The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Oaxaca

Five cooking classes to try in Oaxaca

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Mole prepared during one of Reyna Mendoza's cooking classes in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Photo by Lesley Téllez.

Mole prepared during one of Reyna Mendoza’s cooking classes in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Photo by Lesley Téllez.

 

From Lesley: Today I’m running a guest post from Dolores Wiarco Dweck, whom I met in Oaxaca last year. She really impressed me with her passion for Oaxaca’s cuisine and culture, and the research project she’d created to specifically learn about local cooking classes. Here’s more from her.

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My love affair with Mexico’s culture and cuisine began in early childhood when I visited Acámbaro, Guanajuato, a small town known for its bread, with my family every summer.

There was a bakery on almost every corner. My favorite was the pan de Acámbaro, an oval-shaped loaf of bread that is similar in characteristics to Jewish challah — slightly sweet and a little dense, with raisins. We ate it with fresh butter and a little bit of sugar sprinkled on top, or nata.

My passion for Mexican food eventually led me to do my master’s thesis research on culinary tourism in Oaxaca. Last summer, I traveled to Oaxaca and worked with five cooking school instructors to learn about their individual enterprising skills in promoting Oaxaca as a culinary destination. I took more than 15 classes, learned new dishes and returned home with a love for indigenous Mexican cuisine.

Here are five Oaxacan cooking schools I particularly enjoyed visiting. Each one provides a hands-on experience for travelers interested in exploring a new culture through food.

1. Alma de Mi Tierra, with Nora Valencia

Nora Valencia. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

Nora Valencia. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

Alma de Mi Tierra’s cooking classes are $75 and promote authentic dishes of Oaxaca, and recipes passed down from Nora’s grandmother as well as some of her own creations. They begin at 9:30 a.m. and end by 3:00 p.m. Classes are hands-on, taught in English or Spanish in her quaint home kitchen, and include printed recipes, a local market tour, a mezcal tasting, and a four-course sit-down meal. Menus typically consist of a salsa, an appetizer, a soup, a main entrée, an agua fresca, and a dessert.

Highlights:

  • Nora’s friendly nature, bubbly personality, and historical insights allow students to learn about Mexican food, mercados, and the origins of various ingredients in a fun and interesting way.
  • The cozy Mexican-style home kitchen offers an intimate experience for small groups.
  • Family recipes (green mole) and Nora’s own creations (Khalua gelatin dessert) are an absolute treat.

2. Casa Crespo, with Oscar Carrizosa

Casa Crespo's cooking class set-up in Oaxaca.

The scene at Casa Crespo’s cooking classes in Oaxaca.

Classes at Casa Crespo are $65 and take place Tuesday through Saturday at 10:00 a.m. and on Sundays at 11:00 a.m., and last approximately four hours. Oscar focuses on ingredients and techniques from Oaxaca’s eight regions, with an emphasis on easy replication of dishes at home. Students receive morning coffee, a tour of the Sanchez Pascuas organic market, recipes (emailed after class), unlimited beer or mezcal, and a group meal.

Chilaquiles at Casa Crespo. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

Chilaquiles at Casa Crespo. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

Highlights:

  • Oscar provides great explanations of different ingredients during the market tour, providing insight into the ceremonial uses of herbs and other products.
  • Classes are relatively short, which leaves time for other afternoon activities.
  • While the classes are quick, the variety of salsas and other menu items made is expansive. The menu typically includes several appetizers, at least four salsas, a main entrée, homemade ice cream, and agua fresca.

3. Casa de los Sabores, with Pilar Cabrera

Pilar Cabrera's nopal salad. Photo by Lesley Téllez.

Pilar Cabrera’s nopal salad. Photo by Lesley Téllez.

Casa de los Sabores group classes are $75 and take place from approximately 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. They are led by chef and La Olla restaurant owner, Pilar Cabrera, and offer the opportunity to learn secret family recipes and traditional Oaxacan dishes. The price includes all materials, a tour of Mercado de la Merced, hands-on instruction, a mezcal tasting, and a five-course meal – an appetizer, salsa or guacamole, soup or rice, mole, dessert, and agua fresca.

Sweet bread in Oaxaca's La Merced market. Photo by Lesley Téllez.

Sweet bread in Oaxaca’s La Merced market. Photo by Lesley Téllez.

Highlights:

  • Pilar offers a different perspective given her background as a food scientist-turned chef – plus she’s a master when it comes to squash blossom soup and desserts.
  • While the menus are set and based on different moles, Pilar emphasizes the importance of improvisation depending on fresh and seasonal ingredients found during the market tour.
  • The class includes an intimate and educational mezcal tasting and explanation led by Pilar before the meal.

