The foods of Mexico

culinary cultures — By Bob Riel on April 10, 2009 at 7:20 am

Sure, you like Mexican food. And, yes, there are Mexican food restaurants in every big city and perhaps every small town across the United States. Not to mention in many other nations, as well. But have you really experienced Mexican food if you haven’t had it in Mexico? Sarah Menkedick recently wrote an article for Matador Travel that takes us on a tour of 10 Mexican foods to try – in Mexico. Here’s a sampling of her suggestions:

Tacos- You may think you know the taco. You’ve met it in Chicago or even Beijing. But you do not know the taco until you are standing on the corner of a sun-flooded street at 7 AM, elbow to elbow with hungry Mexicans on their way to work, watching the taquero carve meat off the spit, spoon it into warm corn tortillas, fold said tortillas into small moons, and repeat the process, fluently, rapidly.

You do not know the taco until you dress it with delicate thin guacamole, cilantro, and perhaps a dabbling of red chili sauce, and it fills your mouth with the flavors of corn, meat, and spice. Until you use your fingers to pick up the little biteful of filling that fell out onto the Styrofoam plate. Then you know the taco.

Tortillas fresh off the comal- The comal is a round, clay Mexican grill, upon which señoras heat fresh hand-pressed tortillas. Watch and you’ll see the tortillas puff up a little, at which point the señoras will flip them briskly. When they’ve firmed and cooked through, they’re filled or topped to make quesadillas, empanadas, or memelas.

Quesadillas and empanadas are tortillas filled with mushrooms, squash flowers, chile-rubbed pork, or huitlacoche. They’re delicious, but in my opinion the way to really experience the simply joy of this tortilla is to try a memela. A warm tortilla, a thin layer of black beans, and queso fresco. Nada mas.

Mole- “You first need to get the peanuts, you get the salt and the bread, you grind and you fry the chiles, you boil the chocolate…get cinnamon and bananas, get cloves and oregano, get thyme and the blackest pepper, you grind it in México!”

Look no further than Mexico’s beloved Lila Downs for a celebration of molé. An indigenous specialty, it is used to celebrate weddings, funerals, birthdays, Sunday afternoons, and the richness of life. You can’t leave Mexico without a little molé in your blood.

She has many other mouth-watering suggestions in her full story.