caroline

If I have time, I'll post the next stop which I think you'll all enjoy. Right now, I'm throwing a meal together. I returned home between 3 and 4 and my husband told me that one of our oldest friends in Mexico, Godfrey, had called. Result, he's coming for dinner at 7. We haven't seen him in a couple of months so this is lovely. But I had some work I simply had to get done so I couldn't get started immediately. But we were going to go to the Argentinian restaurant in the shopping center half a mile away (for my husband what he describes as the best hamburger he has ever had, for me grilled sweetbreads which I adore). Tomorrow we are going to dinner with friends, Sunday we leave. The larder is bare. Since Godfrey was the poor unfortunate who lived with us for three months to guide us through our first steps in Spanish (in return for comments on his Ph.D), he's like family. But he's a guest too. And he's between women so perhaps needs some decent food. Help. Dessert is easy. I made a trifle yesterday for my husband who loves custard and soggy cake. I don't as you can tell. But I had some wonderful panque (pound cake) in the freezer from a Polish woman in the small shopping center near here who does alta reposteria (high class cake making). Plus those raspberries. OK, cake, sherry, raspberries. All you need is a quick custard and whipped cream and you're on your way. Then I have some wonderful hearth baked bread from the deli I went to earlier. This can go with everything. And Superama, the upmarket branch of WalMart where I get my basic groceries has a Spanish promotion so I have a couple of bottles of promising wine. Soup--well the asparagus and a bit of potato from last night will will turn into a nice crema. Main course. Yikes. A salad. Sliced filete of beef from last night, hard boiled eggs, nice Spanish canned beans, nice Spanish canned red pepper, and a lovely "English" cucumber salad. I'd thought of home made mayonnaise but with the beans a vinagrette will be better. Finally, a nice bit of Manchego, wonderful Mexican-made Camembert (let's not worry too much about the name), and some of that pink cheese piled into a glass bowl. Plus Punta de Ciel, a lovely Mexican coffee with cream. A bit pale, a bit creamy as a menu. But Godfrey's family came from France about a hundred years ago to work in the booming economy of the late nineteenth century. He has never acquired a taste for the bold and piquante. Rachel

So today's adventures thus far will come in three parts. The first is shopping in the market in San Angel. It's one of the best markets in Mexico City, not as great as San Juan, but more typical. San Angel is a lovely neighborhood in the south of the city, with old cobbled streets and colonial houses. Once a village, it's now well and truly within the city boundaries. Here's one of the main squares. I'll try to post some more pictures of this lovely area but right now uploading is a bit hit and miss, perhaps because I use Firefox. I'm in search of cocoa beans for experiments with grinding on a metate. But first a stroll. A nice selection of tripe in the meat section. Now what's this in a stall selling religious items? And even better, here are iced jars of peeled fresh walnuts ready for a nogada sauce. Why they should be in the stall selling stuff for Day of the Dead I'm not sure. But the llady tells me that they can be frozen and kept for a year. Great. I buy quarter of a kilo for $10. These are not cheap. Sorry about the blurry photo but the people in the more popular markets get a bit fed up of being photographed. She kindly takes me off to the stall where they sell semillas, a category that includes nuts, beans, dried chiles, and my cocoa beans. Again a few finds to buy, the vendor asks whether I like Mexico, I say I've been here ten years so I must, mustn't I? Yes, he says, Mexico is great but the greatest thing about it is its people. And off I go to next stop. More on this later.

Let me reply to these comments and then I'll get busy uploading the photos of the day. John, I have no idea why the epazote turned the cheese pink. It's the first time I have seen that. The vendor in the market looked at me and said of course it did and all his buddies nodded sagely. But when I get to Guanajuato I shall have a go at it with my own epazote. Chardgirl, thanks for helping me out by posting that nice photo. Sandy, it's not so much to hang on a food blog. In fact you can hardly eat a bite in Mexico without running up against these issues. Something I find worth remembering is that, even leaving aside the pre-hispanic period, Mexico was first world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when cities to the north were nothing but wide spots in the road. And yes I do take the Metro but from where we live not often. The metro does not come this far south. We are way in the south of Mexico, right at the junction of Insurgentes Sur and the Periferico for those of you who know the city. Just ten minutes walk from work in the National University. How many people in Mexico City are that lucky? So I usually drive or take a taxi. Pille, what an amazing story. 650 abandoned wedding guests in Tepozotlan. Well at least there's a good bit to do around there. Abra, we decided to leave academia early and wanted to go somewhere interesting where we'd learn a lot of new things. So Mexico.

