and wishes all of us Feliz Navidad.

El Día de La Candelaria means a joyful party with lots of tamales, coupled with devotion to the Niño Dios.  For more about a tamalada (tamales-making party), be sure to read all about it in late January, right here on Mexico Cooks!.

From the rosca de reyes on January 6 to the tamales on February 2, the old traditions continue in Mexico's 21st Century.

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

Mexico's New Year Rituals Explained :: We Recommend Taking Your Suitcase for a Walk

In Mexico and other Latin American countries, women wear new yellow underwear on New Year's Eve to bring good luck and wealth in the year to come.  Red underwear (this vendor has every size for sale on the tables behind her) indicates a New Year's wish for an exciting love interest!  Just remember that whatever color underwear you choose, it has to be NEW.

Superstition or not, many people here in Mexico have the custom of ritos del Año Nuevo (New Year's rituals).  Some rituals include foods, others prescribe certain clothing, and still others warrant attention for religious interest.

As the clock strikes midnight, it's customary to eat twelve grapes--one at each ding, one at each dong of the clock.  While eating the grapes, you make a personal wish for each grape you consume, welcoming the new year that's beginning.  Mexico Cooks! finds that it's helpful to write down the twelve wishes so as not to forget one or choke in the rush to swallow the grapes before the clock finishes striking the New Year's earliest hour!  Even the most elegant restaurants promise that along with your late-night New Year's Eve meal, they will provide the grapes and champagne.

Eating a tablespoonful of cooked lentils on New Year's Eve is said to bring prosperity and fortune.  You can also give raw lentils--just a handful, with the same wish for abundance, to family and friends.


Mexico Cooks! has often received a New Year's detallito (a little gift) of a tiny bottle like this, filled with layers of different kinds of seeds and grains.  This gift represents the giver's wish for your New Year: abundance.


Sweep all the rooms of your house, your front steps, and the street in front of your house to remove all traces of the old year.  Some people put 12 golden coins outside--to be swept into the house after the inside of the house is swept clean.  The coins are to invite money and other abundance to come into the home.  Photo courtesy Jeff Trotter.


Give someone a little woolly sheep as a New Year's gift--it too is a symbol of abundance!  Why?  In Mexico, a slang word for "money" is lana--that means wool, in English.  And what's a sheep covered with?  Lana--wool--for an abundance of money in the New Year.  Photo courtesy Etsy.

On a small piece of paper, write down the undesirable habits and customs you'd like to let go of in the New Year that's just starting.  Burn the paper, then follow through with the changes!

Choose three stones that symbolize health, love, and money.  Put them in a place where you will see them every day.

Light candles: blue for peace, yellow for abundance, red for love, green for health, white for spirituality, and orange for intelligence.

Spill clean water on the sidewalk in front of your house as the clock rings in the New Year.  Your house will be purified and all tears will be washed away.

To have money for your needs all year long, have some bills in your hand or in your pocket to welcome the arrival of the New Year.  Some people fold up the money and put it in their shoes!

Take your suitcase for a walk.  Legend is that the farther you walk with your suitcase, the farther you'll travel.  Several New Year's Eves ago, Mexico Cooks! and a few friends celebrated the stroke of midnight by walking our suitcases around the block.  We all traveled far and wide during the new year that followed.


Mexico Cooks! wishes all of you a muy próspero Año Nuevo--and whether you're an hombre or mujer, especially wishes that your red underwear brings you (or keeps you) the love of family, friends, and that special someone.

We'll see you right here in 2020!

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

Heart and Soul Warming Ponche Navideño :: Mexico's Hot Christmas Punch

Mexico's fragrant, delicious ponche navideño--Christmas punch, served piping hot.  Loaded with seasonal fruits and sweet spices, it's a do-not-miss at our Christmas festivities.  The recipe is simple and the rewards are many; you, your family, and your holiday guests will love it as much as I do.  I wish the computer had a scratch-and-sniff capacity--the fragrance of the ponche would make your mouth water.  Photo courtesy México Desconocido.

At nearly every mid-winter party in Mexico, you'll find a big vat of steaming hot, homemade ponche navideño.  Served with or without a piquete (a shot of rum, tequila, or other alcohol), this marvelous drink will warm you from the inside out.  Really, it wouldn't be Christmas (or a posada, or New Year's Eve) without it.  Here's the recipe I've used for years.  

Ponche Navideño Mexicano**
**You should be able to buy everything on this list at your local Latin market

2 pounds sugar cane, peeled and cut into 3” sticks
1 pound apples, cored and cut into thin slices or chunks
1 pound pears, cored and cut into thin slices or chunks--Bosc are excellent for this
10 ripe guavas, cut in quarters and seeded
Peel of one orange 
1 pound tejocotes, cut in quarters and seeded
1/2 pound tamarind fruit removed from the pods and deveined
1/2 pound prunes with or without seeds
2 ounces dried jamaica flowers
2 whole cloves
1 star anise pod (optional)
1 kilo piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar)
1/2 cup white sugar (optional)
2 long sticks Mexican cinnamon, broken in thirds or quarters

6 quarts of water or more

Special Equipment
A 12-to-14 quart lidded pot
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Just before you start cutting up fruit, put 6 quarts of water in a pot, cover it, and over high heat, bring the water to a boil.  

Add all the cut fruit to the pot and bring the pot back to a boil.  Then lower to simmer and simmer for 20 minutes.  If you think the pot needs more water, bring it to a boil separately and add it little by little.

Add the tamarind, the prunes, the jamaica, the cloves, the piloncillo, the white sugar, the cinnamon, and continue to simmer until all of the fruit is soft and very tender. 

We usually ask our adult guests if they'd like their cups of ponche "con piquete" (with a shot of alcohol--rum, tequila, etc).  Add a shot to each cup as requested, prior to adding the hot ponche.