4. El Sabor Zapoteco, with Reyna Mendoza

Reyna Mendoza at the market in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

Reyna Mendoza (in the checkered apron) at the market in Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

El Sabor Zapoteco focuses on traditional Zapotec dishes and culture. The six-hour cooking classes are $75, and are available on Tuesdays and Fridays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. or on other days when requested with advance notice. Classes include roundtrip transportation to and from Teotitlán del Valle (students are picked up at their hotels), a local market tour, homemade hot chocolate and sweet bread, a hands-on cooking class in Reyna’s outdoor home kitchen, recipes, and a sit-down group meal that includes appetizers, entrees, dessert, drinks and mezcal.

A chaya leaf tamal at Reyna Mendoza's Sabor Zapoteco cooking class. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

Fruit at the Teotitlán Market, during Reyna Mendoza’s Sabor Zapoteco cooking class. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

Highlights:

  • Reyna’s calm demeanor can put anyone at ease in the kitchen, and it’s wonderful to learn from someone in the Zapotec community.
  • The market tour in Teotitlán del Valle offers insights into Zapotec village life.
  • The outdoor kitchen is great – students use traditional tools such as a clay comal (flat griddle used to roast ingredients), a metate (large stone tool used to grind maize, chocolate, or dried chiles and spices for mole), and a molcajete (stone pestle and mortar) to make salsa.

5. Seasons of My Heart, Susana Trilling

The kitchen at Seasons of My Heart in Oaxaca. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

The kitchen at Seasons of My Heart in Oaxaca. Photo by Dolores Wiarco Dweck.

Seasons of My Heart’s regular classes are $85 and take place on Wednesdays from 9:00 a.m. to approximately 6:00 p.m. They include roundtrip transportation from a designated pick-up location in downtown Oaxaca, a tasting tour and light lunch at the Wednesday Etla market, a lecture on Oaxacan cuisine by Chef Susana Trilling, and hands-on preparation and consumption of a five-course meal.

Highlights:

  • Susana’s approachable personality and larger group classes offer opportunities to socialize and meet new people interested in cooking.
  • This beautiful and spacious cooking school is located in the open countryside and has a good mix of modern and traditional cooking tools and appliances.
  • The Etla market tour is incredible – students taste a ton of regional foods such as nicuatole (pre-Hispanic corn and sugar dessert), egg bread, hot chocolate, various tamales, ice creams and desserts that they might not otherwise taste while in Oaxaca.

About Lola
Dolores Wiarco Dweck, known by her nearest and dearest as Lola, has a great appreciation for Mexican cuisine and culture. Lola’s culinary mentors include her relatives and friends as well as some of Mexico’s great chefs and home cooks. She preserves and shares her favorite recipes through Lola’s Cocina.

My favorite food moments of 2012

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A tlayoyo — a rustic Poblano version of the DF tlacoyo, made with mashed alberjón beans and avocado leaves — was one of my favorite foods of 2012.

I’m grateful for so many things this year.

We saw a little bit more of the world. We had lively conversations with good friends and stared out at gorgeous vistas and sipped excellent wine. (And excellent mezcal.) I got to come back to a city that I love like no place else — fetid air, crushing traffic, raw chicken vendors who hoot at me and all — and I got to learn and share everything I know about Mexican food, a job that I still cannot believe is mine.

My family, thankfully, stayed healthy, and my husband did not complain when I had to work weekends, on vacation, or until 9 p.m. on a weeknight. (Thank you honey, and I promise not to make you visit any more markets if you don’t want to.) I’m also thankful for the vendors who said hi to me when I was walking down the street, and for the stoic tlacoyo lady who prepared her last tlacoyo of the day for me, for free — “Un regalo de navidad,” she said. I’m thankful for the roof over our head and the abundance of food in our lives.

I really don’t know how I ended up with this life, but I am so glad it’s mine.

Here are some of my favorite food moments of the year:

1. The Tamales Course at Fundación Herdez. This four-day course was probably the best cooking class I’ve ever taken in Mexico City. The instructor gave an exhausting overview of tamales from prehispanic times to the present, and we supplemented our knowledge with a trip to the Botanic Garden at UNAM.

Grilled tamales at the Fundación Herdez cooking course in January, 2012

The filling for a grilled tamal: one small mojarra fish, a leaf of purple epazote, tomatillos and xoconostle slices.

2. Judging a small-town tamale fair. We arrived to Tetepango, Hidalgo thinking we’d peruse the tamales and atoles and that would be that. Instead we ended up judging more than 100 homemade tamales and atoles, in flavors like cajeta con whisky and bean maguey-worm. It was a blast.