Well, I have to leave in a few minutes to have coffee with a very interesting person, food anthropologist and mother of a well-known chef. Along the way, I'll visit a market and some up market food stores. But before I go and look for a taxi, a couple of pictures of the kitchen. It looks nice and sleek and modern, doesn't it? Actually it has a few glitches because the husband of the previous owner considered himself a handyman, a mistake on his part. But still, it works well enough. Here's the view from the kitchen to the dining area. The little rolling carts hold my canned goods. Above is a very fancy stove. I approach it with great caution. The dial to the thermostat doesn't work even though I've tried marking temperatures with red nail polish. And the ventilator fan roars for hours after you've cooked. Could it be that it's not properly ventilated? Or would the fact that the concrete shelf it is on tilts to the right? I'm not sure. One day I will pluck up the courage to investigate. But I suspect it means money so for now I'm largely a stove top cook, Rachel

Epazote is a kind of herb. It has a rather bitter taste. It's become increasingly fashionable in the last decade or so, or that's my impression. Rachel

Thanks all. Yes there will be a good bit of Mexico City and a good bit of the mountains too. For now though it's breakfast. Or rather first breakfast because I have something light when I first get up which is usually quite early, then around ten I am ravenous and have something more. So here's the first breakfast. Left to right. Raspberries (Hurst's Berry Farm Oregon, Product of Mexico, I love it) and cream; roll; cheeses; and Earl Grey Tea. Now I look at it, it's beautifully color coordinated, isn't it? Pink raspberries, pink cheese and pink flowers on the mug. The roll is one of a batch I make every week or so and keep frozen. Roughly a take off of a hot cross bun. The spices and candied fruit mean I don't need butter or jam. And the candied fruit in Mexico is superb, freshly made, soft, and not too sweet. The tang of the orange and limón (in this case) shines through. The cheeses I bought a couple of days in the tianguis (street market) a couple of blocks away. One is just a simple fresh cheese, the other is "cured" with jalapeño and epazote, the latter giving the pink color. The cheese cuts the sweet taste of the raspberries and the roll.

Well, who would have thought? I was sure that the teaser photos, especially the scenes outdoors, were a dead giveaway that I was in Mexico. But then I've only been in Arizona a couple of times. So here I am, Rachel Laudan, starting off on this week's foodblog. I'm delighted to be talking about eating in Mexico. I don't have to tell this group that it's a great place for anyone who loves food. But don't expect this to be just about Mexican food. I was born and raised in England but have lived elsewhere more or less since my university days: ten years in various places on the US mainland, ten years in Hawaii, now ten years in Mexico. And there've been stints in between in Germany, France, Spain, Nigeria, Argentina, Australia, what am I forgetting? It's been an extraordinary opportunity for a culinary adventurer. It's also meant dealing with unfamiliar kitchens and cuisines that aren't my own. To keep some common thread in my culinary life, like most others in such situations, I have never plunged headlong into a new cuisine. Instead I have gradually added elements to my core way of eating, most often from the cuisines where I have live, but also of course from cuisines I have encountered in cookbooks, in restaurants, and in my research as a historian. I think what I cook and eat has a kind of coherence. It is though the cuisine of a wanderer. But to specifics. Right now, I'm sitting in our apartment in Mexico City watching the light gradually filter in through my study window. I'll be here until Sunday. Then we hop in the car and drive the four hours north to our house perched on the hills above the colonial city of Guanajuato where I'll be for the rest of this blog. I love this alternation between the big (very big) city and the provincial countryside. Right now, though, I'm hungry. So I'll go off and make my breakfast. Give me an hour or so am I'll post some photos, Rachel

Oh yup, And suspended in their iron frame dripping water they look like, well, so much like breasts that my husband and I always giggle. They tend to be a porous sandstone much softer than the (usually) basalt rocks used for metates and molcajetes. Herbnick I wonder if you mean porous (ie absorbs water) or pitted (ie lots of holes). In my experience metates should have holes. When they get smooth they have to be picado (pitted with a metal instrument) to work well. One of my metates is old and quite smooth and it is lots more work. Diana Kennedy has a statement somewhere saying you should look for smooth molcajetes (or was it metates?). It's something I disagree with her about. A quick way of getting one ready to use is to use a wire brush (even better a wire brush on a grill) to get out the little bits of loose rock. Try that. Then use one of those little Mexican fibre brushes to clean out the holes after you have used it. Yes I am continuing my metate project in Mexico and elsewhere. I don't have the map put together because I have not had the chance to travel all over Mexico. It's easy to get metates in Mexico. I have several spare ones sitting in the garden. Trouble is, they are literally impossible to ship to the States where anxious folks await them. Cheers, Rachel

