Mexican Cheese

[caroline]

Ok; so we’ll look at cheeses. As anyone who has traveled in the country knows, cheeses are found everywhere. More often than not they are soft, fresh, and used in various dishes of the “corn kitchen.” No doubt about it, after cattle and goats were introduced following the Conquest, not only the criollos but also the indigenous took up cheese with a passion.

But because most of these cheeses are soft and fresh, they have been distributed locally until recently. If you have ever tried to get an idea of where and what the cheeses are, you’ll know it has been just about impossible. They just weren’t recorded.

Now, hurrah, we have something informative: a terrific full page color map of Mexico with the thirty most important cheeses located, photographed, described, and with the commonest uses identified. This is thanks to Abraham Villegas de Gante, an expert in agricultural engineering at the National Agricultural University in Chapingo to the north of Mexico City and Carlos Pereza, a distinguished artisanal cheese maker in Querétaro who has been promising a book on Mexican cheeses for some time.

And just to give credit where credit is due, the article was put together by Angel Rivas who talked to various other historians and agricultural researchers. It was published on September 10th in Buena Mesa, the food page of Reforma.

I wish I could just scan the page. But here’s the list of cheeses. I haven’t put in the details because it would take hours.

Chihuahua menonita, Chihuahua no menonita, asadero, de tetilla, adobera, jococque, panela, cotilla, chongos, sierra, de epazote, tipo manchego mexicano, de tenate, morral, guaje, trenzado, de rueda, ranchero de Veracruz, de hoja, Chapingo, de cincho, molido de aro, molido y cremosa, oaxaca, de aro, bola de ocozingo, crema tropical, de sal, de poro, sopero.

Some random comments:

This doesn’t quite map on to the standard grocery store categories (have to think about this).

I think of jococque as yoghurt (whole mystery here about which came first, jococque or the Lebanese with yoghurt).

Chongos are always served in syrup as they say. A sort of dessert cheese.

The researchers are trying to get denominación de origin for some of them. Cotilla, a mature grating cheese from Jalisco and Morelia, is more or less ready to go.

They make passing reference to the Mennonite origins of northern harder cheeses and to the Italian origins (aka mozzarella) of Oaxacan cheeses, something that can drive Oaxacans bats.

They give dire warnings about imitations which (I suspect) are most of the cheeses in the grocery stores. These include cheeses with vegetable fats, milk powder, casein).

They don’t include foreign cheeses made in Mexico commercially such as Gouda.

Nor I note do they include two other very important and growing cheese-making enterprise. (1) goat cheeses (will the world sink under the weight of goat cheeses?); and (2) wonderful cheeses such as the range of what I used to call Italian cheeses but now have learnt to call Italian-style cheeses by the cheese-make Remo who sells to the Italian Embassy.

But what great news that Mexican cheese is finally being studied. Now I have to track down and try all these cheeses! What a great chance to explore the country!

Cheers,

Rachel

[Carrot Top]

This is a happy thing to hear! Now we who do not live in Mexico can sit and read and drool and plan of which cheese to try to somehow get next.Trip to Mexico required, maybe...

A very nice thing, indeed.

[theabroma]

Hooray for Mexican cheese and dairy products! I am trying to get set for my trek to Napa on Thursday, and may not be able to take the time to ask the questions I have until I get out there. But this is noticed, and so appreciated.

I will be visiting a couple of 'artisanal' tamal makers in the Bay area, and am very curious as to what they're doing, who they are, and how they're doing it. Understand that one is very, very 'high-end.' Imagine! White tablecloth tamales!

Regards,

Theabroma

[gnkindrick]

"Nor I note do they include two other very important and growing cheese-making enterprise. (1) goat cheeses (will the world sink under the weight of goat cheeses)"

Rachel, what is it that you mean by this? I just don't get it.

Secondly, is there a link to Reforma, which you keep mentioning? Or can I buy this here at a magazine stand/bookstore in Guadalajara?

Thanks,

Nick.

[caroline]

Theabroma, Carrot Top, thanks for the encouragement. Hi Nick, Good to have another Mexico-based person. Or are you just visiting?

On goat cheese. I like goat cheese. And I know goats are easy to keep and that goat cheese is relatively easy to make. But I sometimes find it slightly depressing that people here who are going into cheesemaking seem to head disproportionately for goat cheese. There is so much to do on Mexican cheese. And it would be wonderful to have some European-style soft and hard cheeses. But moral for me, don't make throwaway remarks.

On Reforma. I'll try to post in the near future on Mexican food publications.

But for now, Reforma (liberal) is one of the big three newspapers in DF, the others being La Jornada (left, which has an excellent food column by Cristina Barros) and Excelsior (right). So far as I can ascertain, the latter two don't have food supplements.

