The Raisin Ladies

Having grown up on shriveled, dried-out raisins—oh, and "California Raisins" commercials...y'all remember those?—I never thought of the raisin as a delicacy but rather as an afterthought: a sugary addition to oatmeal or cereal or bread pudding, something that at the very least needed 10 minutes in hot water to gain some plumpness and something resembling edibility.

Then on a trip to my local farmer's market (around the corner from my apartment in Mexico City), I stumbled upon a jar of the plumpest, juiciest, purple pitch-colored raisins I ever saw in my life. I tried a sample—the ladies with their little stores selling everything from canned beans to fresh cream always want to offer a little taste; like a dealer they know you'll pay for the second try—and bought 200 grams on the spot. I took my baggie home and promptly threw a handful of raisins into my yogurt. If it was possible to dry heaven in the sun, the makers of those raisins achieved it.

I thought my obsession was personal; surely no one else could be so enamored of a few dried-up grapes. But I gave my mother a sample when she visited, and the raisins—of all the amazing food we tried during her stay—were the biggest hit, the winner of the week. She visited the raisin ladies at their tiny store in the market and bought another few hundred grams, feeling guilty that she was eating through my stash.

And when she left, she made a special trip to buy two kilo-bags of raisins to traffic home to Florida. The raisin ladies were ecstatic—I doubt they'd ever sold so many raisins at once in their life. Now every time I swing by, it's "How's your mother? Tell her we say hello!"

Street Food by Night

Cheese-less Quesadillas

The quesadilla is eaten so often stateside that it's practically as American as pizza and hamburgers. Who hasn't eaten a quesadilla dripping with goopy cheese inside a flour tortilla? So it came as shock when I started to order quesadillas in Mexico City and they came with...no cheese.

The north and south of countries are often divided and marked by sharp cultural and culinary differences, and it's as true in Mexico as it is in the U.S. For example, it's a given that American southerners eat grits—mmm, cheese grits!—and northerners usually don't. In Mexico, northerners eat quesadillas the way we think of them: flour tortilla, melty white cheese. But in Mexico's southern region, a quesadilla is made with a hand-tossed corn tortilla and stuffed with all sorts of delicious fillings—but don't expect cheese unless you ask for it extra.

Mushrooms, zucchini flower, beef picadillo, mashed potatoes (yes, really), chicken in red sauce... The list goes on. Order a quesadilla, and the señora will ask, "With what?"

Grasshopper Dinner: Part I

Before the Spaniards arrived, indigenous Mexicans knew nothing of cows: neither beef, milk nor cheese belonged to the traditional diet. Bugs did. Creepy crawlers like worms, crickets and ants. Bug consumption in Mexico has all but disappeared, except for the worms drowned in bottles of tequila or mezcal and fried grasshoppers, which, as a snack to be eaten like peanuts, go great with beer.

The most interesting food experiences, like the most interesting relationships, often start with a remarkable first encounter. So it was with me and grasshoppers.

My ex-husband, Rubén; his climbing buddy, Omar, and I had driven out to nowhereland in the northern state of Chihuahua with camping and climbing on the brain. This was years ago... a stifling hot day in the desert; it was summer. The first thing we noticed upon arriving and scouting the rocks was that wasps had installed their nests in nearly every crevice near the top. Climbing would be impossible.

So I was content with just camping and all that entailed—relaxing, reading, eating and relaxing some more—but the boys wanted adventure. They found it in the grass, where thousands of grasshoppers scratched their violin thighs. Knowing that grasshoppers were considered a delicacy in some parts of Mexico (not these parts), the boys decided to catch crickets in the teeming fields, cook them and eat them for dinner.

I argued against it—just because one type of 'hopper is edible doesn't mean they all are, I said—but the boys would have none of my naysaying. So I agreed to be the control group, a designated driver of sorts. Should one or both end up poisoned or hallucinating, I'd get us out of there.

Armed with plastic baggies, they pounced catlike on the unsuspecting crickets until they had several dozen captured. They heated a pan on the camping stove and fried the critters, whose inch-long bodies began to turn lilac and purple and smell of seafood. When the grasshoppers appeared to be "done," they scooped them into warm tortillas and ate grasshopper tacos. The critique was largely positive. They tasted good; no one got sick or high, and the boys felt like hunters, or at least gatherers, of a different era.

