The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Travel

A weekend in Xalapa, Veracruz

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Dancing to huapangos at Xalapa's La Casona del Beaterio

Crayton and I have a friend, Chris, who works as a biologist outside Coatepec, Veracruz. Last month we finally had a chance to visit him. Originally I’d wanted to combine a trip to Veracruz City, too, but a helpful email from Leah at In Veracruz cleared that up — traveling to Coatepec and nearby Xalapa was enough for one weekend.

We caught an early-morning bus from Mexico City’s TAPO terminal and arrived bleary-eyed in Xalapa at about 11 a.m. We decided to use Xalapa as our homebase because friends had told us great things about the city. One friend compared it to Seattle, with its drizzly weather and coffee shops. On Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree forum, though, people weren’t as nice — some said it was ugly and urban, and not worth spending even a day there.

In the end, Xalapa was just okay. It’s a little too gritty to be Seattle, and the coffee shops weren’t as abundant as I thought they’d be. Also, I expected the people to be a little nicer. At the market one day, two vendors brushed me off when I asked what type of chiles they were selling. “No sabría decirle,” they said, which roughly translates to, “I wouldn’t know.”

I also had trouble hunting down good regional food. Taxi drivers pointed me to an al pastor stand and a grilled meat place. I thought there’d be something more specifically Xalapeño. Maybe I didn’t ask the right people.

I did take a really cool bike tour in Xalapa, though. And I enjoyed the Anthropology Museum. In the end, I’d recommend stopping in Xalapa for a day and a night, and then moving on to some of the smaller villages in the area — specifically Xico.

Here’s a list of a few things I liked in Xalapa. The Xico post is coming in a few days, with lots of gorgeous food.
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Cooking traditional Mexican food with Marilau

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One of my goals in San Miguel de Allende was to take a cooking class. San Miguel has plenty of those, but I wanted something intensive — a place where I could seriously discuss the food and explore some basics that I hadn’t yet grasped in my Thursday night cooking class.

A while back, Rachel Laudan had recommended a woman named Marilau in San Miguel. Marilau’s website was impressive: she had a techniques class that taught how to capear and how to clean nopales, and another called the ABCs of Mexican cooking that taught salsas, moles, pipianes and adobos.

The latter sounded perfect for me. Luckily she had availability, and at my request she graciously squeezed the normally four-day long class into two days.
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Gorditas de maiz quebrado in Querétaro

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Crayton and I decided last-minute to go to Querétaro this weekend, with our friends Jon and Ale.

We booked our hotel the morning we left, so I didn’t have time to research where we’d eat. Thank goodness for the Querétaro marketing machine — at one of the tourism kiosks in the Centro Histórico, I found a small pamphlet decorated with cookies that listed markets, restaurants and some of Querétaro’s typical foods.

The gorditas de maiz quebrado sounded particularly interesting. They were fried discs made of coarsely-ground masa, stuffed with either chicharrón — in Querétaro it’s called “migajas” — or cheese. A wallop of lettuce went inside. Chilangos, by comparison, don’t eat lettuce in their gorditas. The masa is smooth, the same as tortilla masa. As an aside, there are endless varieties of gorditas in Mexico. Some are baked, some are fried, some are sweet. Ricardo’s dictionary devotes 2 1/2 pages to explaining their differences.

Per the cute Querétaro tourism booklet’s recommendation, we hit the Mercado de la Cruz in the Centro Histórico. Eventually we found Gorditas El Guero y Lupita.

It was a madhouse. Every seat at the medium-sized puesto had been taken, with people sitting along the bar and crowded onto benches. A queue snaked between the register and the fryer, while the owner — El Guero himself — scribbled orders on small pieces of paper. Customers who’d finished eating cried out for more — “Seven more gorditas de queso!” — and El Guero wrote down those orders too, in a messy script.

Equally impressive were the women making the gorditas, who grabbed scoops of masa and stuffed them with cheese and chicharrón, patted them thin, and tossed them into the fryer. They were focused and quick, shaping the masa for only a few seconds before moving onto the next palm-full.

