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.