Edible Flowers

How can you forget the first time you taste a flower? I remember when my childhood friend Cathy taught me to suck the nectar from a red honeysuckle flower (we seven years old and walking in the "woods," a sad lot of scrub forest where a house still hadn't been built). And I remember the first time I ate a flower, petals and all, in the zucchini-blossom pancakes that my grandmother made one sunny, summer morning in her sparkling kitchen on Long Island. Those delicate yellow-orange flowers are a staple of southern Italian cooking and it turns out they're a staple of southern Mexican cooking, as well.

Sold in handsome bouquets in traditional markets here, zucchini flowers—typically sauteed with onions and herbs—are a popular filling for Mexican street foods like gorditas, huaraches or quesadillas. A warm quesadilla de flor de calabaza is a typical breakfast food here and a personal favorite of mine: a corn or flour tortilla stuffed with melted strands of Oaxacan cheese and a sauté of zucchini flower, onion and the Mexican herb epazote. This one's for trying at home!

Ingredients
1 bunch fresh zucchini flowers
1/4 c. onion, diced
6-8 epazote leaves, minced
2 tblsp. olive oil (or other vegetable oil)
8 oz. Oaxaca-style cheese, pulled in thin strands
Corn or flour tortillas

Start by separating each zucchini flower from its stem and stamen (best accomplished by gently pulling the petal at its base; it should separate without breaking). Then rinse. In a pan, saute the onion in the oil until transluscent, then add the flowers and epazote. Cook over low heat for two minutes or until the flowers begin to wilt (but not fall apart).

Heat the tortillas on a griddle. When soft, add the cheese and a tablespoon of the flower filling. If the tortilla is large, fold in half; if it is a smaller corn tortilla, cover with a second tortilla. In both cases, cook until cheese is thoroughly melted and the faces are slightly toasted.

Final note: In theory, any kind of good melting cheese could make this recipe work, but the delicate flavor of Oaxacan cheese, also known as quesillo (in case you have a Mexican market nearby), is ideal with the zucchini flowers. And if you can't find epazote, although the flavor is really unique, you might experiment with basil.

Enjoy!

Tamale Sandwich/Like Grits in a Bun

In theory, a tamale sandwich is a terrible idea. You take a cylindrical mass of cornmeal—thick as a fist and filled with things like shredded chicken or peppers—you insert it between two slices of a plump white bun, and you basically get a dough sandwich. The torta de tamal, or guajolota, as it's known in Mexico, is a Mexico City special—beloved by city natives and damned by just about everyone else in this country. How can one possibly eat a tamale (filling on its own) with bread to boot? It's just wrong, the naysayers protest.

I'd counted myself among them for the past year that I've lived in Mexico City, since I was bound and determined never to eat a tamale sandwich. Tamales are generally breakfast fare in Mexico and are typically washed down with atole, a hot, creamy drink made from rice or (surprise, surprise) cornmeal. Adding bread to that mix seemed silly, a reckless choice for a sensitive stomach.

Then one morning on my way to a class, I passed a señora selling hot tamales and she had a rare vegetarian option: green peppers and cheese, a favorite. As she reached into the steaming vat, she asked if I wanted it plain or in a torta. I realized that if I got it plain I'd have to stand there and eat it on the spot with a fork, cupping its corn husk wrap in my hands. Well, I didn't feel like it. So I said, "torta, por favor" and took my sandwich to go. I ordered a rice atole as well.

Near the school there are a few benches in the shade of trees and a large sculpture. I made myself comfortable and pulled out my tamale, conveniently contained in sandwich form, and took a bite. Epiphany struck. The mix of buttery cornmeal dough, green peppers, melted cheese and red salsa moistened the roll and tasted heavenly. And I discovered the secret lure of the tamale sandwich: convenience in morning rush hour and warm comfort food, combined.

Honestly, I was full practically until dinnertime... but officially hooked.

Pulque Bar La Pirata in Photos

A (Slimey) Sip of Pulque

Mexico's most ancient moonshine, nectar of the Aztec gods. Pulque may be the most Mexican of all Mexican spirits, although it's nowhere near as popular these days as, say, tequila or mezcal. Just a handful of pulquerías—cantinas where pulque is sold from barrels—remain in Mexico City where once they were numerous. Now they're a treasure to find.