Russ, Tacos al pastor in Mexico are gyros or shwarma. They were introduced by the very influential Lebanese community tha's been here since the early twentieth century (think Salma Hayek, for example). Of course they have been adapted to Mexican circumstances. They are not home cooking so recipes are hard to come by. I suspect some vendor(s) supplies many of the al pastor places. I'll try and ask. I was very surprised to find when I looked for tacos al pastor in Austin, Texas that they were something quite different. Rachel

It's really sad for the folks in Oaxaca that their city and livelihoods are being destroyed. Just dreadful But you know, if any of you share the view of travelling that I find useful, perhaps this is a great opportunity for you. I often find that going to the lesser-known spots gives a better entry to the country. And Mexico is absolutely bursting with wonderful unknown destinations. When people ask me why I haven't travelled all over the country in the ten years or more I have lived here, I just say that there is so much to explore in the state of Guanajuato that I prefer to do that well. I have fantastic food experiences here all the time and it's not even supposed to be a great food state. Plus, of course, as the fount of Mexican food Oaxaca is surpassed by other places specially Michoacan and Puebla. Consider Mexico City. Rent in Condessa--the areas where the hotels are you generally don't want to be. Consider any of the great colonial cities. Poke about and you will find a lot. Rachel

Hi Ludja, You should be abe to find salpicon if you look. I don't have my books with me but I think Diana Kennedy has one for a San Luis Potosi picnic, though not under the name salpicon. A selection of pickled vegetables--carrots, cauliflower, chiles, potatoes--is a very common thing to put on the table to nibble on before a meal. But I can't help on the Yucatan. That's way outside my culinary territory. Hope to see you in Mexico some time, Rachel

I dunno. I'd be a little careful about two assumptions that are creeping into this list. First that limas are connected with the Lebanese presence in Mexico. It could be. But limas are a specialty of Silao, Guanajuato. I could be proved wrong but I think that this goes back way before the Lebanese started arriving. And I am pretty sure it is not associated with a Lebanese presence there. Second that salpicones and pickled dishes are a specialty of the Yucatan. They are very common in Central Mexico. They have just never made it into cookbooks for Americans. Rachel

When Iturriaga was head of Conaculta (the mexican cutural agency), he took the very sensible decision to just publish without insisting on a uniform format. The Cocina Indigena y Popular series (Popular means roughly lower class) varies in quality but who cares? It's a terrific value with no volume costing more than US10 and most about $3. You can usually get the complete set of 54 volumes in the bookshop of the Museo de Cultures Populares just off the main square in Coyoacan in the south of Mexico City. It has been reprinted and there are lots more volumes waiting to go. Conaculta has two other series, one on the middle class cooking of the provinces (about 20 volumes), reprints of a series collected about twenty years ago. The other, my favorite, is a series of reprints (about a dozen) of manuscript and printed cookbooks of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. An incredible cuisine, quite distinct from Mexican cuisine today. Just wonderful recipes. I cannot think of any nation that has so thoroughly investigated its culinary history as Mexico. It's an ongoing enterprise. Rachel

I second everyone's comments. Grab it when you can. The serialization, incidentally, was done prior to the book. This is common practice in Mexico. You often run across odd copies of the serials in book fairs. But together they add up to something that is at least as, if not more expensive than the book. As to the English edition there are two, or maybe three problems. First paying someone to translate such a large work. It would have to be someone knowledgeable. Second, American publishers's belief that it would not sell. Perhaps it wouldn't but I can't help feeling that a lot of people might be interested. Third, perhaps, the quality of the reproduction of the color photos gives some publishers pause. They look fine to me but to those in the know, there are some problems here. Rachel

shelora, I second Caarina's comments. Great posts. And Caarina, welcome to egullet, Rachel