A “tamalchil” — tamal with chile ancho — at the Tamales & Atoles Fair in Tetepango, Hidalgo.

Ben and I deep in thought. Was the masa too dry? Too dense? These were the questions we grappled with.

3. Making homemade tortillas at the Escuela de Gastronomía Mexicana. This was my second-favorite cooking class of the year. We made tortillas with guajillo chiles, and tortillas embedded with quelites. Mine inflated (ya me puedo casar), and I realized that a huge part of making good tortillas is a hot comal. I’m blaming my non-inflated tortilla failures at home on my stupid electric stove.

Homemade tortillas with quelites and guajillo chiles at the Escuela de Gastronomía Mexicana

4. Visiting the farmers of Xochimilco. I’d heard of De La Chinampa, a group that supplies organic, locally grown produce to restaurants and local residents in Mexico City. In March, I finally had a chance to see the chinampas up close during a trip with Ricardo Rodriguez, the organization’s director. We met a farmer, who explained his farming practices to us; then we floated around the most tranquil part of Xochimilco that I’ve seen.

Cilantro seedings, farmed in the chinampas of Xochimilco

The Xochimilco canals at sunset

5. Touring Queens with Madhur Jaffrey. In April, I was one of the few lucky ones who got to take an Indian food tour of Queens with Madhur Jaffrey, part of an event with the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Ms. Jaffrey was gracious and kind, and she taught us the history and preparation of every food we tried. This ranks in my top food experiences ever.

One of my favorite things was chaat, a cold-spicy-sour-sweet salad that’s eaten as a snack.

6. Puebla’s International Mole Festival. In May I tasted some of the best foods in the state of Puebla — moles, molotes, tlayoyos and more — and listened to Rick Bayless, Marcela Valladolid, Mark Bittman and others share their personal experiences with mole and Mexican food. Completely worth the journey there and back, and I’m already looking forward to the festival again next year.

Spooning chilayo onto a molote. Chilayo is made with sesame seeds, white beans and red jalapeños.

7.The joy of Oaxacan tamales. I thought I had tasted tamales before I went to Oaxaca. Let’s be clear: I had not tasted tamales. These tamales have ruined me on all other tamales, now and into the future. Every time I make tamales, I know they will not be as good as the Oaxacan ones, and that is the cross I have to bear.

A bean tamal with hoja santa in Etla, Oaxaca

8. Burning a tortilla on an outdoor stove, for homemade mole. During the same June trip to Oaxaca, I took a cooking class with Susana Trilling. I volunteered to make the chichilo mole (no one else wanted to do it), which entailed burning a whole tortilla on the clay comal and then adding the ash to the stew. Can I tell you how fun this was?

Burning a tortilla for chichilo mole

The tortilla’s on fire, the tortilla’s on fire!

9. Roast suckling pig in Mealhada, Portugal. When we were in Portugal in July, Crayton insisted (yes, Crayton!) on taking a side trip to Mealhada, also known as roast suckling pig central. We got lost on the way there, so we had to pull over and ask for directions in Crayton’s Brazilian-style Portuguese. Eventually we found Pedro Dos Leitoes, a huge restaurant with skewers of pigs roasting in the front lobby. We gobbled down an entire lechón with the crispest skin, plus potato chips, salad, bread, olives and dry, fizzy white wine.

Lechón (roast suckling pig) at Pedro dos Leitoes in Mealhada, Portugal

10. A long weekend in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz. So what if the city is feíto? The food is fantastic, and I’d love to go back. I had the best time touring the markets with my friend Janneth and her mom, Martha. We stopped at little restaurants and I helped make homemade tamales de masa colada.

Camarones enchipotlados (shrimp in chipotle sauce) outside Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz

11. A food tour of Tijuana. I’m going to write about this soon — hey, it barely happened in October (wince) — but Crayton and I had the pleasure of taking a food tour with Bill Esparza, a blogger and Mexican food expert who lives in LA. Of the places he showed us, my favorite was Mariscos Ruben. The goopy, creamy taco de marlin still lives on in my dreams.

A taco de marlin from Mariscos Ruben in Tijuana, Mexico

12. My first homemade chile en nogada. In hopes of channeling the 19th-century Poblana nuns who invented this dish, I went to Puebla to buy my ingredients and I peeled walnuts for six hours. When it came time to fry the chiles, curls of smoke wafted out of my kitchen and floated over my guests’ heads. In the end — the chile was spectacular.

I forgot one more thing that I’m thankful for: you reading this blog, and commenting (or not), and generally making The Mija Chronicles a lovely place to be. I wish you a wonderful New Year, and hope you get a few moments of reflection before all the craziness begins.