Made from fermented aguamiel, or the honey water drawn from the heart of a cactus, pulque is thick and viscous as motor oil, milky in color and—frankly put—difficult to swallow at first. But pulque is a charmer and magical. Otherwise there's no explaining how the first sip barely goes down, but, by the end of glass, you've ordered a liter. And, in all likelihood, you'll have finished two or three liters (sharing with a friend, of course) by the time the afternoon wanes.

At La Pirata (The Pirate), the pulque is stored in tall, fat barrels and served natural or mixed on the spot with either oat milk, peanut milk, tomato juice or lemon flavor. Let it be said first that La Pirata is a dive, a serious cantina that dusts the floor with wood chips in case the clientele wishes to spit, vomit or spill their jug. The joint serves food as a courtesy; today's offering included moronga, a stew of pig's blood to be eaten with tortillas. We ordered a liter of lemon pulque—the safest choice—and slowly drunk it down to the tunes of a 25-cents-per-song juke box.

Pulque can't be bottled because the bacteria it contains continues to ferment and a bottle closed tight will explode. Producers are artisans who have followed a tradition that dates back to at least 500 years before Christ: Archeologists have found tools suggesting that indigenous Mexicans were producing pulque long before the conquest. There is legend to go with fact. A story is told that Quetzacoatl, the great feathered serpent god, asked the goddess Mayahuel to accompany him to earth, where they would unite as a tree with two branches. Mayahuel's grandmother, angered at her descent, sent wind gods to tear the tree apart, and the branch corresponding to the goddess was destroyed. Quetzacoatl returned to his serpentine form and collected the splintered remains of his beloved. He buried them and from that spot grew the cactus that yields pulque—an enormous cactus that grows taller than a man and blossoms as if its branches were the petals of a great flower. Mayahuel is the goddess of inebriation, a seductress.

And pulque is her potion.

A Lebanese Café

The café around the corner from my photography school is called either the Time Box Café or El Rincón Libanés (The Lebanese Corner), depending on which sign one chooses to trust. But it's not known by neither of those two names. Everyone who frequents this spot at the corners of Río Nazas and Río Tigris simply says, "I'm going with the Lebanese guys for coffee." In fact, two Lebanese brothers own the place. They make a stiff espresso and a tasty cappuciono. And they do so whenever they feel like it: The hours of operation vary depending on the day, the hour, their mood and possibly the weather.

I'd been hankering for one of their tangy spinach pies for weeks—having recently visited more than once in vain, since the café was inexplicably closed once at noon and another time at 10 a.m.—and, when finally I found the café open, they had sold all their spinach pies for the day. Sadly, I ordered a cappuccino and waited for a friend to arrive. In the meantime, one of the brothers came to my table to further apologize for the lack of spinach pies and insisted I try his falafel. Actually, he gave me no choice: He said he'd make the sandwich regardless and if I didn't like it, I could leave it right on the table. Then he swore it would be the best falafel sandwich I'd ever had.

Having lived in New York where falafel is a dietary staple of busy on-the-go vegetarian types (such as I was), I've had a lot of falafel. So I wasn't expecting much from this corner café when the brother delivered a plate with a gorgeous falafel wrap teeming with perfectly fried falafel, lettuce, tomato, onion and dripping a thin, creamy salsa. The falafel balls of crushed fava beans were crispy and toasted brown on the outside and soft and golden on the inside. The pita was hearty but delicate and thin as a tortilla. And it was the best falafel I'd ever tried—a real treasure in Mexico, where finding good, exotic eats is not so easy as in New York.

Of course, I haven't been to Lebanon ... yet. But my cousin has married a beautiful woman from Beirut, so as soon as I have the chance to visit, I'll revisit this post to compare.

The Art of Adaptation

As often happens in Mexico, plans shift abruptly and one finds that one has a sudden chunk of unanticipated time to fill (while waiting for someone to make the date).

One night I was at a coffee shop waiting for the owner to arrive for an interview, for which he was already half an hour late. Upon receiving news that he'd be at least another half an hour (which, in Mexico, means likely an hour), and given that I'd already gulped one espresso, I thought I'd take a walk and a sate a lingering craving for a glass of red wine.

