The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Eat Mexico

Eat Mexico’s newest food tours, in Puebla

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Slicing off grilled pork for tacos árabes in Puebla, Mexico

So I’ve been holding onto this news for a few weeks now, but I can finally tell you officially: Eat Mexico has launched culinary tours in Puebla!

We’re pairing up with All About Puebla, an English-language website that’s run by my friend Rebecca Smith Hurd. She’s an amazing Puebla resource and an all-around excellent person. Rebecca will be leading the tours.

As of now, we’re offering two routes — Chiles en Nogada and A Taste of Puebla. The former includes a visit to the Ex-Convento de Santa Mónica, where chiles en nogada were created, and a market visit to learn about the ingredients. It’s capped off with a chile en nogada cooking class with renowned Puebla chef Alonso Hernández.

The Taste of Puebla tour offers an introduction to Puebla’s more popular casual fare, including all the gorgeous goodies I blogged about a few weeks ago: pelonas, tacos árabes, cemitas and more.

You can find more details, including prices and reservation info, on our (sort of newly designed) Eat Mexico website.

If you or anyone you know is visiting Puebla, I’d love it if you kept us in mind. Note that the Chiles en Nogada Tour will be offered in August and September only, in keeping with the seasonality of the ingredients.

On a personal note, I am really excited about this collaboration and for stepping out beyond Mexico City with the food tours. My business turns two years old this month. Feeling like a proud mom.

Mezcal and the milpa in the state of México

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One of the things I love about running Eat Mexico is that I get to meet people who are passionate about Mexican food and Mexican traditions. This weekend, two of those people — Gustavo and his girlfriend Karina, who help me with my mezcal tour — offered to take me to the state of Mexico, one of the states that borders the Distrito Federal, so I can see how mezcal is made up-close.

Only seven states have been certified by the Mexican government to make mezcal: Oaxaca, Guerrero, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí, Guanajuato and Durango. But mezcal is actually produced in several more places, including the state of Mexico and Puebla. By law, these states aren’t allowed to put the name “mezcal” on their liquor, even though they’ve been making mezcal for generations.

Our destination was Zumpahuacán, a small municipality about two hours west of Mexico City. From the Colonia Roma, we headed west toward Santa Fe and then up over the hills past La Marquesa, the forest of pine and fir trees. (Yep, there’s a forest right outside Mexico City. I really need to get out and see it more often.)

We drove past Toluca and through Tenancingo, a town known for its rebozos and obispo tacos. We zig-zagged for several miles on a windy road that cut through the hills, and then we finally pulled off and parked under a shade tree.

This was our view:

Look, a real squash flower!

The mezcal tour begins

The maestro mezcalero, Sr. José Luis, greeted us in person, wearing slacks, a button-down shirt and leather sandals. He served us mezcal in little clay jarritos, and we sipped and talked on his patio. His dog lay nearby in the sun.

His mezcal-production area lay about a kilometer from his home, down a dirt path. The sun shined high and hard overhead. I regretted not bringing a hat. (Speaking of which, I need to replace my American baseball caps for a straw hat like these guys are wearing.)

The maestro mezcalero, Sr. José Luis, and my friend Gustavo

The view of the countryside in Zumpahuacán, Estado de México

Sr. José Luis makes his mezcal from wild agave. I’d never seen one up close before, and the first plant we saw had a rounded, raised pattern on its leaves. The design reminded me of similar shapes I’d seen on murals at Teotihuacán and the Anthropology Museum. It was kind of an ah-ha moment.

Agave criollo, one of several types (all called criollo, for lack of a scientific categorization) that grow on Sr. José Luis's land.

Another agave criollo

Sr. José Luis, using his machete, shows us how to determine when an agave is mature.

The milpa in Zumpahuacán

We learned about his mezcal distillation process, and we saw the earthen pit where he roasts his piñas. Piña, in this instance, doesn’t mean pineapple. It’s the name for the core of the agave, which is what mezcal is made from. On the way back, we got a bigger treat: Sr. José Luis led us through his milpa, where he grows corn, beans and squash for his family.

The word milpa signifies a small plot of land where things are grown synergistically. The beans use the corn as a natural trellis, snaking around the stalks; the squash naturally harvests just after the corn does. The milpa was the most important farming practice in Mesoamerica for thousands of years.

And there I was, standing in one.

“This is where it all started!” I wanted to tell everyone. Of course, they knew too, and we all stood around sort of dazed.

A variety of white bean, hanging off a cornstalk in the milpa

How amazing is this? The bean stem, trellising around an ear of corn.

Black corn

Black corn, one of the varieties grown on José Luis's milpa. This one isn't ripe yet.


Wild cempasúchil, the traditional flower of Day of the Dead

Wild cempasúchil, the traditional flower of Day of the Dead

A yellow flower -- I forgot the name -- that grows wild in Zumpahuacan. It's gathered and formed into shapes (like crosses or wreaths), which are placed over people's doorways on holidays.