Serves 12 to 15.  If you have some left over, save it (fruit and all) till the next day and re-heat.  Ponche navideño is even better the second day!
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Sugar cane is in season in Mexico right now.  On the left, you see it in the already-peeled "sticks" you want for your ponche.  On the right, you see the unpeeled sections that you want for your piñata!  Thanks to Verónica Hernández at Mexico City's Mercado Medellín (corner of Calle Campeche and Av. Medellín, Colonia Roma) for letting me take this photo; if you're in the city, look for her and her employer, Mario Bautista, at Booth 138 in the market--tell her you saw her caña (sugar cane) on Mexico Cooks!.

The fragrant perfume of seasonal ripe guavas permeates our markets right now--they're ready to buy for ponche.


Tejocotes are also in season--it's Mexican hawthorn, similar to the crabapple.  Each of these measures approximately 1 1/4" in diameter.  The fruit is very high in pectin, which slightly thickens your pot of ponche.  If you simply cannot find tejocotes, substitute another pound of apples.


Tamarind pods with their shells on.  If you're unable to find the pods, use about 1/4 pound tamarind paste per recipe.


These are prunes with seeds.  You can use these or you can used seedless prunes.


Here are the dehydrated jamaica flowers you need to make ponche.  The jamaica flower is a cousin to the hibiscus; its English name is roselle. The flowers add deep red color and cranberry-like tartness to the drink.

Star anise for your ponche.  You will find this in the store where you usually buy spices, at a Latin market, or at an Asian market.


Look at this huge display of piloncillo (molded raw brown sugar) at the Mercado de Jamaica, Mexico City!  Why?  EVERYBODY makes ponche at Christmas time!  Click on any photo to enlarge.


Here is an up-close look at the two different sizes of piloncillo.  For the ponche, you'll want to buy one kilo (2.2 pounds) of either size.


This is what's known as canela--Mexican "true cinnamon".  The truth is, it's grown in Ceylon and imported to Mexico.  Notice how many, many layers of very thin bark are folded in on one another.  This cinnamon is quite soft, breaks and flakes easily, and is what you want to look for to use in ponche and any other Mexican recipe calling for cinnamon.  Do not be misled into buying cassia, a much more readily found, much harder in consistency, and much less flavorful "fake" cinnamon.  Look for canela at your Latin market; the sticks are usually quite long.  These measure nearly half a yard!  To the right side are Mexican raisins, which, if you like, you can also add to the ponche.  I often do.


Old-fashioned Mexican peltre (enamel over metal) cups filled with ponche navideño.  Be sure to put a lot of all of the varieties of fruit into each cup.  Those are caña (sugar cane) sticks (colored pink by the jamaica flowers)--an edible decoration and a tool for pushing fruit from the cup into your mouth!  When you've eaten all the cooked fruit in your cup, chew on the sugar cane sticks for another sweet treat.  Be sure to spit out the fibers after you've chewed them.  Photo courtesy Kiwilimon.

Provecho!  (Mexico's way of saying bon appetit!)  

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Piñatas! More Piñatas! December in Mexico is Piñata Season

Traditional piñatas ready for sale decorate the door to the Hernández family's tiny taller (workshop) on Av. Lázaro Cárdenas near Plaza Carrillo in Morelia, Michoacán.

Among clean ollas de barro (clay pots), plastic receptacles filled with engrudo (flour/water paste), and colorful, neatly stacked rounds of papel de china (tissue paper), Sra. María Dolores Hernández (affectionately known in life as Doña Lolita) sat on an upturned bucket.  She celebrated her birthday on December 24, and she lit up--just like a Christmas tree--when she talked about her business and her life.  Doña Lolita passed away approximately four years ago.

The last point of the star-shaped piñata is in Doña Lolita's hands, nearly ready to be glued into place. 

"When I was a young woman, raising my family together with my husband, it was hard for us to make a good living here in Morelia.  We had eight children (one has died, but six girls and a boy survive) and we struggled to make ends meet.  My husband was a master mason, but I wanted to help out with the finances.  I knew a woman who made piñatas, and I thought, 'I can do that.'  So I started trying my hand, more than 60 years ago."

Doña Lolita adds another layer of newspaper to this piñata in progress.  "You can't put too much newspaper on the pot, because it will take too long to break the piñata," she explained.  "And you can't put too little on it, either, because then the first child to hit it will break it.  That's no good, either.  You just have to know how much to use."  Click on the photo to enlarge it and get a good look at the clay pot inside the layers of newspaper.

"The woman who made piñatas wouldn't give away her secrets, so I had to figure everything out for myself.  You should have seen me the first time I tried to make a bird's beak for a parrot-shaped piñata!  A man I knew told me to make it out of chapopote (a kind of tar), so I did.  It hardened all right, but later in the day the weather warmed up and that beak dripped down to *here*!  What a mess!  I finally figured out how to make the shape out of paper, but I just about broke my head thinking about it!"

Pre-cut rounds of papel de china (tissue paper) wait to be glued onto a piñata.  The black plastic bag holds strips of newspaper. 

Doña Lolita told me about the different grades of paper used to create different styles of decoration on the piñata, and she explained different kinds of paper-cutting techniques; she's absolutely the expert.  Here, her son-in-law Fernando cuts tissue paper for fringe.  His hands are so fast with the scissors it made my head spin; he can even cut without looking.

"In those days, the clay pots cost four and a half pesos for a gross--yes, for 144. In the old days, I usually sold about 7,000 piñatas every December, so you can imagine the investment I made just in clay pots.  In the 1960s, I could sell a large piñata for seven pesos.  Now--well, now the pots are much more expensive, so naturally the piñatas cost more, too.  The large ones cost 45 pesos.  This year, I'll sell about 1,000 piñatas just for the posadas." 

Piñatas in various stages of completion hang from every beam in Doña Lolita's tiny workshop.