The gigantic fryer

That's masa in the large bowl, and cheese and chicharrón (migajas) in the buckets


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Cooking a homemade Oaxacan meal, metate and all, with Reyna Mendoza

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The ingredients to make a stellar mole

We arrived at Reyna’s house with two baskets full of produce. She unlocked the heavy gated entrance and we stepped through the doorway. In front of us was an open, tranquil courtyard with a dirt floor. This is where we’d cook and eat.

The kitchen lay just beyond the herb garden. Cooking utensils hung on the walls, and a bright red piece of oilcloth (called “charomesa” in Spanish) was draped on a blue work table. She had spatulas, metates, molinillos, clay ollas and a gargantuan tortilla press. At the edge of the kitchen sat a wood-fired stove, crowned with two clay comales.

This tortilla press weighs a ton -- it's the secret to a thin tlayuda.

On the other side of the kitchen, hundreds of corn cobs dried and crinkled under the sun. Across from them, rows of fat squash sunbathed, too, some with hunter-green mottled skins. Reyna’s dad grows the squash and the corn on a farm not too far from her house.

Corn cobs drying in the sun. They'll use the corn for tamales and tortillas, among other things.

I felt like Julia Child visiting the south of France for the first time. The splendor of the land! The fecundity! I lingered around the squash and asked Reyna: “Are any of these for sale?” She said after class I could pick out a few I liked.

We unloaded our provisions in the kitchen and she set about preparing chocolate to go with our sweet bread. I tried to pay attention, but I was overwhelmed by my new environment. I felt very lucky to be there. Even the plate of pan dulce looked like it came from a dream.

The crunchy, pretzel-shaped piece ended up being my favorite.


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A visit to the Teotitlán del Valle market, with Reyna Mendoza

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The highlight of my trip to Oaxaca was the one-day cooking class I took with Reyna Mendoza. She’s a Zapotec woman who lives in Teotitlán del Valle, a small town about 45 minutes from Oaxaca City. She’s been making Mexican food by hand since she was a little girl.

Mendoza has impressive credentials. She is heartily endorsed by Rick Bayless; she’s also worked with Ricardo Muñoz Zurita and Pilar Cabrera of Oaxaca’s Casa de los Sabores. I wanted a course in Spanish, and Reyna’s class seemed like a good fit for me. We’d get to cook in her outdoor kitchen, grind mole by hand on her metate and shop at the Teotitlán market.

I showed up at her house bright and early one weekday morning, around 9 a.m. (Just a few minutes late because I actually believed the “shorcut to the Teotitlán Centro” sign off the main road.) She grabbed her straw basket and we set off for the market, which was about five minutes from her house. We passed other women in aprons and braids and rebozos, their market baskets tucked under their arms, too.

Unlike the market in Tlacolula, the Teotitlán market seemed quiet and full of locals. I only saw one woman with European features; everyone else had mocha skin, inky hair, braids and rebozos.

The market comprised two to three large, open rooms. Chiles, purple ejotes, purple tomatillos, onions and other produce lay stacked on large concrete tables. Prepared food sat in another room, with bundles of flautas and pots of rice and black beans. In the room beyond that, vendors sold herbs and roots and piles of sweet bread.

The conchas that decorate my dreams.

I want to wake up to this basket every day.

The shoppers, almost exclusively women, loaded their baskets with everything they needed for the day. (Reyna specifically mentioned that to me: cooks here prepare everything fresh daily.) People talked and laughed and greeted each other in Zapotec. I made the mistake of saying “Buenos días!” to one vendor and she looked at me strangely. Reyna murmured to me: “People speak Zapotec here.” She taught me how to say “buenos días” in Zapotec: zac xtili. (I pronounced this Sock SHEEL-ee.)