You can go to Reforma's website reforma.com and read the headlines, get the menu of the week, lists of restaurants (not reviews), etc. But if you want to read the stories you have to subscribe. This is MN $360 for three months (roughly $30). That gives you access to ten years back issues too.

You can probably get Reforma on news stands in the center of Guadalajara though if it's like here they won't arrive until midday and then not reliably. (Esperanza?)I've tried getting it delivered but can't.

You may also be able to read headlines and editorials in a local paper. Our León based paper, AM, includes them. It does not include the food supplement.

Getting hold of periodicals and books in Mexico, as you may have observed, is a bit like hunting and gathering. You grab them as and when you can.

Rachel

edited for clarity

Edited October 14, 2004 by Richard Kilgore (log)

[rancho_gordo]

Is cotilla the same as cotija?

Is this an important cheese in Mexico or is it's role exagerrated in the US because it's often made here?

I have a friend who drives down to Tijuana to pick up cheese that's come from Gudalajara. I thought it was cute until I tasted it and it's worth the drive from the Bay Area. Well, almost. But my point is yanqui cotija is nothing like the Mexican.

[esperanza]

OK, I'll speak to a whole bunch of questions at once.

First: Reforma is available at the GDL airport for sure; I was just there yesterday and they had yesterday's issue on the newsstand. Nick, poke around and let me know if it's available in the city, please.

Second: Queso cotija is one of my all-time favorite cheeses. I just bought 100 grams this morning at the tianguis to crumble on frijoles refritos. The frijol I cooked this morning was garrapato.

Rancho Gordo is so right. Cotija in the USA is nothing at all like cotija in Mexico. In the States it's usually sold in those vacuum packs that suck all the soul out of the cheese along with the air that comes out of the package. Here in the Guadalajara area it's generally sold in chunks cut from huge wheels.

I don't know about cotilla--maybe it's a typo in Caroline's post, or maybe it's a cheese I'm not familiar with.

Third: I was a little surprised by the article's fairly short list of Mexican cheeses. There are certainly others: panela, queso fresco, and doblecrema come immediately to mind. Queso de cabra is in short supply here in the GDL area; we do see a bit of it, but not nearly enough to be tired of it.

Fourth: Carrot Top, trip to Mexico is definitely required. Jalisco is lovely this time of year. C'mon down.

[chefsteban]

Reforma is, or used to be, available on the web, but i haven't looked at the site in years.

[Jaymes]

And another thing that adds to my confusion is that the name of a particular cheese in one part of Mexico seems not to necessarily be called that in other regions.

For example, in far northern Mexico, Sonora, etc., queso ranchero was what I preferred for my Caldo de Queso. Elsewhere, queso ranchero seems to be another cheese entirely.

[caroline]

Esperanza and Rancho Gordo, you are quite right I mispelled cotija. And lucky you having it in huge wheels. It's not nearly as common here in Guanajuato except in said miserable plastic packets but i'm going to search it out. Maybe we should swap it for goat cheese producers! We have a slew in the Bajio (the central agricultural region of Mexico, mainly in the state of Guanajuato).

Jaymes, I think you're right that cheese names are all over the place.

Which leads me to what I think is really going on with these researchers and in this article. After a period seeking agricultural self-sufficiency, Mexico is now hell bent on entering the world agricultural market. The lessons of Europe aren't lost on them. We are here where most European countries were about 100 years ago. One or two widely made/distributed generic cheeses and a whole lot or regional variants.

The obvious thing to do is to codify and upgrade the regional variants. I think that's why the article didn't mention queso fresco or ranchero. It's too widespread to be a candidate for denominación. Glancing through the list of cheeses and their descriptions, I'd say many of the them are in fact regional variants of queso fresco and/or doblecrema.

By the way Esperanza, there are thirty on the list though it looks less when written out.

Anyway, I expect this is just the beginning of the discovery/invention of regional cheeses for the international market. Probably a tourist market since soft cheeses don't ship well,

Rachel

[gnkindrick]

Well Esperanza, I've been unable to find Reforma at any of the magazine stands / newspaper stands near my house. But I'm still looking. I'll keep you posted.

To answer your question Rachel, I'm not just visiting, but rather I'm here in Guadalajara for the next several years. I'm glad to be here as well.

I have to agree with Esperanza on the goat cheese thing. I would gladly welcome more of a variety of goat cheeses here in Gaudalajara. Tell your cheesemakers in Guanajuato to share with the Tapatios. I have to say that I love all kinds of cheese and to be perfectly frank, I am a little disappointed with the selection of cheese that I have found here in Guadalajara. And this thread makes me wonder if I'm shopping for cheese in the wrong places.