"When my daughter Mercedes was about eight years old, she wanted to learn to make piñatas.  She'd been watching me do it since she was born.  So I taught her, and I've taught the whole family.  Piñatería (making piñatas) is what's kept us going."  Doña Lolita smiled hugely.  "My children have always been extremely hard workers.  There was a girl for each part of making the piñatas.  Every year, we started making piñatas in August and finished at the beginning of January.

This gigantic piñata, still unfinished, measures almost six feet in diameter from point to point. 

"One time, we had so many piñatas to finish that I didn't think we could do it.  So I thought, 'if we work all night long, we can finish them by tomorrow morning.'  Only I couldn't figure out how to keep the children awake to work all night."  She laughed.  "I went to the drugstore and bought pills to stay awake.  I knew I could keep myself awake, but I gave one pill to each of the children.  And in just a little while, I was working and they were sleeping, their heads fell right down into their work!  What!  Those pills didn't work at all!  The next day I went back to the drugstore and asked the pharmacist about it.  'Oh no!  I thought you asked me for pills to make them sleep!' he said."  Doña Lolita laughed again.  "We finished all the piñatas in spite of those pills, but you had better believe me, I never tried anything that foolish again."

Doña Lolita builds piñatas with her son-in-law, Fernando Cedeño Herrera (left), her daughter Mercedes Ayala Hernández, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren.  A close friend, Oswaldo Gutiérrez López (background), works with the family.  Her grandson Enrique, 19, says he intends to keep the family business going.

Oswaldo Gutiérrez works on this piñata in the doorway of the tiny taller.  Doña Lolita has taught many people the art of creating traditional piñatas, but her family and her loyal customers say she's the best piñatera (piñata maker) in Morelia.

"People come from everywhere to buy my piñatas.  I don't have to take them out to sell; I only sell them here in the taller.  Because they're so beautiful and well-made, all the best people in Morelia--and lots of people from other places--come to seek me out and order piñatas for their parties.  I've taught my family that our work is our pride and our heritage, and my children have all taught their children the same.  That is our legacy, our family tradition."

Fill the piñata with candy like these bags of traditional colación (hard candies especially for Christmas).

But why piñatas, and why in December?  During the early days of the Spanish conquest, the piñata was used as a catechetical tool, to teach the indigenous people about Christianity.  The body of the piñata represented Satan; each of the seven points symbolized the seven deadly (capital) sins (pride, lust, gluttony, rage, greed, laziness, and envy).  The blindfold worn by the child or adult trying to hit the piñata represents blind faith.  Breaking the points of the piñata equated with the triumph of good over evil, overpowering Satan, overcoming sin, and finally enjoying the sweet delights of God's goodness when the clay pot (Satan) finally breaks and everything good pours out of the piñata.  Doña Lolita's most sought-after piñatas continue to be the traditional style, with seven points, but she also creates piñatas shaped like roosters, peacocks, half-watermelons, deer, half moons, and once, an enormous octopus!

For the nine nights from December 16 through December 24, Mexico celebrates las posadas.  Each evening, a re-enactment of the Christmas story brings children dressed as la Virgencita María (ready to give birth to her baby and riding a live burro) and her husband Sr. San José (and a street procession filled with angels, shepherds, and other costumed children) along the road to Bethlehem, searching for a place to stay.  There is no place: Bethlehem's posadas (inns) are filled.  Where will the baby be born!  For the re-enactment, people wait behind closed doors at certain neighborhood houses.  The santos peregrinos (holy pilgrims) knock, first at one door, then another.  At each house, they sing a song, begging lodging for the night.  At each house, the neighbors inside turn them away in song: 'No room here!  Go away!  Bother someone else!'  Watch a lovely slide show: Las Posadas.  

Freshly toasted cacahuates (peanuts) are in season now and are also used to stuff the piñata.  The wooden box holding the peanuts is actually a measure, as is the oval metal sardine can next to it.


Fresh caña (sugar cane) is in season now in time for the posadas.  Buy it in two-inch unpeeled sections for adding to the sweets in the piñata; buy it in 3" peeled thin sticks for adding to your hot ponche navideño (Christmas punch).

After several houses turn away la Virgen, San José, and their retinue, they finally receive welcome at the last designated house.  After the pilgrims sing their plea for a place to stay, the guests assembled inside sing their welcome,  "Entren santos peregrinos..." (Come in, holy pilgrims...).  The doors are flung open, everyone piles into the house, and a huge party starts.  Traditional foods like ponche (a hot fruit punch), buñuelos (a thin fried dough covered with either cinnamon sugar or syrup), and tamales (hundreds of tamales!) pour out of the kitchen as revelers sing villancicos (Mexican Christmas carols) and celebrate the coming of the Niño Dios (the Baby Jesus).  Finally, all the children line up to put on a blindfold and take swings at a piñata stuffed with candy, seasonal fruits, and peanuts.

These very large bags of individually wrapped candies are ready to use to fill any piñata.  These are available at the Mercado Medellín in Colonia Roma, Mexico City, as well as at all other markets in Mexico.

Mandarinas (tangerines) are in season at Christmastime, as are tiny jícamas and fresh sugar cane, which round out the goodies in lots of piñatas.

The piñata, stuffed with all it will hold, hangs from a rope during the posada party.  A parent or neighbor swings it back and forth, up and down, as each child takes a turn at breaking it open with a big stick.  Watch these adorable kids whack away.

The piñata, lovely though it may be, is a purely temporary joy.  Nevertheless, happy memories of childhood posadas with family and friends last a lifetime.

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Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe :: December 12, the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Queen of Mexico and Empress of the Americas

The new Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, built between 1974 and 1976, is the second-most visited religious site in the Western Hemisphere, second only to the Vatican.

My head was whirling with excitement at 7:00AM one New Year's Day a number of years ago. I was in a taxi going to the Guadalajara airport, ready to catch a flight to Mexico City. Although I had lived in the Distrito Federal (Mexico's capitol city) in the early 1980s, it had been too many years since I'd been back. Now I was going to spend five days with my friends Clara and Fabiola in their apartment in the southern section of the city. We had drafted a long agenda of things we wanted to do and places we wanted to visit together.