Welcome Panosmex. Great to be in Patzcuaro. I'm in Guanajuato. The answer is hundreds. I'm not sure it's even worth trying to count because often they depend on what is in the kitchen. The whole crema family, for example, which as you know does not usually contain cream but is actually a vegetable puree, comes in as many variants as the cook has imagination. Pretty much the same is true for the caldo family. If you search this site, you will discover that Esperanza has told the story of sopa de tarasco. And then there's black bean soup and sopa de medula (spinal cord) and all those soups with little balls or rings of masa, and crema de chicharron, and sopa de milpa with the vegetables whole, and jugo de carne for when you are sick. enjoy your search! Rache

Hi Marlena, The grat grandaddy of all mexican techniques is surely nixtamilizing maize. But that's probably a bit tough for the kind of book you describe. You could do something modern like making and cooking sopes of masa harina. rachel

Sure to both questions. Molcajetes are just easy little metates that the makers spin off to make money (that's the producers' view) and I'm trying to get a really good inventory of all uses, R

For a truly wild experience, try El Candelero, 1333 Insurgentes Sur. The food is actually quite good. But it is rather overwhelmed by the 15 foot fountain full of gardenias, the cave of the mulattos, the bamboo grove, the 12 foot tufted seat in the blacl-painted ladies's room, the crowns I am told hover over the johns in the men's room. It's what I have always imagined the House of the Rising Sun might have looked like if the proprietor had the money that the owners of this establishment obviouslyhave crossed with the interior decoration of someone who wanted to break every politically correct taboo they could think of. Rachel

Sure, I'll publish it somewhere. I think it is going to turn out that metate-making places are at least 100 miles apart serving a radius of 200 miles. This is partly due to the problem of finding the right kind of rock. It's partly that given that the things last forever if you are to have a specialist community making them it has to have a pretty big market. This figure is pretty similar to pre-rotary quern Europe. But it is going to take me a year or two to get all this together. It is part of a bigger project on metates as food processors. Please let me know any interesting uses, etc. I will be really grateful. Rachel

Shelora, It certainly does help. Thanks so much for remembering. Interesting that there too the metate makers are jazzing up their offerings. That is certainly true here. soon in won't be possible to get the plain jane version. But good for them if that helps them stay in business. Can't wait to get down there and talk to them. Enjoy the molcajete and thanks again, Rachel

Hi Theabroma, I've not run across living fruit-vinegar-making traditions in Guanajuato. Nowadays most people use vinegar from the supermarket. But I am struck by the huge range of delicious Mexican pickles, salpicados, escabeches, etc. They are very little known in the States, Rachel

I leave the tamales to Sharon. Nobody gets out of bed until at least midday on Christmas Day. They've been up to 5 am feasting. You should shoot through the city with no problems, just like a Sunday only better. You might want to lock the car from the inside, most drivers do. Come out of the airport, turn left on the Periferico (takes a bit of weaving about but it should be signed), head south, and you should be out of the city in no time. Which you will need to be because Merida is a long way, Sounds like a great trip, have fun. But where are you going to get these tamales? Rachel

Yes, I'm with Esperanza. Rosca de Reyes is for Epiphany. Here the orgy of cooking goes like this: Posadas. Ponche, spiked or not and utterly delicious, plus tamales, plus bunuelos, plus atole Christmas Eve, bacalao plus leg of pork or turkey (plus often lots of other stuff such as spaghetti for the kids)--often buffet style with everyone bringing something. Leftovers do for Christmas Day. Fruit cake is very popular, well spiked of course. New Year's. Same as Christmas except you swap pork for turkey or vice versa. Jan 6. Rosca de Reyes Candelaria (Feb 2) Tamales and (I think) chocolate I don't think the pork is necessarily boned. I think sometimes it has holes poked in it. The stuffing tends to run to the olive, raisin, nut kind of mixture. Same for the turkey. Not bread of course. Ground pork often, if I remember. The bacalao is with tomato, olives etc. I think it could be served with any kind of cracker, tortilla. My impression in the middle class is that it's very like the US--a good bit of intra-family competition for something slightly novel but not way off. So you must have bacalao, you must have pork or turkey but then you might experiment a bit with the stuffing. Patricia Quintana has some recipes for this kind of thing in Feasts of Life.

Round here among the middle class a leg of pork is absolutely necessary. it's impossible to buy whole legs most of the year but just before Christmas they suddenly appear all piled up. My memory is that they often have an exotic stuffing. I'll look for a recipe. And of course bacalao which is another absolute necesity. And imported turron to nibble on. Rachel