I'd spotted a hole-in-the-wall bar that offered tapas and ought to have wine. So I strolled up to the bar and asked the bartender what wines he had by the glass. He said there was only one, and he gestured to a barrel on the counter. "A red wine from Coahuila," he said. I gave him a doubtful look. He kindly offered a taste. "It's a young wine," he said. I took a sip and, practically against my will, made a face—"young" being a euphemism in this case for bad. Certainly, I wasn't hoping for much, but neither was I expecting something wholly undrinkable. So I said thank you and left feeling frustrated. Where could a woman get a decent glass of wine around here?

The night was clear and cool—a consolation—and I decided to walk off the rest of my wait. When I neared the corner of the coffee shop, I recognized a mezcalería I'd been to before. And I simultaneously recognized my mistake: Wine? To hell with it. I should have stuck to what this country does best. A perfect shot of mezcal (a cousin of tequila, the best of which is produced in the southern state of Oaxaca) beats an uninteresting glass of vino any day.

In Mexico, you can long for the perfect cheeseburger and face repeated disappointment, or you can relish tacos of juicy grilled beef. You can hanker for a loaf of crusty Italian bread and settle for a flaccid imitation, or you can roll up a steaming, hearty corn tortilla in grateful hands. Culinary happiness is learning to savor the flavors where you live.

Terrific Tlacoyos

The very name of this traditional Mexican street food engages the tongue before you take a single bite: tla-co-yo, the harsh first three letters a giveaway to its prehispanic origins. (Nahuatl, the mother tongue of the Aztecs, employs the "tl" sound more often than my English-trained tongue can handle.) Oval-shaped and made from blue corn, tlacoyos are a food commonly found in Mexico's south, from Mexico City on down. I'm lucky to have a señora who every day (without fail, unless she sends her daughter) sits on a box outside the market and cooks up tlacoyos for the lunch crowd.

She has two long black-and-gray braids that she ties in a knot at their ends. Her skin is the color of dark rust and wrinkled; there is no telling how old she is. She smiles constantly. On her right is a plastic bucket of blue corn masa, or dough, and next to it two smaller buckets of pinto and fava bean fillings. On her left is a dish of grated cheese and another bucket filled with cooked cactus, cut in strips, and onions. A griddle upon a grill of hot coals balances before her.

This is how she works: She scoops a ball of blue corn dough up the sides of the bucket, rolling it as she does. Then she flattens the ball a bit in her hand, adds a smaller ball of bean filling on top of it, folds the blue dough around the filling like an envelope and pat, pat, pat! She shapes the tlacoyo into an oval the length of a hand, wrist to fingertip, and slaps into onto the griddle.

When the blue corn dough crisps, the tlacoyo is ready. Hot off the griddle, she makes an incision with her fingers along the tlacoyo's center, prying open the "envelope" so that she might drizzle in green salsa, ladle on cactus and sprinkle the grated cheese over it all. The result is colorful—blue, green, yellow and white—nutritious and vegetarian delight.

Coffee, Mexico City Style

At first glance, much of Mexico appears to suffer the fate shared by many coffee-producing nations: A rich, vital harvest of coffee beans gets almost exclusively exported abroad at prices much higher than can be fetched at home. In many regions, soluble coffees like Nescafé reign over restaurant tablecloths, kings of their market, unchallenged by an American-style brew or espresso. But Mexico City is a delightful exception to the Nescafé rule.

A 1954 Italian-built Faema espresso machine gurgles and purrs daily at Café de Carlo in Mexico City's Colonia Roma. Carlos, the owner, has for nearly two decades bought his beans from a single supplier in the mountains of Chiapas. He buys them green, roasts them in a deafening toaster at the front of his café, then grinds them and brews them in his vintage cafeteras. His coffee "has to have a lot of aroma; a strong flavor that isn't bitter but is full-bodied. And it has to be made perfectly in a perfect machine made by Italians." Having lived in Italy once, I appreciate this nod to Italian design. But make no bones about it, Carlos proudly sells "100 percent pure" Mexican coffee—though he won't say exactly where in Chiapas he purchases his stock as he believes he has found a sweet spot for cultivating the perfect bean. "It's my secret," he says.