Un abrazote a todos!

Making mole and touring the Etla market with Seasons of My Heart in Oaxaca

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Chile de Agua

Chiles de agua at the Wednesday market in Etla, Oaxaca

I met Susana Trilling in New York a few years ago, at a culinary event given by Zarela Martinez. I was from Mexico (or visiting anyway), and so was she, so I boldly approached her and introduced myself. She was gracious and warm, and we ended up keeping in touch once I got back to Mexico.

A few months ago Susana invited me to visit Seasons of My Heart, the cooking school she runs in San Lorenzo Cacaotepec about 45 minutes from Oaxaca City. She gives an open cooking class on Wednesdays for $75 USD, which includes a visit to the Wednesday Market in the nearby town of Etla.

I finally took the tour a few weeks ago and I’m so glad I did. The market itself was worth the price of admission.

The Etla Market: A must-visit

We met Yolanda, one of Susana’s market guides for the past several years and a Oaxaca native, at a central meeting point. She spent the next 2 1/2 hours pointing out the ceramics and herbs, and giving us tastes of nicuatole, homemade smoky requesón, sesame-topped pan amarillo, nieves, tamales and more.

Pan dulce at one of the Etla market stands

Bags of nicuatole, a corn-and-sugar dessert

The tamales, sold from a stand near the back entrance, nearly swore me off of Mexico City streetside tamales forever. The squash flower-chepil variety (there was a squash-flower chepil variety!) tasted like the ingredients had been plucked from a garden somewhere nearby. And the coloradito amarillo. Oh god. These were the tamales to end all tamales.

The amarillo tamal

A black bean tamal wrapped in hoja santa

Returning to the Cooking School

Back at Seasons of My Heart — the school is tucked off a dirt road, nestled in the Etla hills — I volunteered for team tasked with making chichilo mole. My partner and I gathered at the outdoor wood-fired kitchen stove and toasted our chiles and tomatoes. We lit a tortilla on fire with a few spoonfuls of chile seeds and watched it burn.

It started to rain, and I finally had a chance to think about where I was and what I was actually doing — standing in front of the wood fire and a comal de barro, blackening a tortilla until it smoked, in the same way who knows how many women had done before me.

The tortilla started out like this...

... And then turned into this...

... And finally, once the flamed petered out, became this. This is what we'd crumble, soak in cold water and eventually stir into our mole.

Chichilo mole and rice at Seasons of My Heart in Oaxaca

Then, finally, it was lunch time. The food kept coming: nopales salad, pumpkin seed dip, corn soup, corn antojitos called tetelas, chichilo mole, rice. We stuffed ourselves and talked.

By the time the class ended and the van arrived to pick everyone up, the rain had started again, and thick swaths of dark clouds covered the mountains in the distance. I wanted to curl up in a chair with a blanket and a cup of tea and stay until the stars came out.

I’d highly recommend Susana’s class if you’re visiting Oaxaca. (You can reserve directly through the Seasons of My Heart website.) I’ll leave you with more photos of the Wednesday Market in Etla.

Tasajo, anyone?

It was all I could do to resist buying from these ladies.

Dishing up chocolate atole, a thick, warm drink made with chocolate and corn

Gorgeous avocado criollo

More criollo avocados (you eat the skin!)

The seed vendor, for growing your garden or farm

Yolanda poses with poleo, a Oaxacan herb used to treat an upset stomach

Agua de chilacayota, a piloncillo-squash drink

The clouds of Oaxaca

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San Agustín Etla

On the bus to Oaxaca

Entering Oaxaca City

Just outside Santa Catarina Minas, about an hour from Oaxaca City

The countryside between Minas and Ocotlán

Thank you to Joy Victory for reminding me of my cloud love affair.

Wandering through Oaxaca’s Central de Abastos market

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Oaxaca chile de agua

Chile de agua at Oaxaca's Central de Abastos Market

A few friends in Oaxaca warned me about how crazy-insane the Central de Abastos was. It’s huge. Don’t expect to see it all, they told me. You’re going to get lost and you have to be okay with it.

I’m a fan of Mercado de la Merced in Mexico City, so my eyes light up at this kind of talk.

I got to the market around noon, and my friends were right. I couldn’t see anything from where I’d been dropped off; clothing vendors, shoe sellers and people selling remote controls and batteries stretched on and on. I asked a young woman where the food was and she looked confused — it was like she’d never been there before. (Was this place really that big?)

