Mexican cuisine

• 1. Introduction

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  Mexican cuisine once puzzled the Spanish who met it, and in the 16th century Bartolomé de las Casas set down a telling observation. According to him, the indigenous people did not feel they were eating at all unless chiles were present.

  That one ingredient opens onto a larger puzzle. How did a food tradition born in the area's first farming communities absorb Spanish, African, French and American cooks without losing its center? Why does a sauce sometimes decide what a dish is called? And why does the Mexican food served abroad so often differ from what families cook at home? The answers begin with a grain, and with an unlikely piece of chemistry.

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• 2. Corn And Alkali

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  Around 7000 BCE, roasted agave hearts were one of the main sources of calories in Mexico and Central America. Corn was not yet cultivated, so people lived by hunting game and gathering plants, wild chili peppers among them. By 1200 BCE the picture had changed. Farming communities such as the Olmec and Maya had domesticated corn and established the standard process of nixtamalization. That process treats the kernels with alkali. It softens them for grinding and improves their nutritional value, and it made tortillas and other flat breads possible.

  Quetzalcoatl features in many of the Mesoamerican stories about where corn came from, which usually describe it as a gift from one or more gods. After nixtamalization, the dried kernels are ground into masa, a dough that cooks use both fresh and fermented. Masa becomes drinks such as atole, and it also becomes tamales and sopes. Even so, the tortilla is the commonest form of corn, and it accompanies almost every dish. Wheat has arrived and so has rice, yet maize remains the most widely eaten grain in nearly every area. Some regions vary the tortilla. The north uses wheat, while Oaxaca makes versions from plantain, yuca and wild greens.

  Common beans, Phaseolus vulgaris, completed the pairing. Genetic evidence points to their domestication in Mesoamerica as well as in South America. Corn and beans are each short of different essential amino acids, so eaten together they supply a complete protein. Pinto beans and black turtle beans are among the varieties in Mexican kitchens today.

  By the time the Spanish arrived, the Aztecs had sophisticated farming methods and an abundance of food that underpinned their economy. That surplus let them expand an empire, and the tribute flowing in consisted mostly of foods they could not grow themselves. According to Bernardino de Sahagún, the Nahua peoples of central Mexico ate corn, beans, turkey, fish, small game and insects. They also ate a wide range of fruits, tubers, wild mushrooms and herbs.

  Chapulines, which are grasshoppers or crickets, and escamoles, which are ant larvae, belong to a tradition of insect eating that is millennia old. Cumiles are stink bugs, and ahuatle are water bug eggs. Today these foods are spreading beyond poor and rural areas, valued for their flavor, their sustainability and their link to pre-Hispanic heritage.

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• 3. The Chile Question

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  A pot of pozole is white, green or red depending on one choice: which chile sauce goes in, or stays out. The same logic runs through much of the cuisine. Entomatada, adobo, pipians and moles are named for their sauces, and the meat or vegetable underneath matters less than the chiles in the pot. Tamales are told apart by their fillings, and those fillings are defined by red chile, green chile or mole.

  Mexican food has a reputation for fiery heat, but the reality is wider. Chiles are native to the country, and their use goes back thousands of years. Cooks prize them for flavor as well as heat, and Mexico uses the widest variety anywhere. Many dishes are subtle, and many spices in the kitchen are not hot at all.

  Street food shows how deep the habit runs. Tacos, tortas, sopes, tlacoyos, tlayudas, gorditas and sincronizadas are rarely eaten without salsa or without fresh or pickled chiles. A savory dish with no chile in it usually gets a splash of hot sauce. Chile is even added to fresh fruit and sweets. The chipotle, a smoke-dried jalapeño, is among the most common forms in the kitchen.

  In the Mesoamerican period, the chile was a staple on a par with corn and beans. It served as food, as ritual and as medicine. Most Mexicans today believe their national identity would feel incomplete without chiles and the sauces and salsas built on them.

  Mole, the most elaborate of those sauces, is saved for the biggest days of the year.