The old Basílica was finished in 1709.  It's slowly sinking into the ground.  You can easily see that it is not level.

First on our list, first on every list of everyone going to Mexico City, is the Basílica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the heart of the heart of Mexico. When I chatted with all of my Guadalajara neighbors about my upcoming trip, every single person's first question was, "Van a la Villa?" ("Are you going to the Basílica)" 

To each inquirer I grinned and answered, "Of course!  Vamos primero a echarle una visita a la virgencita." (The first thing we'll do is pay a visit to the little virgin!)

The interior of the new Basílica holds 50,000 people.

Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is Mexico's patron saint, and her image adorns churches and altars, house fronts and interiors, taxis and buses, bull rings and gambling dens, restaurants and houses of ill repute. The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, locally known as la Villa, is a place of extraordinary vitality and celebration. On major festival days such as the anniversary of the apparition on December 12th, the atmosphere of devotion created by the literally millions of pilgrims is truly electrifying.

There are often 30 Masses offered at the Basílica during the course of a single day, each Mass for a different group of pilgrims as well as the general public. 

The enormous Basílica of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is located in the north of the city on the hill of Tepeyac, a place of great sanctity long before the arrival of Christianity in the New World. Long prior to the arrival of the Spanish to the shores of what is now Mexico, Tepeyac had been crowned with a temple dedicated to an earth and fertility goddess first called (in Náhuatl) Coatlicue, then Tonantzin, the Mother of the Gods. Tonantzin was a virgin goddess associated with the moon, like Our Lady of Guadalupe, who usurped her shrine.

The Tepeyac hill and shrine were important pilgrimage places for the nearby Mexica (pronounced meh-SHEE-kah) capital city of Tenochtitlán. Following the conquest of Tenochtitlán by Hernan Cortez in 1521, the shrine was demolished, and the native people were forbidden to continue their pilgrimages to the sacred hill. Their pagan practices had been considered to be devil worship for more than a thousand years in Christian Europe.

Some of you may not know the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  For all of us of whatever faith who love Mexico, it's important to understand the origins of the one who is the Queen, the Mother, the beloved guardian of the República de México and of the Americas. She is the key to understanding the character of Mexico.  Without knowing her story, it's simply not possible to know Mexico.  Indulge me while I tell you.

On Saturday, December 9, 1531, a baptized indigenous Mexica man named Juan Diego set out for Tenochtitlán, as what is now Mexico City was known.  He was on his way to find medicine for his uncle, who was desperately ill.  Passing the pagan sacred hill of Tepeyac, he heard a voice calling to him. Climbing the hill, he saw on the summit a young woman who seemed to be no more than fourteen years old, standing in a golden mist.

Revealing herself as the "ever-virgin Holy Mary, Mother of God" (so the Christian telling of the story goes), she told Juan Diego not to be afraid.  Her words?  "Am I not here, who is your mother?"  She instructed him to go to the local bishop and tell him that she wished a church for her son to be built on the hill. Juan did as he was instructed, but the bishop's office staff refused to let him in.

On his way home, Juan climbed the sacred hill and again saw the apparition, who told him to return to the bishop the next day. This time the bishop's staff said, "If she really is who you say she is, ask her to send proof to the bishop." 

A day later, on December 12, 1531, Juan went again to Tepeyac and, when he again met Mary, she told him to climb the hill and pick the roses that were growing there. Juan climbed the hill with misgivings. It was the dead of winter, and flowers could not possibly be growing on the frosty, rocky mountain. At the summit, Juan found a profusion of roses in bloom, an armful of which he gathered and wrapped in his tilma (a garment similar to a poncho). Arranging the roses, Mary instructed Juan to take the tilma-encased bundle to the bishop, for this would be her sign.

When the bishop unrolled the tilma, he was astounded by the presence of the flowers that spilled out onto the floor of his office. They were roses that grew only in Seville, Spain, where he had come from.  But more truly miraculous was the image that had mysteriously appeared on Juan Diego's tilma. The image showed the young woman, her head lowered demurely. Wearing a star-studded cape and flowing gown, she stood upon a half moon. The bishop was convinced that the Virgin Mary had indeed appeared to Juan Diego and soon thereafter the bishop began construction of the original church devoted to the honor of her son.

News of the miraculous apparition of the Virgin's image on a peasant's tilma spread rapidly throughout Mexico. Indigenous people by the thousands came from hundreds of miles away to see the image, now hanging above the altar in the new church.  They learned that the mother of the Christian God had appeared as one of their own kind and spoken to him in his native language. The miraculous image was to have a powerful influence on the advancement of the Church's mission in Mexico. In only seven years, from 1532 to 1538, more than eight million Indians were converted to Christianity.

The shrine, rebuilt several times over the centuries, is today a great Basílica with a capacity for 50,000 pilgrims.

Juan Diego's tilma is preserved behind bulletproof glass and hangs twenty-five feet above the main altar in the basilica. For almost 500 years, the colors of the image have remained as bright as if they were painted yesterday, despite being exposed to humidity, smoke from church candles, and airborne salts for more than 100 years following the apparition.

The coarsely-woven maguey cactus cloth of the tilma, a cloth considered to have a life expectancy of about 40 years, still shows no evidence of decay. The 46 stars on her gown coincide with the position of the constellations in the heavens at the time of the winter solstice in 1531. Scientists have investigated the nature of the image and have been left with nothing more than evidence of the mystery of a miracle. The colors forming her portrait have no base in any of the elements known to science.

The origin of the name Guadalupe has always been a matter of controversy. It is believed that the name came about because of the translation from Náhuatl to Spanish of the words used by the Virgin during the apparition. It is believed that she used the Náhuatl word coatlaxopeuh which is pronounced "koh-ah-tlah-SUH-peh" and sounds remarkably like the Spanish word Guadalupe. 'Coa' means serpent, 'tla' can be interpreted as "the", while 'xopeuh' means to crush or stamp out. This version of the origin would indicate that Mary must have called herself "she who crushes the serpent," a Christian New Testament reference as well as a a reference to the Mexica's mythical god, The Plumed Serpent.

