theabroma

My Mud Lick, Ky grandma cut 'em thick (3/4"), dredge in flour, egg wash, cornmeal, and fry in bacon grease. Her dredge: ap flour, salt, and a goodly grind of black pepper; wash: eggs w/an extra yolk and a little milk; cornmeal: an internecine family debate over white or yellow. Bacon grease, well what else would anyone fry them in? Her granddaughter: still cut 'em thick, season flour w/salt, pepper, and red pepper or chile, or sometimes Old Bay; egg wash, water or milk, no extra yolks; and me, I adore panko, or fresh white breadcrumbs. But when I'm wanting to channel my roots, so to speak. then I use white cornmeal or soda cracker crumbs (Southerners bread shrimp for frying with these, as well as croquettes). Now if you want to take them home (botanically speaking) slice 'em and spice 'em with a chile & cumin rub, dredge in seasoned flour, then in the batter used for chiles rellenos: eggs, separated. Yolks salted & whisked; whites whipped to medium peak, and folded in to yolks. You can even make up some kind of layer of cheese, or picadillo on top of or between tomato slices) then dredge, dunk, and fry. Surprisingly good. Theabroma

The brown lard does, indeed, come from the vat where the carnitas are 'poached' in rendered pig fat. And the schmear on toast you long for? There is a caramelly looking glop mined from the very bottom of the carnitas cooking vat, replete with little pork crispies embedded in it. Try THAT smeared on a freshly made, real corn tortilla. A working definition of ecstasy. It is called asiento. It is also the Rolls Royce of fats for making refried beans. We can find that tanned, fresh lard and the asiento in any Mexican market or store that makes its own carnitas. I have several photos of the 'Carnitas Corner' in the Tehuacan, Puebla market. They were using huge galvanized wash tubs, seated over braziers. One gentleman was stirring the magic cauldron with a boat's oar! There they make carnitas, chicharrones, lard, and asiento - all in one operation. I'll try and get the negatives scanned, and run a picture on the thread. Theabroma

For field/flour corn look at J.L. Hudson's seed catalog, Redwood City Seed Company, Plants of the Southwest, Seeds of Change, and by all means consider joining Seed Savers Exchange. Membership entitles you to a catalog of seed companies who still produce and sell heirloom seeds of all sorts, as well as a catalog of its seed savers who will sell or trade seeds. If memory serves, the offerings of corn, tomatoes, squash, chiles, and beans is absoluted palate-boggling! Here in Dallas there are lots of street corn vendors popping up, and I salivate uncontrollably at just the sight and smell of them. Their roasted, dressed and slathered corn is good, but it is sweet corn, and it is such a pale, weak imitation of those fat, chewy ears with the spiky thumbnail sized kernels that you find in Mexico. I, myself, am a chile, limon, crema, and cotija sort of girl! AAAAaargh! I'm drooling into my computer. Theabroma

I'm sorry that this thread has, it seems, taken a rather long siesta. Let's see if we can wake it up. In response to Guajolote's comment, yes there are culinary influences. The one's I'm most familiar with are in the eastern coastal state of Veracruz, and on the Texas border in Coahuila. Raquel Torres Cerdan, trained as an anthropologist, and duena of El Churreria del Recuerdo in Jalapa, Veracruz, has written about the afro-mestizo influences in the coastal kitchen. I have a couple of them (it will take me a day or so to excavate them, but will do so to provide title, etc.). The other book is about the Mascogo in Coahuila - these are the communities of Afro-Seminoles who fled Florida, or came to Texas as Buffalo Soldiers, and slipped on across the border into Mexico. I have seen a old photo of one of the villages where the women are making processing nixtamal into masa not by grinding it on a metate with a metlapil, but pounding it with a giant tree-trunk pestle in the hollow of a tree stump - African style. Other influences on the Mexican table are the Lebanese (tacos al pastor, as one moves toward the Yucatan (where there is a very large, old community of Lebanese; in fact, Salma Hayek is Lebanese from, I believe, Veracruz; are called tacos arabe!) French - in Morelia and Puebla especially, German, oh! in those wonderful beers. Mennonite - in Chihuahua. This is where the famous queso Chihuahua - so criminally subbed out by anaemic, rubbery Jack cheese in the US - is called, in Chihiuahua, queso Menonita. There are, sadly, some American influences which I, personally, fervently wish would just go away: yellow cheese, hot dogs, etc. pop up as street food. (Last Sept I was in the Plaza Mayor in Mx City for the reading of the Grito by Pres Fox for the Diesiseis - the Plaza was ringed with food stalls selling heavenly, ancient things. There were some stands which were selling hot dogs - w/French's mustard, sweet pickle relish, and chopped onions, and other selling pancakes w/maple syrup! On this particular evening, at this particular celebration, I was struck by that. They were wedged in between two atole vendors. Maybe it's just a flaw in my wiring, but I found that really fascinating.) There are some influences on the western coast that could possibly be traced to the Philippines and the Far East, going all the way back to the trade routes of the Acapulco galleons. Perhaps one of the largest influences on regional cuisines of Mexico is the migration of groups within the country. Like the sister-in-law who was one of a pair of cooks in a small family restaurant 30 kilometers outside Vallarta near the Punta de Mita. Her Oaxacan roots braided themselves throughout the coastal, traditional foods of that restaurant (venison and iguana were the "meat and potatoes" of the menu, the rest of the protein sources were not for the faint of heart, but they were delicious! When you think of the veritable tsunami of ingredients and cuisines that have slammed onto the shores of Mexican kitchens since the Conquest, it really should fill one with awe that despite incorporating these ingredients and seeds of alien cultures into their own, and typically not by choice since the indigenous populations of Mexico wound up largely wound up serving rather than being served, as did a majority of their mestizo children, 'lo mexicano' is still there, vibrant, loud, and clearly identifiable in the nations' table. Perhaps we would do well to also muse about the influences of the cuisines of Mexico on our own here in the US: after all, it was some time ago that salsa picante surpassed ketchup as the number one condiment. Sorry this is such a long post and ramble - I am hoping that you all will kick in with something. There is much to be learned and debated about Mexico. Abrazos para todos, Theabroma