In the Centro Historico, the colonial center of the city, decades-old cafés offer respite to shoppers and weary 9-to-5ers. A few of the Italian chrome-lined, pull-handle espresso machines—none quite as sparkling as the one at Café de Carlo—can be found on dingy countertops. The espresso and cappucino (or exprés and capuchino, as spelled in Mexico) is generally good at these coffee shops, which are possibly more interesting for their history and quirky owners than for their brew. The vantage point they offer to a traveler wishing to do little else but watch the world swirl by is certainly worth the 20-peso cup of joe.

Perhaps the most Mexican of coffee styles is café de la olla, literally (and poorly) translated as pot coffee. This coffee spiked with cinnamon, brown sugar, and (sometimes) ground chocolate is made in a clay pot over a medium fire. It is often served in markets along with a breakfast of ham and eggs or huevos rancheros. (My neighborhood market serves café de la olla in large mugs painted like Life Savers—a happy morning treat.) Here is a recipe for Mexican pot coffee, translated from a wonderful cookbook called "Cocina Mexicana para el Mundo":

Ingredients
6 cups water
1 whole cinnamon stick
6-8 small strips of cinnamon stick
2 whole cloves
100 g brown or unrefined sugar
50 g ground chocolate
100 g ground coffee

Preparation
Put your pot of water to boil (use a clay pot if possible). When it begins to boil, toss in the whole cinnamon stick, cloves, brown sugar and chocolate. Lower the flame and, when the mixture begins to boil again, skim the foam produced by the chocolate. Once boiling, add the coffee and turn off the heat. Leave the pot on or near the burner to let the coffee set, but don't let it boil. Strain into mugs.

Small Chile, Big Heat

We all know the wonders of piquant jalapeños and fire-hot habaneros. But Mexico has a surprising variety of hot peppers whose regional fame hasn't crossed the border—or in some cases even made it to Mexico City. Chiltepínes, small chiles harvested wild in the Sonoran desert of northern Mexico, pack more than their fair share of heat and are one of this country's little-known varietals.

I first came across chiltepínes at the dinner table of my boyfriend Rodolfo's family in Sonora, which shares a border with Arizona. I watched as his father Ramón would reach for a wood spice grinder, pop a few dried chiltepines in its crevice and mash the flaky red flesh and yellow seeds to a powder. Then he'd sprinkle the mix onto whatever dish was laid before him—eggs in the morning, tacos in the afternoon, soup in the evening. He did this at every meal to the general awe of everyone else at the table, who knew just how damn spicy those little chiles can be.

Smaller than a blueberry, a smidge bigger than a caper, chiltepínes look harmless—even sweet. Dressed like the gentle sheep of chiles, they bite like a wolf. Each tiny bulb contains nearly 30 heart-shaped seeds. When whole or crushed to a powder, their aroma will cut straight to your throat. Chiltepínes have slightly sweet, tangy flavor and a heat that burns then quickly dissipates, setting them apart from their brethren.

They're difficult, if not impossible, to find in Mexico City, except in the homes of the Sonoran diaspora, whose care packages sent from their home state inevitably will contain a small satchel of wild-grown chiltepínes.

An addendum: For those who have tried chile pequin, the state chile of Texas and a close cousin to the chiltepín, and want to know more about the difference between the two, you can find a detailed explanation in the blog Chasing Chiles.

The Beginning

For years, I have had a love affair with Mexico and Mexican food. I live in Mexico City and, before that, spent a winter on the west coast in Nayarit; a year and a half in Ciudad Juárez-El Paso at the dividing line of Chihuahua and Texas; and once spent four months living and traveling in a VW bus from the border to the Yucatan Peninsula and back. I know Mexico intimately, and I know the taste and texture of its foods—from the hand-rolled flour tortillas of the north, to the hearty blue corn tortillas of the south—by heart.

Yet, culinarily speaking, I've never ventured very far on my own. Beyond preparing the occasional quesadilla or huevos rancheros, I've yet to learn how to make any of Mexico's endless variety of platillos myself. Real down-home Mexican cuisine—comida casera, or homemade food—takes time. Lots of it. The preparation of the many stews, sauces, corn doughs and drinks is elaborate. Which is why it's easy to watch the señoras in their homes, in the market or at street stands and think they were simply born knowing how to cook the way they do. Magical as their powers may be, I hope to discover for myself—and for readers of this blog—some of their secrets, to bring the charms and ancient traditions of real Mexican cooking into my kitchen and yours.