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• 4. The Festival Table

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  Mole poblano is the dish central Mexico reaches for at Christmas, at Easter and on the Day of the Dead. It also appears at birthdays, baptisms, weddings and funerals. It is so complex and time-consuming that it tends to be saved for special occasions. Since the 1980s, other foods such as barbacoa, carnitas and mixiotes have become acceptable for those moments too. Economic crises may have played a part, since these dishes are cheaper, can be bought ready-made, or may already be part of a family business.

  The tamale is the other great festive food. It is a filled cornmeal dumpling, steamed in a wrapper. Highland and desert regions use corn husks, while the tropics use banana leaves. Tamales have pre-Hispanic origins, and like mole they are tricky to prepare and best made in large amounts. They are tied to celebrations such as Candlemas.

  On the Day of the Dead, tamales and mole are set out on altars. Visiting dead relatives are believed to eat the essence of the food, so if the living eat it afterward, it is considered tasteless. Festival cooking in central Mexico can feed hundreds of guests and needs groups of cooks. Preparing food for family and social events counts as an investment in relationships, and even flavor is treated as social.

  The talent for cooking well is called sazón, which literally means seasoning. It is regarded as a gift, gained through experience and a sense of commitment to the people at the table.

  Everyday eating follows its own rhythm in a typical household, with four meals. A light breakfast often includes coffee or atole. Around 11 a.m. comes a snack and a drink. Between noon and 2 p.m. the heaviest meal, the comida, begins, often with a chicken broth with pasta or a dry soup of pasta or rice. The main course is meat in a cooked sauce, with salsa on the side, beans and tortillas. Supper falls between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. and varies greatly by region.

  The labor behind this food was once enormous. Before industrialization, women spent several hours each day boiling dried corn and grinding it on a metate. They then cooked the tortillas one by one on a comal griddle. Salsas were ground in a mortar called a molcajete. Blenders are now more common, though the texture differs. Most people in Mexico say a molcajete salsa tastes better, but few still make it that way.

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• 5. Convents And Galleons

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  Moctezuma's emissaries, handed European wheat bread, reportedly said it tasted of dried maize stalks. The complaint ran both ways. Bernal Díaz del Castillo grumbled about the maize cake rations he faced on campaign. Their reactions marked the start of a long negotiation between two pantries.

  The Spanish brought sugar, wheat, rice, onions, garlic, limes, cooking oil, dairy products, pork and beef. They also brought the technique of frying in pork fat. Domesticated pigs, cows, chickens, goats and sheep raised protein consumption, and cheese became the most important dairy product. The exchange ran in both directions. New World ingredients entering Spanish kitchens gave rise to shared names, as with chorizo, which uses paprika. Spanish cooking was already shaped by its Moorish heritage, so this was one of the earliest instances of fusion cuisine.

  Convents were one of the main places where the two cuisines mixed. Rompope, believed to have started in the convents of the city of Puebla, takes its name from rompón, the Spanish version of eggnog. Sugar cane crossed the ocean with the colonists, and it fueled sweets, including local fruits preserved in syrup. The candy craft called alfeñique arrived from Spain and is now used for the Day of the Dead. Dessert culture in the modern sense only developed after these Spanish customs arrived.

  Wheat never displaced maize. Corn was cheaper than wheat, easier to cultivate and higher in yield, so native communities stayed loyal to it. Bread, meanwhile, marked class. In 18th century Mexico City, only two bakers could make the leaved rolls called pan francés or pan español. They worked on consignment to the viceroy and the archbishop. Wealthy Creoles could buy large ring loaves of choice flour called pan floreado. Everyone else ate pan común, pambazo and cemita, made with lower-quality wheat and maize.

  In the 18th century, the Italian Capuchin friar Ilarione da Bergamo described what he saw on Mexican tables. Tortillas, he noted, were eaten by the upper class as well as the poor. Lunch might be chorizo and ham between tortillas, with a piquant red chili sauce. People drank pulque, atole, and for those who could afford it, chocolate twice a day. He found that neither coffee nor wine was consumed. Evening meals ended with a small portion of beans in a thick soup "served to set the stage for drinking water".

  A third current joined these two. African influence arrived through African slavery in New Spain, carried by the Atlantic slave trade and the Manila-Acapulco Galleons.