Oh, mercy! Haven't made the others, but Tezka is divine - Arzak is Oteiza's mentor. Methinks we'll be slaughtering ye piggye bank for this one. Theabroma

Well, G, this is just great! I don't suppose you're anywhere close to Texas? The menu sounds wonderful ... so the rest of us are expecting doggie e-bags w/ photos. Green or red chilaquiles? Are you having any difficulty locating chiles for the Oaxaqueno? Theabroma

Dear, Dear Guajalote: That was very, very nice of you. Thanks. That is, perhaps, the Mona Lisa of kitchens: you see pictures of it at every turn; Artes de Mexico once devoted an entire issue to it; so many, many references to it that once in Puebla you're tempted to pass it up in favor of seeing some of the things that are not so famous, like this Kitchen in Need of an Agent. But you go there anyway, and when you finally descend into that cavernous room, your first impulse is, crazily enough, to giggle. There is nothing out there either in print or image - there is no telling or way that you can be prepared for the experience. It is physical: The intersection of kitchen, cathedral, sustenance, and spirit - a locus of immense energy. I will be back there in early November - hopefully will return w/decent photos of that and more. Theabroma

The kitchen in the Sta Rosa Convent in Puebla, MX. We've all seen the pictures, but spend a couple of hours in that kitchen, and you're hooked for life. I'd do unspeakable things just to cook there once in my life. Right down to the exquisite talavera puppy chow bowl set into a low counter. Theabroma

Well, I'm a newcomer to e-Gullet, and should probably lay a bit low for awhile, but the Soul of Mexico questions has me taking a swig from my tin of Brasso, and winding up for the pitch. Traditional, regional Mexican food, and the pre-conquest cuisines of that country are a great passion of mine. In the last couple of years I have been specifically studying the states of Puebla and Tlaxcala, which were, to my great surprise, mentioned in the article. Apparently they are being "discovered" now that Mx City is getting rather scary for those whose idea of living dangerously is being processed sous-vide and toured through a region in a great, diesel belching, peanut & panque (poundcake) dispensing tourist bus. Yes, the chiles en nogada are good at the Fonda Sta Clara, but the memelas and huaraches made by the indigena and her son, standing under a tree across from the Transit Authority bus station in Puebla are a two peso ticket to the gastronome's heaven. Made of corn masa, beans, and glossed with chile and squash blossoms, the only whiff of Europe lies in the stringy, white queso quesillo placed on the quesadilla before it is folded over. This is old food, ancient food, soul food. And while she transacts business iwith drooling customers in rickety Spanish, she and her son speak to each other in Nahuatl. THIS is the still beating heart and living soul of Mexico - and it can be found all over the place ...but not at the breakfast buffet - lovely though it is - laid out at the Camino Real Puebla. The Bon Appetit mag article was a gorgeous piece of photography - yes, Mexico is at least that beautiful - more so, actually. But this was a sanitized version. Written by people of the 'burbs for people of the 'burbs, but here and there lay kernels of truth. Mostly, though, at least to me, it was a joke. Theabroma