 
Thien Gretchen photographed this wonderful group of statues in Seguin, Texas for the Seguin Daily Photo Blog .  Similar statues are for sale at the Basílica.

Clara, Fabiola, and I took the Metro and a microbus to La Villa, a journey of about an hour from their apartment in the south to the far northern part of the city. We left the bus at the two-block-long bridge that leads to the Basílica and decided to take a shopping tour before entering the shrine. The street and the bridge are filled chock-a-block with booths selling souvenirs of La Villa. Everything that you can think of (and plenty you would never think of) is available: piles of t-shirts with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe and that of Juan Diego, CDs of songs devoted to her, bandanna-like scarves with her portrait, eerie green glow-in-the-dark figurines of her, key chains shaped like the Basílica, statues of her in every size and quality, holy water containers that look like her in pink, blue, silver, and pearly white plastic, religious-theme jewelry and rosaries that smell of rose petals, snow globes with tiny statues of La Guadalupana and the kneeling Juan Diego, who are dusted with stars when the globes are shaken.

There are booths selling freshly arranged flowers for pilgrims to carry to the shrine. There are booths selling soft drinks, tacos, and candy. Ice cream vendors hawk paletas (popsicles). Hordes of children offer chicles (chewing gum) for sale. We were jostled and pushed as the crowd grew denser near the Basílica.

The virgin's image is everywhere.

Is it tacky? Yes, without a doubt. Is it wonderful? Yes, without a doubt. It's the very juxtaposition of the tourist tchotchkes with the sublime message of the heavens that explains so much about Mexico. I wanted to buy several recuerdos (mementos) for my neighbors in Ajijic and I was hard-pressed to decide what to choose. Some pilgrims buy before going into the Basílica so that their recuerdos can be blessed by a priest, but we decided to wait until after visiting the Virgin to do my shopping.

Pope John Paul II loved Mexico, loved Our Lady of Guadalupe, and visited the country five times during his tenure as pope.  Here he celebrates Mass at the new Basílica.

The present church was constructed on the site of the mid-16th-century Old Basílica, the one that was finished in 1709. In the mid-1970s, when the Old Basílica became dangerous due to the sinking of its foundations, a modern structure called the new Basílica was built cheek-by-jowl with the old one. The original image of the Virgin of Guadalupe is now housed above the altar in this new Basílica.

Built between 1974 and 1976, the new Basílica was designed by architect Pedro Ramírez Vásquez. Its seven front doors are an allusion to the seven gates of Celestial Jerusalem referred to by Christ. It has a circular floor plan so that the image of the Virgin can be seen from any point within the building. An empty crucifix symbolizes Christ's resurrection. The choir seating is located between the altar and the churchgoers to indicate that it, too, is part of the group of the faithful. To the sides are the chapels of the Santísimo Sacramento (the Blessed Sacrament) and of Saint Joseph.

One of the many processions that constantly arrive from cities and towns all over Mexico and the Americas.

We entered the tall iron gates to the Basílica atrium. It was still early enough in the day that the crowds weren't crushing, although people were streaming in. Clara turned to me, asking, "How do you feel, now that you're back here?"

I thought about it for a moment, reflecting on what I was experiencing. "The first time I came here, I didn't believe the story about the Virgin's appearance to Juan Diego. I thought, 'Yeah, right'.  But the minute I saw the tilma that day, I knew—I mean I really knew—that it was all true, that she really had come here and that really is her portrait--a portrait of our spiritual mother." We were walking closer and closer to the entrance we'd picked to go in and my heart was beating faster. "I feel the same excitement coming here today that I have felt every time since that first time I came, the same sense of awe and wonder." Clara nodded and then lifted her head slightly to indicate that I look at what she was seeing.

Faith

I watched briefly while a family moved painfully toward its goal. The father, on his knees and carrying the baby, was accompanied by his wife and young son, who walked next to him with one hand on his father's shoulder. Their older son moved ahead of them on his knees toward an entrance of the Basílica. Their faith was evident in their faces. The purpose of their pilgrimage was not. Had the wife's pregnancy been difficult and was their journey one of gratitude for a safe birth? Had the baby been born ill? Was the father recently given a job to support the family, or did he desperately need one? Whatever the reason for their pilgrimage, the united family was going to see their Mother, either to ask for or to give thanks for her help.

Clara, Fabiola, and I entered the Basílica as one Mass was ending and another was beginning. Pilgrims were pouring in to place baskets of flowers on the rail around the altar. The pews were filled and people were standing 10-deep at the back of the church. There were lines of people waiting to be heard in the many confessionals.

We stood for a bit and listened to what the priest was saying. "La misa de once ya se terminó. Decidimos celebrar otra misa ahora a las doce por tanta gente que ha llegado, por tanta fe que se demuestra" ("The Mass at eleven o'clock is over. We decided to celebrate another Mass now at 12 o'clock because so many people have arrived, because of so much faith being demonstrated.")

Indeed, this day was no special feast day on the Catholic calendar. There was no celebration of a special saint's day. However, many people in Mexico have time off from their work during the Christmas and New Year holidays and make a pilgrimage to visit la Virgencita.

The framed tilma hangs above the main altar in the new Basílica.  Photo courtesy of Hernán García Crespo.

Making our way through the crowd, we walked down a ramp into the area below and behind the altar. Three moving sidewalks bore crowds of pilgrims past the gold-framed tilma. Tears flowed down the cheeks of some; others made the sign of the cross as they passed, and one woman held her year-old baby up high toward the Virgin. Most, including the three of us, moved from one of the moving sidewalks to another in order to be able to have a longer visit at the feet of the Reina de México.