Suddenly I longed for a market basket too, and I asked Reyna if she knew where I could buy one. We walked to a stand in the next room, where I spotted a grand, oval thing with a sturdy handle, perfect for carrying a day’s worth of provisions from my local tianguis. The price was steep — 250 pesos. Did I really need this basket? I tried to picture myself walking down the street in Roma, clutching the basket amid the street vendors and rumbling peseros. It could work, I decided. I bought it and didn’t try to bargain.

We bought sweet bread to snack on, and we picked up the tomatillos, cilantro and avocados we’d need for the salsa later. I bought some purple-tinged ejotes, just because they looked kind of like dragon’s tongues.

We walked back to Reyna’s house clutching our baskets. In front of us, three women carried their provisions on their heads.

I’ll get to the cooking portion tomorrow, but here are a few more pictures of the market.


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Being a conscientious tourist at Oaxaca’s Tlacolula Market

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My visit to Tlacolula made me think a lot about the type of traveler I am.

Now that I have a fancy camera, I bring it everywhere, so I can take pictures to show all of you people. (And to show my parents and friends.) But really, why is it so important for me to take pictures where I’m traveling? Is taking pictures ever exploitative, even when I don’t mean it to be?

The Tlacolula Market, held Sundays in the town of Tlacolula outside Oaxaca, has some interesting prepared foods and produce. But the people-watching is what makes Tlacolula an experience. Dozens of Zapotec women in colorful headscarfs and ribbon-wrapped braids walk around chattering in their language, selling bowlfuls of tejate, bunches of garlic with the stems still attached. They also buy and sell live turkeys.

I’d never seen anything like this before.

I desperately wanted to take portraits of these women, but I couldn’t work up the guts to ask. (The photos above were shot secretly.) Instead I took pictures of food. About half the vendors I dealt with seemed upset even by that. One woman called out to me — “Señora!” — after I took a picture of her roasted chicken from across the aisle. When I told her I couldn’t buy a chicken, she grumbled. So I offered to erase the photo.

At another stand, I bought a kilo of criollo corn. The man selling it gave me a curt nod and didn’t look at me when I asked if I could take a picture of it.

Crayton asked me: Why are you so upset? They’re vendors who make their livelihood off of selling food, and they’re annoyed with tourists who don’t buy anything.

“But I am buying stuff!” I fumed at him.

Except… not a metate. Seeing a line of them painted with flowers made my heart flutter, so much that I wanted a photo. I asked the vendor politely and she nodded and looked a bit annoyed. I wanted to give her something, but handing over 20 pesos seemed rude. I’m not sure she would’ve taken it.

What it came down to was, yes, I had a camera, but I didn’t like being treated like a rude tourist. Was I acting like one, just because I had a camera? Should I have not taken any pictures at all? I cared deeply about Mexican food and culture, and to arrive at Tlacolula and be treated like an outsider stung. But obviously I was an outsider. I didn’t speak Zapotec and I didn’t live in Tlacolula, and these people weren’t making a dime from me. To just tromp in and expect them to cater to me didn’t seem respectful either.

A handful of the vendors I spoke to were really nice. The woman who sold me dried beans and tamala squash seeds said I couldn’t Tlacolula without trying higaditos, which were a kind of egg guisado made with shredded chicken and tomatoes.

It didn’t have any liver, contrary to the name. Crayton and I shared a bowlful at a little fonda called “Juanita,” inside the big market building. We also split a chocolate atole, which was nothing like the thick, overly sweet champurrados of Mexico City. This one was fluffy and light, full of pieces of corn.

Higaditos literally means "little livers," but this dish is made with eggs. It's typical of Tlacolula.

A beautiful, foam-topped chocolate atole

We also tried tejate, which is a pre-hispanic drink made from cacao, corn, and ground mamey seed called pixtle. It was viscous and not very sweet, which I liked. I also liked drinking it out of a jícara, a traditional bowl made from a squash gourd.

Tejate at the Tlacolula market

A few days after my visit to Tlacolula, I visited the market in Teotitlan del Valle, another tiny town outside Oaxaca City. This time my guide was Zapotec — a fabulous local cook named Reina Mendoza. The difference was noticeable: every vendor smiled at me, and one woman laughed when I said “thank-you” in Zapotec. (Reina told me how.)

