Mexico Archives - Page 2 of 4

Mexico

World on a plate: Welcoming tomatillos

Posted on July 10, 2020July 9, 2020 by Pat and David

As summer rounds the corner and comes scorching down the midway, the tomatillo plants in our garden couldn't be happier. The bees are buzzing and flitting into the profusion of yellow blossoms and the half-vine, half-branches of the plants are sprawling into every available space. We try tying them up, but how do you restrain a plant the grows like Jack's proverbial beanstalk every night? Answer: You don't. If tomatillos were frost-hardy, they would probably be more invasive than kudzu. Their seeds, on the other hand, could probably outlast a nuclear blast, and since we're not always as quick to clean the garden as we should be after the first frost, a few seeds become embedded in the soil. Once the soil temperature reaches about...Read More

World on a Plate: Chile en nogada

Posted on June 12, 2020June 8, 2020 by Pat and David

Memory is as haunted with tastes and smells as with sights and sounds. When we recall one of those senses, the others often follow. Just looking at a dish can transport us back to a moment in the Before Time when we still roamed far and wide. We can then close our eyes and taste and smell the dish and hear the clatter of plates and buzz of conversation in the restaurant where we ate it. HungryTravelers is devoted to bringing the taste of travel back home, but as long as physical travel is constricted, we thought we'd revisit some of those moments in food photos we'll post weekly. Since the dishes come from all over, we're calling them ‶world on a plate.″ With its...Read More

Enjoying the sheer immersion of a Mexican food market

Posted on June 9, 2020June 8, 2020 by Pat and David

Diego Rivera (see last post) wasn't the only one obsessed with Mexican food markets. It's funny that Americans think of Mexico as a place where all the meals are based on dried corn made into a bread (tortillas), dried chiles made into sauces, or dried beans made into burrito fillings. Given their druthers, most Mexicans eat fresh fruits and vegetables as their dietary mainstays. True, they do love to grill and deep-fry some foods, but the key to the Mexican table is fresh food. That could include some pretty exotic stuff. The basket of small gray stuff in the left pane above is huitlacoche—fresh corn infected with what American farmers call ‶corn smut.″ It's a fungus that makes the kernels ooze with an inky, musky...Read More

Diego Rivera’s food paintings lay bare Mexico’s soul

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Pat and David

Now that we've run out of other tidying projects, we've been sorting and cleaning up our files of travel photos. We're using Zoner Photo Studio X (zoner.com) for sorting purposes because it lets us tag large groups of photos with key words. Then we can look at related photos together. One thing that jumped out at us was that Diego Rivera obsessed about food almost as much as we do. As we looked at our photos of Rivera murals in Mexico City, we were struck that bread, tortillas, and tropical fruits all turned up even more often than the hammer and sickle of the Communist Party. His sympathies may have been with Marx and Lenin, but his truest devotion was to home cooking. The large...Read More

Pan de Muerto: sustenance for Día de los Muertos

Posted on October 31, 2019September 26, 2019 by Pat and David

We don't need to be convinced that food plays a central role in people's lives and cultures that goes way beyond the basic need for sustenance. But if we did need proof, Mexico's Day of the Dead observances would be Exhibit A. On November 1, families decorate the graves of their lost loved ones with marigold flowers. It's a custom, several women told us, that brings them close to their loved ones and makes them feel contento (content). The bright orange flowers almost cover the gravestones and their pungent aroma fills the air. We've really never seen anything else quite like it. As we looked more closely, we realized that families also leave personal belongings and mementos that their loved ones had enjoyed in life....Read More

An appetite for Day of the Dead in Michoacán

Posted on October 28, 2019September 26, 2019 by Pat and David

Thanks to the many Mexican families who have settled in the United States, we have had a good introduction to Day of the Dead observances. In recent years, we've even caught some stateside glimpses of both the pageantry and the solemnity of the occasion. Last fall we decided to go to the roots of this holiday that blends All Souls' and All Saints' days in the Christian calendar with pre-Columbian ceremonies connecting the worlds of the living and the dead. The lakeside mountain community of Pátzcuaro is the most celebrated spot in Mexico for Day of the Dead ceremonies. It is one of what the Mexicans call the pueblas mágicas (magic towns). We joined the throngs who flocked there at the end of October and...Read More

El Hidalguense brings real pit barbecue to Mexico City

Posted on December 17, 2018December 2, 2018 by Pat and David

On Sundays in Mexico City, it seems as if all roads lead to Chapultepec Park. We like nothing better than joining local families for a stroll through this green oasis in the middle of the city. Many of the city's best museums are also located in the park and as a bonus, most are free on Sunday. On our recent visit, we spent the morning tracing Mexico's history through the murals at Chapultepec Castle and then marveling at the work by some of the country's greatest artists in a special exhibition at the Modern Art Museum. Alas, it was too cool to spread out a blanket and enjoy a picnic in the park. Instead, we indulged in another local tradition—a late lunch of barbacoa at...Read More

Tacos al pastor lead to more exotic discoveries

Posted on December 13, 2018December 2, 2018 by Pat and David

We're fascinated by the origin stories of street food. The tale behind the ubiquitous tacos al pastor (ubiquitous in Mexico City anyway) sounds suspiciously like a lot of best guesses. But it's logical to think that a popular food grilled on a rotating vertical spit just might have something to do with Lebanese immigrants to Mexico in the early 20th century. Even though it's pork, meat cooked “al pastor” certainly looks like lamb shawarma from the Near East. Mexico City's taco shops are having a moment—inventing new combos and flashier ways to serve them. But among old-fashioned taquerías, tacos al pastor still reign supreme. The rotating spit—usually placed out front or in a window—lures hungry diners with aromas of roasting pork, pineapple, and onion. Pile...Read More

Chiles en nogada: the taste of independence

Posted on November 28, 2018November 26, 2018 by Pat and David

Hurrah for the red, white, and green! Despite several changes in form of government over the years, the colors of the Mexican flag have stood since Mexico declared its independence from Spain in 1821. One of the most elaborate of Mexican dishes seems to date from the same year. Tradition says that the nuns of Puebla's Santa Monica convent created chiles en nogada to honor General Agustín de Iturbide when he visited the city after by signing the Treaty of Córdoba on August 28. (Puebla celebrates the Festival of Chile en Nogada on that day every year.) The dish echoes the colors of the flag in the green poblano chiles stuffed with picadillo, the white of the walnut cream sauce that enrobes it, and the...Read More

In Mexico, even the dead enjoy a feast

Posted on November 24, 2018November 22, 2018 by Pat and David

We recently returned from Mexico, where we joined the observations of the Day of the Dead in Pátzcuaro, Michoacán. Wherever we went, the air was filled with the vaguely pungent, slightly rank smell of marigolds. Farmers filled the beds of their pickup trucks to lug vast heaps of flowers to market. Native to central Mexico, "cempasuchitl" (the Nahuatl name for marigolds) are abundant in the late October rainy season. By tradition, their bright color represents the sun lighting the way for souls to return on the Day of the Dead. Their aroma also draws the deceased back to the world of the living. Marigolds abound in public spaces and private homes, where people use them to brighten the ofrendas so central to the celebration of...Read More