Eventually I found the main market building and it looked pretty similar to what I’ve seen in Mexico City, with some extra additions: long, stringy tripas dangled from rods at the meat stands; chile vendors sold costeño and amarillo and three types of chile pasilla oaxaqueña, separated by size. The sweet bread vendors sold pillowy pan de yema and these oval-shaped breads with bubbly tops, sprinkled with pink sugar.

The real action was outside at the tianguis. The Central has a tianguis every Tuesday, which means vendors, many of them women, set up outside with their wares displayed on plastic tarps.

There were so many vendors, I couldn’t see where the line ended. They sold mountains of chiles de agua and baskets of heirloom tomatoes, and stacks of fresh basil, rosemary, poleo, chepiche. They sold pitayas and teeny cactus fruits called jiotilla, the size of kumquats. One group of vendors sold panela, unrefined cane sugar, in massive brownie-sized blocks. Further down about 30 women in aprons sat on stacks of newspaper and tied bundles of garlic together. Past them, perhaps a dozen more sat and tied bundles of spring onions.

In between it all, ambulant vendors hurried by, selling Oaxacan oregano and cal in rock form. “Quiere la cal, doña? Doñita, la cal!”

After about two hours, I’d loaded up two bags with purchases (there’s a clay artesanía section too, where I bought two comales de barro), and refueled with an empanada de coloradito. I scribbled down a few notes in my notebook and the last line was: “Just. Totally. WHOA.”

If you’re into food and you’re visiting Oaxaca City, you must stop by. My food friends in Oaxaca tell me Tuesday is the best day.

Heirloom tomatoes

Live maguey worms, perfect for eating in a taco or grinding in a salsa

Panela, the unrefined cane sugar that's known as piloncillo in DF.

Piloncillo coconut candy... this stuff is the bomb.

Mangoes in spicy piloncillo syrup.

How to get there…

Tomatillo salsa with chile pasilla oaxaqueña

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If there is one chile you need to try in your life, it’s the chile pasilla oaxaqueña.

The dried, wrinkly, pointy chile is almost cartoonishly smoky. It smells like a campfire, or like a match right after you’ve blown it out. And the taste! It’s woodsy and kind of fruity, and perfumed with smoke. Make a salsa with this baby and you’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted: acid. Heat. Fire. And just a little nudging of raisins and berries.

This chile is hard to find outside of Oaxaca. I didn’t realize that until I came back from Oaxaca thinking, “I’ll go to Mercado Medellín and pick up some pasilla oaxaqueñas!” and my guy didn’t have any. Ending up finding them at Mercado San Juan, for eight pesos each. I paid — that’s almost $1 per chile — because the pasilla is worth it.

This chile is also known as the mixe (pronounced MEE-hay) because it’s grown in the Sierra Mixe, which is a region east of Oaxaca City. In From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients, Diana Kennedy says the chiles are grown in such small batches that they’ll probably never be imported on a large scale. Interestingly, my sister- and brother-in-law in New York recently found a “pasilla de Oaxaca” salsa at their local grocery store, made by Rosa Mexicano.

If you haven’t tasted this chile before, I’d highly recommend making a table salsa. You can really do it any way you want, but the basic ingredients are the chiles and garlic. I don’t toast my chiles or add any onion, but you can. Really at the end you want to taste the pasilla as much as possible.

If you can’t find the pasilla oaxaqueña, this salsa also works with chile de árbol. Just make sure you use a good, hefty handful. Don’t be afraid about making the salsa too hot — the point of this dish is that the chile is the star.

Tomatillo salsa with chile pasilla oaxaqueña
Recipe first learned in Reyna Mendoza’s cooking class
Makes about 1 1/2 to 2 cups

Note: This tastes best at room temperature, so make sure you give it time to cool down before serving. Also, store your dried chiles in an air tight container, in a cool, dark place. Humidity enables mold growth.

Ingredients

1 pound tomatillos, husked and washed
1 or 2 unpeeled cloves garlic, depending on your preference
2 chile pasilla oaxaqueñas or 8 chile de árbol
salt

Directions

Place the chiles in a shallow dish and cover with very hot water. In the meantime, dry-roast the tomatillos on a comal until they’re soft and blackened in spots, and have turned a dull green color. Toast the garlic as well, ideally on the outer edges of the comal so it doesn’t burn. You want it softened too.

Once the chiles have softened — perhaps 10 to 15 minutes; if you need more time or to replenish the hot water, that’s fine — carefully cut open the chiles and remove the seeds. Place the chiles in a blender jar with the garlic and just a little water, perhaps two or three tablespoons. Blend until smooth. Then add tomatillos and blend until you reach your desired consistency. (For me it’s about 5 to 10 seconds.) Add salt to taste. Serve the salsa at room temperature.

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.