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• 6. Streets And Cups

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  The word taco may come from the Nahuatl tlaco or tlacatl, meaning middle or half. Others trace it to Spanish phrases, so the origin is disputed. The food itself is older than the argument. It grew from the pre-Hispanic habit of using tortillas to pick up other foods, since utensils were not used. Tacos are the best-known street food in Mexico, but they are not a main meal. People eat them before midday or late in the evening. Pork is found most often in the center and south, beef in the north, seafood along the coasts, and chicken and lamb nearly everywhere.

  Street vendors also sell food that does not suit a home kitchen, including barbacoa and carnitas. Roasted chicken is a street staple because many homes in Mexico do not use ovens. Part of the appeal is eating without the social and emotional weight of a family table. Even so, longtime customers can form something like a friendship with a favorite vendor.

  The torta traces to the 19th century, when the French introduced new kinds of bread. It began as a split roll with beans. In Mexico City the roll is usually the telera, a flat bun with two splits on top. In Puebla the preferred bread is the cemita, and the sandwich carries the same name.

  American fast food left its mark in the late 20th century. The Sonoran hot dog appeared in the late 1980s. Its frankfurter is boiled, wrapped in bacon and fried. It is served in a bolillo-style bun with pinto beans, diced tomatoes, onions, jalapeño peppers and other condiments.

  In Tijuana, vendors sell fruit dusted with Tajin spice to people crossing the border. Tightened border security has threatened those carts. A proposed project to widen the streets at the crossing would let more people through. It could also devastate the neighboring mercados that depend on travelers.

  Drinks are just as inventive. Aguas frescas, tejuino and tepache fill the carts. Tamale stands usually pair their wares with atole. Corn is drunk as well as eaten. Hot atole is flavored with fruit, chocolate or rice, and cold fermented versions include tejuino and pozol.

  Xocolatl is the Nahuatl word behind chocolate, and the Maya grew cacao trees and made a frothy, bitter drink from the seeds. It was often flavored with vanilla, chile pepper and achiote, and it was used in religious rituals. Chocolate was first drunk rather than eaten. Before European influence it was warm, syrupy and mixed with honey, and it was also treated as medicine. Mexican hot chocolate is the modern descendant.

  Café de olla is coffee brewed with cinnamon and raw sugar. Horchata and agua de jamaica came with the Spanish, along with sangria. Mexico also produces tequila, pulque, mezcal and charanda. The most common alcoholic drink taken with a meal is beer, with tequila second.

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• 7. Kitchens Of The Regions

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  Fifty-six varieties of asadero, a smoked cheese, come from the north of Mexico, which also makes the widest range of cheeses in the country. The north has differed from the south since pre-Hispanic times. The arid land supported hunter-gatherers with limited agriculture and few settlements. When Europeans arrived, they found it suited to cattle, goats and sheep, so meat became dominant, especially beef. Machaca, arrachera and cabrito are favorites. Ranch culture made grilling the signature technique, done outdoors by men.

  Wheat grows well there, and the region has at least forty types of flour tortillas. Their large size allowed the burrito to emerge in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, and it later gained popularity in the Southwest United States. The desert climate also means that drying and canning are central. Preservation changes flavor, and many chiles are less hot after drying. In Nuevo León, Spanish families of Jewish origin, known as Crypto-Jews, settled during the colonial period. They contributed pan de semita, a bread made without leavening, and cabrito, which remains the typical food of Monterrey. Chinese, Mormon and Mennonite immigrants shaped parts of Chihuahua and Baja California. More recently, Baja Med has emerged in Ensenada, blending Mexican and Mediterranean flavors. Far away in Durango, scorpions turn up in tacos, on skewers and even drowned in mezcal, although their sting can pose a serious health risk.

  Oaxaca presents a contrast. The Spanish took the area with less fighting and less disruption to its food production, so its cooking stayed more intact. Much of it draws on the Mixtec and, to a lesser extent, the Zapotec. Oaxaca counts seven moles: negro, amarillo, coloradito, mancha manteles, chichilo, rojo and verde. Only mole poblano is more popular. Cooks there adapted the mozzarella brought by the Spanish into what is now Oaxaca cheese. Its chocolate is often hand-ground with almonds and cinnamon.