When I visited several years ago, there were only two moving sidewalks. Behind them was space for the faithful to stand and reflect or pray for a few minutes. Today's crush of visitors has required that the space be devoted to movement rather than reflection and rest.

We walked to the back of the Basílica to look at a large bronze crucifix exhibited in a glass case. The bronze crucifix, approximately 3 feet high, is bent backward in a deep arch and lies across a large cushion. According to the placard and the photos from the era, in 1921 a bouquet of flowers was placed directly on the altar of the Old Basílica beneath the framed tilma. It was later discovered that the floral arrangement was left at the altar by an anarchist who had placed a powerful dynamite bomb among the flowers. When the bomb detonated, the altar crucifix was bent nearly double and large portions of the marble altar were destroyed. Nevertheless, no harm came to the tilma and legend has it that the crucified Son protected his Mother.

After a while, we reluctantly left the Basílica. With a long backward glance at the tilma, Clara, Fabiola, and I stepped out into the brilliantly sunny Mexico City afternoon. The throngs in the Basílica atrium still pressed forward to visit the shrine.

Jackson and Perkins created the lovely Our Lady of Guadalupe hybrid floribunda rose.

We stopped in some of the enclosed shops at sidewalk level and then continued over the bridge through the booths of mementos. After I bought a few gifts for my neighbors in Guadalajara, we moved away to hail a taxi. My mind was still in the Basílica, with our Mother.

On December 12 the tiny and gloriously beautiful Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe in Morelia, Michoacán, will be in full fiesta.

Her feast day falls on December 12 each year.  Think about her just for a moment as you go about your day on the 12th.  After all, she's the Queen of Mexico and the Empress of the Americas.

Glossary of loving terms for Our Lady of Guadalupe

La Virgencita	The Little Virgin
La Morenita	The Little Dark-Skinned Woman
La Guadalupana	The Guadalupan
La Reina de México	The Queen of Mexico
La Paloma Blanca	The White Dove
La Emperatriz de las Américas	The Empress of the Americas

How to get there once you're in Mexico City:

• From the Centro Histórico (Historic Downtown) take Metro Line 3 at Hidalgo and transfer to Line 6 at Deportivo 18 de marzo. Go to the next station, La Villa Basílica. Then walk north two busy blocks until reaching the square.
• From any stop on Line 1 of the Metrobús (above-ground rapid transit), get on going NORTH to the Deportivo 18 de marzo Metrobús station.  Walk down the stairs, then half a block left to the traffic light.  Cross the street to the right and walk two blocks to the Basílica.
• From the Hidalgo Metro station take a microbus to La Villa.
• From Zona Rosa take a pesero (microbus) along Reforma Avenue, north to the stop nearest the Basílica.
• Or take a taxi from your hotel, wherever it is in the city. Tell the driver, "A La Villa, por favor. Vamos a echarle una visita a la Virgencita." ("To the Basílica, please. We're going to make a visit to the little Virgin.")
  
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Color and Beauty For Your Home :: Muebles Finos Artesanales--Classy Painted Furniture and Accessories from UNEAMICH

The unprepossessing doorway to UNEAMICH mfa/eronga, the Erongarícuaro, Michoacán artists' cooperative originally founded in 1981 by Steven and Marina Rosenthal.  "Go to the corner where the primary school is, turn right, and go halfway down," read Marina's directions.  'Halfway down to what,' wondered Mexico Cooks!, but the building was easy to find.  All photos by Mexico Cooks! except as noted.

Pátzcuaro, the original capital of Michoacán, is a well-known destination for tourists, whether they are interested in pre-Hispanic religious sites, centuries-old architecture, modern working artisans, or regional Purhépecha cuisine.   Just a few minutes' drive away, another side of Michoacán exists: small-town, little-visited, and still very much oriented toward Mexico's traditional way of life.  In Erongarícuaro, the day bustles gently around the small plaza.  The pace is slower even than that of Pátzcuaro.

In the Erongarícuaro, Michoacán taller (workshop) of Muebles Finos Artesanales Erongarícuaro--the UNEAMICH wholesale entity branded as mfa/eronga--Marina Rosenthal stands before a custom-painted panorama of canvas nudes.  You can put your own face in one of the vacant spots.

Erongarícuaro, attractive in a well-worn, frayed-cuff style, is home to about 13,000 people, including a few souls from 'away'.  Europe, Canada, and the United States are equally represented.  Long a bohemian outpost (according to local legend, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and their international cohorts were frequent visitors), Erongarícuaro still attracts the slightly eccentric foreigner: a handful of people setting up a sustainable community, another handful interested in communal housing, and one or two long-time residents working in town.

The sales and reception room at UNEAMICH mfa/eronga, where we talked with Marina.  Photo courtesy Bernie Frankl, Tucson, AZ.

Steve and Maureen Rosenthal, originally from Arizona, have lived and worked in Erongarícuaro for nearly 50 years.  Their commitment to the town and its people runs deep; they've put their lifework into training artists, producing incredibly beautiful furniture and home decoration over the course of the years.  Their business, UNEAMICH mfa/eronga, has evolved from its 1980s-era origins as an Escuela Taller (Workshop School) to the worker-owned cooperative that it is today.  Along the way, the Rosenthals and the artist owners have created a living heritage for Erongarícuaro.


One of the artists' workrooms at UNEAMICH mfa/eronga.  Most of the 40-plus artist members of the cooperative were attending a community funeral on the day that Mexico Cooks! visited the UNEAMICH/mfa/eronga taller.

Mfa/eronga (the name of the UNEAMICH store that Steve runs in Tucson) has talleres (workshops) on both sides of its quiet Erongarícuaro street.  One is the carpentry workshop for building and carving the wooden furniture; the other is filled with artists' cubicles where the fine decoration work takes place.  Mexico Cooks! greeted Marina (Maureen's name loosely translated into Spanish) Rosenthal with a happy, "Finally!  We've wanted to visit you for years!"  We hugged and laughed that our meeting had been delayed for so long.