As we were walking back through the flowers and the sunshine, I asked Sr. José Luis what Zumpahuacán means. He said, “Place where the skulls are found.” Turns out the name actually means “place where the skulls of the sacrificed are kept in colorín trees.” Huh.

The day comes to an end

Sr. José Luis plucked off few fresh ears of corn for us to take home and his family roasted a few more for us to munch on. The kernels were nutty and toasty, almost popcorn-tasting.

On the way home, we listened to Tin-Tan and I tried to figure out a way to fit my two bottles of mezcal into my tiny tote bag — a bag already stuffed with sweet bread, tomatillos and manzano chiles from Tenancingo.

I really, really need to get out of the city more often. We’ve got too many amazing things in our backyard.

You’re now in the presence of a Top Global Culinary Guide

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I’m humbled and honored to announce that Travel + Leisure magazine named me one of their Top Global Culinary guides in the July 2011 issue! My name is listed in a small section near the back, in stellar company with guides including Robyn Eckhardt and Annisa Helou. I’m also featured on a slideshow on the T+L website.

I’ve worked really hard over the past year, both in giving tours and striving to create a top-notch product with Eat Mexico. Things like this — and our continually satisfied clients — really make it all worth it. I feel like a lucky girl.

Thanks, T+L!

The safest way to eat on the street in Mexico City

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A sweet, pineapple-flavored tamale from a street stand in Col. Roma

It’s a myth that eating any street food in Mexico City will make you sick.

But if you’re not used to eating on the street here, you shouldn’t just pick any stand. One of the most common questions I get through my Eat Mexico tours is: “How do you choose where to take us?”

Here are the guidelines I use when planning our Eat Mexico tour routes.

1. Pick a street food stand that looks crowded. This means several people standing up and eating in a cluster around the stand. If the stand is empty, and you don’t have a personal recommendation from someone else who’s eaten there, do not eat there.

2. Glance around and see if the stand looks clean. Are there stains everywhere? Dirty plates and napkins? If so, pass. I also pass on places where the food just sits in one big pile, as opposed to clean clay pots, or tupperware or stainless steel containers.

Plastic buckets are a common way to store various quesadilla or taco fillings in Mexico City. The ones above are quite large, which denotes high volume, which means the place most likely has great food.

3. Who takes the money? It’s a good sign if the person preparing the food and the person accepting payment are two different people. Smaller stands can’t afford this luxury, so make sure they place a piece of plastic over their hands when receiving cash or change.

4. The food must be freshly prepared. Some stands in Mexico City prepare a lot of food beforehand, and it just sits out. They don’t even necessarily warm it for you — it just goes from the container right into your tortilla. (My one exception here is tacos de canasta, which by definition sit out all day, steaming in a basket. They’re still really good.) These stands won’t automatically make you sick, but they just don’t taste as good. It’s a much tastier experience to watch the taquero make your taco right in front of you, or to watch the older woman pat the masa into a tlacoyo.

A woman prepares fresh quesadillas and tlacoyos at a street stand in Col. Roma

5. Feel free to make small talk while you eat, if you speak Spanish. Most stand-owners are nice and they’ll answer your questions, especially if you’re a foreigner. Ask, “Cuántos años llevan aquí, en este esquina?” which means, “How many years have you been here, at this corner?” Many stands have been on certain corners for decades. If you’ve found the tlacoyo stand with the little old woman with the gray braids who says, “I’ve been here 40 years,” you’ve struck gold.

6. Go during peak hours. This helps you get a better idea of which stands are the most crowded. In Mexico City, peak street food hours are generally 10 or 10:30 a.m., or 2:30 to about 4 p.m. (And then perhaps 8 p.m., when folks are getting off work.) Be aware that if you’re searching for street food at 6 or 7 p.m., some stands are closing up for the day, and you’re going to get the dregs of their daily product.

Do you have any tips you use when eating street food, either here or elsewhere? Feel free to share below.

Tacos de canasta with salsa verde, from a street stand in Condesa

Another big announcement

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Thanks so much for all of your wonderful comments and encouragement about cooking school. I wanted to share some other big news with you today: I’ve started a new business!

My friend Jesica and I recently launched Eat Mexico, a tourism company that offers informal, fun food tours of Mexico City.

Right now we’re offering a four-hour street food tour, a three-hour taco tour and tours of two Mexico City markets. Everything is completely customizable, so if you want to seek out the city’s best bakeries or the best vegetarian places, or you really just want to eat grasshoppers and ant eggs, we can do that, too.

The whole idea is to show people realize how vibrant and layered the food scene is here. Real Mexican food — and not just the food, but the history and the culture of eating here — deserves so much more recognition. I am really excited to be doing my part to help get the word out.

Please check out our website and let me know what you think. If you live in Mexico City, we will be having a launch party sometime in the next few weeks, so leave me a comment if you’d be interested in attending.

So yes: cooking school and culinary tourism. This is the summer of Making It Happen.