I've been unable to find a cheese store in Guadalajara. Espereanza do you know of any? The supermarkets (namely Gigante and Wal Mart) tend to have the best selections but none of the cheeses they offer, from what I can tell, are artisanely made or hand-ladeled. Is that asking too much?

[caroline]

I'm sure the folks here would love to sell in Guadalajara. I'll be going to the big agricultural fair in Irapuato in a couple of weeks and will pass the message along. as you know/will have gathered distribution of anything here is a big, big problem.

Artisanal cheeses, I think, are still mainly sold door to door or in the market or by street vendors outside the market. You have your man who comes around. This can be tricky because you need someone with really good health standards.

Imported cheeses are limited. Europa which surely has a branch in Guadalajara has a very limited selection at least in Leon.

I am sure there is some deli in Guadalajara somewhere. My choice was/is

(1) Petit Cluny in San Angel, Mexico City--wonderful, wonderful cheese, local and imported. And when I went a couple of months ago they'd closed. Llora y llora (cry and cry). Must be something in Polanco.

(2) Remo's in San Miguel. Locally produced Italian. Closed. Llora y llora.

(3) La Cava, San Miguel. Artisanal and imported. Still going. Not such a great place as the other two.

I'm working on making my own hard cheeses, such is my desperation for them,

Best,

Rachel

[nickarte]

La Reforma has a good food section on Friday ("Mesa") which lists restaurant openings/closings (for el DF) as well as interesting events such as ´ferias´ wine tastings and expos.

Tiempo Libre reviews restaurants but, suffice it to say, the reviewer would be expelled from eGullet for "ser tonta".

For cheese in the city, you can´t beat the Mercado San Juan (c/Ernesto Pugibet in the centro, a few blocks south of the Alameda via Dolores); there are several artesinal cheese vendors there as well as a good selection of imported cheeses, mostly from Spain. Also, La Naval, on c/Michoacàn, corner Insurgentes in La Condesa, has a pretty good selection. They sell Remo´s cheeses, made in San Miguel de Allende.

I am told there is a Sunday "cheese market" of sorts near the Sonora market...will follow up when I get the information.

Nick (not the other Nick who already wrote)

[chefsteban]

Reforma is, or used to be, available on the web, but i haven't looked at the site in years.

←

and I just remembered....Sanborns, a large Sears style chain in Mexico always has Reforma sor sale, but you have to be there early as they always sell out.

[caroline]

Ah Mercado San Juan, one of my favorite in the city. There must also be a cheese place somewhere in the Polanco/Chapultepec area of Mexico City. I'll ask next time I'm down there.

And Chefesteban, you're right of course. If you are in a city with a Sanborns, you can get Mexico city papers,

Rachel

[shelora]

Thanks for the shopping tips Nickarte. The Mercado de San Juan is near the historic centre, right?

It sounds like you live in the Mexico City - have you ever been to a botana bar and do you know anything about this unique places?

S

[nickarte]

Thanks for the shopping tips Nickarte. The Mercado de San Juan is near the historic centre, right?

It sounds like you live in the Mexico City - have you ever been to a botana bar and do you know anything about this unique places?

S

←

Yes, I live in the city...The Mercado San Juan is about 5 blocks south of the Alameda, in the historic center. Just look up the address I already gave on a good map. The "Guia Roji" is the best one.

As far as "Botana Bar" I´m not sure to what you refer...many bars and cantinas (the equivelent of pubs) offer botanas, or appetizers, either free or on the menu, but there isn´t really a category of "botana bar" the way you might think of a "bar de tapas" in Spain.

The famous Bar Opera, for example, offers light food- few people go there to actually EAT...maybe this is what you mean. But then I wouldn´t go to eat dinner at Bemelman´s Bar in New York either, only to have a drink and hear Barbara Carroll, and as she isn´t performing there any more I won´t be going at all!

Also, to clear up some of the confusion, La Reforma is one of the most popular newspapers in Mexico, and is sold at every kiosk, by many vendors at traffic intersections, as well as at Sanborn´s; it is ubiquitous. However, you DO have to pay or be a subscriber to use their website.

[shelora]

Thanks Nickarte,

I know now exactly where the San Juan is. By botana bar, I was referring to the places that post their menus all over town and serve nothing but drinks with little snacks.

I don't where I heard the name botana bar, I've always called them that. Thanks for clearing up some confusion. No wonder Mexicanos look at me blankly when I ask them about that. I would definitely not call the Opera Bar a botana bar. The few I've been to were in the centro, among the plumping supply stores! We had sliced (thinly) bull's testicles and other dishes, although, that one made the lasting impression. I guess I'm fascinated by the concept of free food.

s