The carved and painted backrest of a UNEAMICH mfa/eronga chair.  Click on any photo for a larger view.

While giving us a running history of the business, Marina took us on a tour of the two talleres.  "Steve and I came here in 1970 to finish writing a screenplay, but the option to make the movie just never panned out.  By then, we were so in love with this part of Michoacán that we didn't want to leave.  We started making painted furniture, and little by little, customers started seeking us out.

The exterior and interior of one of mfa/eronga's fabulous painted pieces. Photo courtesy mfa/eronga.

"When Cuahutémoc Cárdenas was governor of Michoacán (1980-86), he was a huge supporter of the state's regional arts.  You know that he was the son of Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, Mexico's forward-thinking president from 1934-1940, and he had a lot of his father's sensibilities.  One of his projects was to open Escuelas Talleres--workshop schools--where artisans could receive training that would enhance the quality of their work and make it more easily sold.  That's where we came in: our workshop began to receive state support for training artists.  Literally dozens of artists have trained with us; some continue to work with us now, and some of our current workers are the children of those men and women who initially trained here.

Work facilities at UNEAMICH mfa/eronga are primitive, but the cooperative of artists creates glorious work in spite of the harsh conditions.

"Most of the artists we've trained knew some carving or painting techniques before they came to us.  Their level of general knowledge of art was practically nil, though: none knew of the great European classical or modern painters and none had heard of any artists north of the Mexican border.  Few knew of Mexico's great artists: Rivera, Kahlo, Tamayo, the Coronel brothers, and Juan O'Gorman, just to name several.  One of my greatest joys has been taking our extremely talented artists to Morelia, to Guadalajara, and to Mexico City to show them art's possibilities outside their limited frame of reference.  

UNEAMICH mfa/eronga artists hand-paint and hand-finish bateas (hand-carved shallow wooden bowls) from their own designs--or from your special-order design.

"We've made furniture using classic Michoacán designs, in bohemian designs, in our own designs, and with every painted decoration you can imagine.  You'll find anything from a still life of hybrid roses to a caricatured cat on our furniture and home decor.  Our artists, wonderfully inventive talents, can take the simplest thing and bring it to a level of beauty that attracts the most discriminating client.

Another artist's workspace at UNEAMICH mfa/eronga.

"The work that comes from our talleres has spread all over the world.  Right now, we're working on furnishing a hotel--not the first one, and we surely hope not the last!  Disney commissioned pieces for a restaurant, we have other long-time restaurant clients who decked out their restaurant with our pieces and need frequent replacements, and we have years of background making custom pieces for private customers.

The man carving intricate hand-drawn orchids into this chair back said, "Solo soy carpintero."  ('I'm just a carpenter.')

"Our stories range from the sublime to the truly ridiculous.  We've gone through times of terrible famine, when we couldn't make our payroll--think of the horrors of the 1994 devaluation of the peso!  But our artist workers stayed with us, even when we couldn't pay regularly.  Really, it's the workers who have always made our business a success.  You don't measure success just by looking at your bank balance.  Loyalty to one another: that's a huge measure of success, in my mind.

For your home, mfa/eronga sells cinema seating made in the old-fashioned style,  but of new materials--and in this case, painted with artists' stylized portraits.  Other styles are available.  Photo courtesy mfa/eronga.

"Right now, because economic times are really challenging, Steve is staying across the border in Tucson, running our retail operation.  I'm here with our youngest daughter, running the talleres.  Our staff here in Erongarícuaro currently numbers about 43, down from a high of 160 working artists.  But we keep on going; our loyalty is to our cooperative artists, and their loyalty is to the cooperative and to us.

Nothing is wasted, everything is recycled.  Out of this chaos of wood trimmings come works of art.

Flowers in a vase, hand-painted on an artist's workspace wall.  Making art is more than a job; art is a way of life.

If you're planning to be in the Morelia/Pátzcuaro region, please contact Mexico Cooks! for a guided tour of Erongarícuaro, the mfa/eronga workshop, and more entrancingly beautiful villages in Michoacán.

Cactus in bloom on mfa/eronga chair backrests.

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Wandering with Mexico Cooks! :: 2019 Meanderings Part 2

Remember that old saying, "Life is uncertain, eat dessert first,"?  Mexico Cooks! is a firm proponent of that--at least for beginning today's report. This sweet, delicious offering is on the menu at La Conspiración de 1809, just at the back of Morelia's cathedral.  In the photo, you see a pavlova, a crisp meringue filled with frutos rojos (red fruits)--in this case, Michoacán's locally grown strawberries, blackberries, and red raspberries.  Driscoll's also grows blueberries here in Michoacán.  The company leases fields from their owners and trains local workers to cultivate, harvest, and pack the berries.


Next time you're in your supermarket, take a close look at the Driscoll's label.  Many of the berries that you purchase, no matter where in the world you live, are grown in Mexico. Click on the photo for a larger view.  Photo courtesy Driscoll's.


A doorway to a private home in the community Santa Fe de la Laguna, Michoacán.


Elotes tatemados (roasted young corn, still in its husk) for sale in a large Mexico City market.  


These are also elotes (young corn), boiled rather than roasted at the same market stand.  It's hard to choose which to buy, roasted or boiled, both are so delicious!  


Chambarete entomatado (beef shank cooked in a sauce of tomate verde (tomatillos), onions, chile, and other spices) until the meat is falling-off-the-bone tender.  Available daily at Fonda Marceva in Morelia's centro historico.  It's one of my favorite things on their menu.  Photo courtesy my friend Eddie Álvarez.


Preparing fresh chicharrón (fried pork skins) at a market booth.  Book a market tour with me and we'll visit this booth--and we'll have a taste of hot-from-the-vat chicharrón.  Everybody loves its crisp, greaseless texture and taste.  