So my question for you is: What’s the answer here? Is it a matter of not bringing the camera at all, and not writing this blog post out of respect for the people who sell their food and don’t get paid directly by Internet attention? In a perfect world, I could’ve hired a Zapotec guide to take me around Tlacolula. Or paid some type of photo fee to take pictures. But neither of those things were options.

What would you have done?

Auto-rickshaws were a popular mode of transport around the market.

Calabaza batida from the Tlacolula market in Oaxaca

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We spent two hours at the Tlacolula market outside Oaxaca City this morning, and the dessert above is one of the best things we tried. It’s called calabaza batida and it’s squash — the tamala variety, as it’s known locally — cooked with water and piloncillo until it’s thick and saucy. The mixture is then topped with pozole corn.

I have lots more pictures to share with you, but I’m going to go read on the lounge chair while it’s still light outside. This is supposed to be a vacation, after all… even though I brought my computer.

If you had four days in Oaxaca City, what would you do?

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I think it might seem like I go on vacation a lot, but I promise, I’m working up to my ears. In fact, I’m so busy that I feel like I have exactly two minutes to plan my and Crayton’s next trip — back to Oaxaca, but this time to the city. We’ll be there Dec. 18-22. Then it’s back to DF for Christmas and New Year’s.

I was stressing about planning the trip — where are we going to stay? It’s only two weeks away, for goddsakes — then yesterday, while I was on the elliptical at the gym, it hit me that I could ask you all for recommendations!

So where should I go? Should we rent a car and drive there, or fly? At this point I’m starting from zero. Only thing I know is that I’d love to stay somewhere with a kitchen, and that I want to sample as many moles and tlayudas as possible. Visiting a fábrica de mescal would be great, too.

Can you help?

A long, lazy weekend in Huatulco, Oaxaca

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Good friends from Seattle came to visit us last week. Since it’s cold where they live, we took off for a long weekend in Huatulco.

To say we all needed this trip is an understatement. The Seattleites only get sun three months a year; I’d been dealing with Eat Mexico up to my ears (business is great) while simultaneously nursing a flu-ridden husband with Gatorade and soup and medicine. Crayton needed it because he was the sick one.

None of us had ever been to Oaxaca before. I’d kind of longed to visit one of Oaxaca’s small, bohemian beach towns (Mazunte perhaps) and wondered whether Huatulco, a planned tourist development boosted by the Mexican government, would just be another copy of Ixtapa. But it wasn’t. Huatulco was small and hilly and quiet, with resorts and hotels sprinkled around the area’s nine bays. The one bay we saw, Tangolunda, still felt fairly private. There were vendors, but not too many. Only sound was the breeze rustling the palapa fronds.

We rented a beach house on Tangolunda Bay, probably the most developed portion of Huatulco. A Dreams resort lay just down the road from our place, plus a Barceló resort and a golf course. The rental had three bedrooms and came with the use of a VW bug, so we could drive to pick up groceries or to dinner. (This also fulfilled a fantasy I didn’t know I had, to zip around in a bug in a Mexican beach town.)

Huatulco seemed great. But with only three full days of vacation, we didn’t have a whole lot of reasons to leave the beach house. This was the view from our bedroom:

We also had a pool in the living room.

We did explore a little bit. One afternoon we traveled to the Camino Real Zaashila to have drinks under the palapas and take in the sea breeze. We drove into Las Crucecitas, Huatulco’s charming downtown area, and had crispy-thin tlayudas piled with Oaxacan cheese at Sabor de Oaxaca. We slurped on paletas for dessert and walked through the square. We ate American-style hamburgers and Tex-Mex at the Tipsy Blowfish in Tangolunda, which is owned by a Texan. The salsa tasted eerily Tex-Mex and I couldn’t put my finger on why. Then it hit me: canned tomatoes.

We also grilled outdoors one night, setting up dinner on a table that overlooked the water and the stars.