  In the Yucatán, the food is based primarily on Maya cooking, with Caribbean, central Mexican, European and Middle Eastern touches. Achiote seeds give the cuisine a reddish color, and recados are pastes built on them. Cochinita pibil is the best-known dish, and the word pibil comes from the Mayan píib, meaning buried. The meat is wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in a pit oven. Bitter oranges add the tangy note, and honey was used long before the Spanish to make a ritual alcoholic drink called balché. A honey liquor called xtabentun is still made. Street stalls even sell Lebanese-based kibbeh and shawarma tacos.

  Veracruz blends indigenous, Afro-Mexican and Spanish traditions. Vanilla is native to the state. The Spanish introduced citrus, pineapple and European herbs. Parsley, thyme, marjoram and bay laurel flavor huachinango a la veracruzana, a red snapper dish. African slaves introduced plantain. Because Veracruz has long been a gateway to Mexico, rice is a heavy favorite there, while corn is less dominant. The anthropologist and restaurateur Raquel Torres Cerdán has worked to preserve and record the foods of the region's indigenous peoples.

  Michoacán, built on Purepecha culture, uses corn in its most varied forms. Its atole comes in flavors such as blackberry and cascabel chili, and its tamales include corundas folded into polyhedrons. Carnitas, a confit pork, is the dish claimed by many regions as authentically Michoacán. Jalisco is famous for birria, a stew of goat, beef, mutton or pork with chiles and spices. Near Guadalajara, the town of Tonalá is known for pozole. In the 16th century, the stew was reportedly said to have first been made with human flesh for ritual use.

  In Chiapas, the simojovel chile is used nowhere else in the country. The cooks of Chiapas lean on herbs such as chipilín and hierba santa, and chipilín is often worked into tamale dough. A drink called tascalate, served hot or cold, combines powdered maize, cocoa beans, achiote, chilies, pine nuts and cinnamon.

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• 8. Borders And Heritage

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  Chef Tudor reached Mexico in the service of Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg. During the French intervention, French food became popular with the upper classes. Its lasting trace is the variety of breads in Mexican bakeries, including bolillos and conchas. The 19th century also brought French, Lebanese, German, Chinese and Italian immigrants. The Germans contributed beer brewing techniques, and the Chinese added their own cooking to certain areas. As a result, Mexico came to define its cuisine by popular traditions more than by any particular technique.

  Exchange with the United States has been constant since the 20th century. In her 1972 book The Cuisines of Mexico, Diana Kennedy drew a sharp line between Mexican food and Tex-Mex. Tex-Mex grew from Mexican and Anglo influences and can be traced to the late 19th century in Texas. Flour tortillas became popular north of the border only in the latter 20th century. Going the other direction, industrialization and greater food availability after the Mexican Revolution brought fast foods such as hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza south.

  Mexico City, a destination for migrants from across the country since pre-Hispanic times, gathers the dishes of every region. Most of its ingredients are not grown locally but are transported from elsewhere. It also holds most of Mexico's haute cuisine. Many professional chefs there train in French or international cooking, yet they still favor Mexican staples and flavors. At fancy dinner parties, small tacos or quesadillas often appear among the hors d'oeuvres.

  In 1982, a group of women chefs and other culinary experts founded the Mexican Culinary Circle of Mexico City. They feared that traditions would be lost as foreign techniques spread. In 2010, UNESCO recognized Mexico's cuisine as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

  Fusion now runs both ways. In Mexico, sushi may come with sauces of mango and tamarind, or with soy sauce blended with serrano chili. In the United States, Korean tacos originated in Los Angeles. The sushi burrito was created in 2008 by Peter Yen of the San Francisco restaurant Sushirrito. Immigrants use Mexican food to ease homesickness, and for their descendants it is a symbol of ethnicity.

  Mexican chefs have also earned recognition abroad. In 2013, Carlos Gaytán became the first Mexican to win a Michelin star, for his work at Mexique in Chicago. In 2008, the James Beard Foundation named the restaurant of Houston chef Irma Galvan an American classic. In 2014, Daniela Soto-Innes helped open Cosme in New York City and served there as chef de cuisine.

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