Escobetillas (stiff brushes made from plant root material bound together with thin wire), used for scrubbing dirty dishes.  Seen in a Oaxaca market.  Each one measures approximately 5"-6" in length. 


My longtime friend don Rafael, a copper worker in Santa Clara del Cobre, Michoacán, for 62 of his 70 years.  In the photo, he's demonstrating a hammering technique to one of my tour groups.  Each beautiful copper item in this workshop is entirely made by hand.  Let's go! 


Souls burning in Hell, nicho, San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato.  Wood carving.  


Longaniza (the long sausage without links) and Oaxaca-style chorizo, with small round links, displayed on a market stand, Oaxaca City.


Two little devils at once, 2019 Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales, Oaxaca.  Wait, what, two?  Yes, in the background is a hand dolly, known here in Mexico as a diablito, a little devil.


Puerco estilo cubano (Cuban-style roast pork).  The men on the right-hand side of the photo sit on benches and turn, turn, turn the spits until the pork is tender, juicy, and ready to serve.  I've eaten big plates of this meat every year for the last three years.  It's truly something to look forward to at the Encuentro de Cocineras Tradicionales, Oaxaca.


The Unión de Palmeadoras (tortilla makers' union) from Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca had a wonderful booth set up, selling hand-made Tlaxiaco-style tortillas.  Those are fiery chiles pequín, in the dish.


The fiestas patronales in San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro featured Moorish dancers.  These two young men posed for me.


San Jerónimo Purenchécuaro is widely known for one of its several artesanías (handcrafts): these are velas escamadas (elaborate, hand-made beeswax candles).  These particular candles were placed at one side of the main altar; other banks of candles were placed throughout the church.  Beautiful but ephemeral, the candles are meant to be burned.


Golden cempasúchil and wine-red pata de león are Mexico's most typical flowers for Día de los Muertos.


Right now, Mexico's fresh guasanas (garbanzo beans) are in season.  Not dried, these are harvested fresh and steamed lightly in salt water.  Each pod contains two individual green, fresh garbanzos; we eat them like edamame, squeezing the garbanzos out of the pods directly into our mouths.  Some people like to douse a bagful with liquid chile (what you see in the bottle), but I prefer the clean, green taste of the guasana.


One of my favorite places to go, whether with old friends or with tourists new to Mexico City, continues to be Azul Histórico.  The food is exquisite, the restaurant itself is marvelously beautiful, and the service is always attentive.  Here, the "hostess" is a catrina, all gussied up Oaxaca-style for Day of the Dead.

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Where in the World is Mexico Cooks!? A Look Back at Our 2019 Wanderings.

In February, Mexico Cooks! returned to live once again in Morelia, Michoacán.  It's been a joyful return, to the welcome of wonderful old friends, well-remembered streets and markets, and the beautiful colonial city itself.  I found a terrific house in Morelia's Centro Histórico, walking distance to most anywhere I need to go.  You can expect to hear a lot more from me in the months to come about the cuisines, customs, and creativity of the people of Michoacán.  The photo above is Morelia's Cathedral by the light of the full moon.


Workshop for creating a flavored salt.  In a volcanic stone molcajete (that's part of it, in the photo), I ground roasted maguey worms, dehydrated pineapple, sea salt, and a chile de árbol or two.  The flavor of mine was just so-so; a fellow behind me made a fantastic salt, flavored with a roasted scorpion.  Who knew!  Each of us participants got to bring our salt home in a test tube.  


Late this spring, a friend and I traveled to San Miguel de Allende, where we saw friends and tried some of San Miguel's many restaurants.  My personal favorite meal was brunch at Marsala: Cocina con Acentos, a truly innovative and delicious Mediterranean niche in the center of the city.  The photo shows my plate of Marsala-style eggs Benedict, accompanied by a bottomless mimosa.  In addition to a full menu of brunch choices, one is also invited to partake of the buffet of freshly baked scones, cheese biscuits, marmalades, a magnificent house-made terrine, and a number of other take-what-you want items.  I can't wait to go back!

One of the highlights of the trip to San Miguel de Allende was the opportunity to meet in person a man I have long admired from afar.  Charles Hall manages Rose Anne Hall Designs, a highly successful family business which produces mouth-blown glass items for the home, as well as the most beautiful hand-made candles in Mexico.  Under Charlie's direction, the business dedicates itself to hiring people with disabilities--or what would appear to be disabilities--but who are enabled by the opportunity to create.  Charlie is a businessman, a philosopher, and a humorist, and a wonderful human being.  


In the lovely traditional kitchen of good friends in Santa Fe de la Laguna.  It's always a privilege to be with them.


Cocido, or caldo de res, in my own kitchen and ready to serve.  So simple, and so delicious.  


Embarcadero San Pedro near twilight, Pátzcuaro, Michoacán.


If you've been reading Mexico Cooks! for very long, you know that I have a strange fascination with pig heads.  The staff at this market booth are all great people and love showing off their wares.  This handsome fellow has a mouthful of alfalfa.  They are also a bunch of goofballs: they always encourage my market tour clients  to kiss the snout--and I must say that in the spirit of fun, quite a few do!


These miniature chairs--about the size to seat a one-year-old baby--were all but viral on Facebook when I uploaded the photo.  Turned upside down with potted plants on the bottoms of the straw seats, the chairs make a charming entrance into my home.


Last--but definitely not least--was my outrageously wonderful end-of-June birthday party, with the crowning touch of this spectacular cake.  A huge shout-out to the Colegio Culinario de Morelia, to chef Joaquín Bonilla, to chef Juan Carlos Montaño, and to the crew who brought and served this marvelous creation.  Between the delicious cake, the just-right frosting, the assortment of cookies and candies--and gold leaf!--that decorated the masterpiece, party guests were thrilled and so was the birthday girl.  Such a wonderful birthday gift!  Mil gracias a todos ustedes del Colegio!

Come back next week for a look at the rest of Mexico Cooks!' year 2019.

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