Strangely, now that we’re back, I’m exhausted. Time to hit the gym and recover some energy. And maybe make a dent in some of those mimosas and chocolate chip cookies I had for breakfast.

A Mexico City Bicentenario report: food, grito, dancing and… stomach problems

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I know I kept talking about how crazy the Bicentenario was going to be. And no doubt it was, especially for folks near the Zócalo. (Check out the official Zócalo Bicentenario pictures, complete with flames and fireworks.) From my perspective, the Reforma party was actually kind of subdued. There was music and fireworks, but everyone watched respectfully. And the crowds weren’t as big as I’d thought.

At about 6 p.m. on Wednesday, I met up with my friends Alice and Nick, and we began our walk to the Angel. There wasn’t any other way to get there — almost all of the streets had been closed. A few blocks into the Zona Rosa, a group of policemen checked my bag and took my umbrella away. (“They’re prohibited,” one officer explained.)

Once on Reforma, more officers checked our bags and waved them with metal detectors. We caught a few bits of the parade. It was a colorful, fun affair, showing Mexican history through the ages. Families lined up to watch perhaps three or four rows deep, but there was still plenty of room to stroll and people-watch.

At about 7 p.m., we arrived at the Sheraton Maria Isabel, where my friend Carlos had reserved a suite. (Interestingly, Los Tigres Del Norte were staying in the floor above ours — my friends Jonathan and Ale ran into them in the elevator.) We had chicharrones, jicama with lime juice, guacamole, tacos and tlacoyos. To drink, there was tequila and mescal, and Carlos’s famous homemade sangrita. A shocking amount of beer and bottled water lay in the bathtub, covered in ice. (Wish I would’ve gotten a picture of it, but I was in a non-picture-taking relaxed mode.)

For pretty much the rest of the night, we watched the festivities unfold from there — our ninth-floor hotel window. Part of me felt lame to be so far away from the gente, and some of us did escape every now and then to go watch the concerts up close. I really liked the hotel room, though — having a real bathroom, drinks and food at my disposal made the party just… comfortable. And all of my favorite people were with me.

At 11 p.m., all us — we numbered about 15 — yelled the grito together in the hotel room, following President Calderón’s lead on TV.


Vivan los heroes que nos daban patria!
Viva!
Viva Hidalgo!
Viva!
Viva Morelos!
Viva!
Viva Josefa Ortiz de Dominguez!
(me, thinking, “Who’s she?”) Viva!

There were a few more vivas, and then fireworks exploded outside. The Angel lit up with lights. Everyone stopped talking and stared, and took pictures. It was a special moment — here I was in Mexico, a country I loved and a place that’s given me so much over the past year. I took a moment just to be grateful.

Later, we had a dance party in the suite’s living room. (If you want to know how to get people dancing at a party, invite a Zumba instructor.) Crayton and I walked home at about 2 a.m., to the waning strains of the Tigres. Around us, women pushed babies in strollers, and little kids walked by in sparkly tri-colored hats and ribbons.

To my surprise and delight, a late-night food fair had been set up Calle Florencia. Vendors had pozole, pambazos, tacos, buñuelos and atole. It smelled amazing.

I bought an atole de masa even though I wasn’t hungry. It was Independence Day, I had to buy something!

Buñuelos for sale

Pan de nata was everywhere. Someone fill me in -- is this an independence day tradition?

We got to bed at 2:30 on Sept. 16, and were awakened at 8:55 a.m. by a neighbor with a noisemaker. The folks next door to us were still partying. (I’m telling you, there are some hardcore partyers in the Roma.)

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day, and Crayton and I had planned to get out of the house and maybe see the military parade. Instead I was hit with a stomach bug — I spent the whole day at home, eating rice porridge and sipping Gatorade, and watching old episodes of Deadwood. I don’t think it was the atole de masa that gave me the bug, by the way — I’ve been feeling a little strange since Tuesday.

Stomach problems aside, I still feel really lucky to have been a part of the party.

Now tell me what you did. How did you spend your Bicentenario?