The Food of Mexico

This is one of the ever present places in Centro Historico, they have been in business since 1948, it may not be much, but going there is a tradition for people attending events at el Zocalo or the Cathedral.

Service is fast, efficient and the food is tasty and cheap. Sounds too good? well it's true, the cafe has customers at all hours of the day or night, they stay open 24 hours like a road side dinner place and as conveniently cheap and reliable. Been partying until late, no problem, a good plate of enchiladas and some cafe con leche will set you for the night or pretty early morning (madrugada we call between 1:00am and 6:00am, the time when is dark but belongs to the next day).

This type of little cafes are called "Café de chinos" because they began with Chinese emigrants. Is funny because in other places of the planet it would be a Chinese restaurant, but in Mexico city the trend was to offer coffee and milk (Café con Leche) with sweet buns (pan dulce) and Mexican dishes, not Chinese food. It's odd, but there are really few Chinese restaurants in the city.
The menu is mostly Mexican: enchiladas; eggs many styles; milanesa (breaded beef); chilaquiles; roasted chicken; etc. and they make breakfast combos like: 1 glass of coffee, 1 bun, enchiladas, fruit, all for less than $6.00 usd. (prices of 2008).

In the restaurant you will find all the classes of Mexican society mixed together: the politicians, cops, office workers, taxi drivers, tourists, women on a shopping spree, people from other states of Mexico visiting or for business or to see a doctor, and now and then the trendy upper class youngs after a night of heavy drinking and partying.

If you are in the neighborhood, why don't pay a visit, is very inexpensive and a good culture learning experience.

La Casa del Pavo (The House of Turkey) as it's name implies, specializes in turkey, they offer other options but, sincerely Why would you try them if they have something they are the Pros at?

In the little pedestrian street of Motolinia (a few blocks from downtown "Zocalo") you can find cheap food with excellent quality and generous quantity, you just have to search a bit (o print this reviews). The place is full of smoke from the grills and the pots are always boiling on top of the stoves. Try not to arrive at lunch time (in Mexico is between 14:00 and 16:00) because you will face a long line waiting at the pedestrian street in search of a tiny table at the very end of the hot place (they have fans, but not enough) or you can opt for the To-Go orders if you just want a torta.

First, they have Consomé (turkey soup, not chicken soup) which in other places is a diluted broth and some skinny pieces of bird, not here, I ordered the Consomé Preparado and I got more than I was ready to eat, it was almost the main dish instead of just a starter (my friends ordered the small size and it came in a cup), plus I have ordered a Torta de Pavo (turkey sandwich) which was also served very generously, so if you are very hungry this will be good, otherwise ask for the other half to be wrapped to-go.
In the menu there are many other dishes and torta varieties but the main reason to hit this place is to have turkey so we didn't bother, but in case you are interested they have enchiladas, arracheras, fillet mignon, milanesa (breaded steak), carnitas (pork), in case you are fed up with eating turkey for some reason.

The atmosphere. You will really smell the atmosphere here, cramped little tables, your neighbors will surely bump their chairs into yours when they move a bit or leave their place, so be aware and be patient. Also, grab the attention of the waiter when he is around, they tend to be overwhelmed with orders and if you are in a far corner you will have to wave or shout a bit.

Is it worth visiting?
Sure, the food is very very good, just try to avoid rush lunch hour and you will be fine. Just for you to have an idea on how popular they are, they use a big wood barrel to prepare the "chiles en vinagre" that they put at your table to accompany your food, other restaurants buy them by the can or prepare a big pot, here the barrel has to be replenished every couple days or so, Wow!!!

If you are used to American standards for toilets in restaurant chains like McDonalds, avoid theirs, not dirty but really small and suffocating.

This place is wonderful a heaven for gluttons, Los Cochinitos (The Little Piggies) started in Chalco as a regular place to have pork meat and it has expanded to include 3 other branches, all of them extremely busy.

This is a family restaurant where you will see big tables holding 8 or 12 people, most of them related or good friends sharing a day off.
If you are truly vegetarian skip the place at all, there are a few options without meat, but the cheese will be processed in a grill where meat is cooked and you will be surrounded by meat eaters and the smell will be too much for you. BUT if you love meat and specially pork, this is a place you will visit again and again.

The menu is not extensive, mainly: carnitas (little meats) which is deep fried pork tenderloin which is so soft that you don't need a fork at all. You can ask by the taco or by the kilo (if you are a large party).

Other options include the Chicharron (deep fried pork skin) which is very crunchy and similar to pork rinds; tacos in several styles and gorditas (a very thick -so the name- version of tortillas with some chicharron incorporated into the dough); chicken consomé or shrimp broath (not that there are many shrimps in the area, but is made with dried shells).

The restaurant is nice but you won't have time to enjoy the view, you will be too busy stuffing your face to notice.
They have children playgrounds to entertain you little ones, not as fancy as the ones found at McD but safe and fun anyway.

The food is a big part of the culture of a country, in Mexico the food has been subjected to a lot of influences since the arrival of the Spanish and their conquest.

America gave the Old Continent a lot of new ingredients and recipes, but also got back some in return. Prehispanic/Precolumbian real food is still around but is not the norm in big cities. Although some of the dishes are real delicacies that can cost a lot of money depending on the type of restaurant or availability (some ingredients are very scarce especially seasonal ones).

Quick Tips:

In Mexico, the real food is not the one found at high priced restaurants in the touristic zones. Some of them will provide a Mexican menu, but there is no warranty that the plates would be truly Mexican instead of a Mexicanized version of the same idea blended with "nouvell cuisine". If you want to taste the real thing you have to eat where the locals do (like any other place in the world that you visit), and by locals I don´t necessarily mean the masons building houses nor the blue collar Elite, go where average people would eat, even in touristic areas.

If you are in Mexico City you can have safe food near the touristic areas but not necessarily the tourist traps. At lunch time follow the office workers, they will head to a "fonda" normally a Mom & Pop place that serves a menu called "Comida Corrida" consisting on a Soup, an entree, a main dish, and dessert. Soft drinks may or not may be included in the price which tends to be very affordable around 40-60 pesos (June 2006). Depending on the particular "fonda" the soft drink can be a mass produced fresh fruit drink and in some of this places you may drink up to a jar of it included in the price, that makes for a really cheap meal.

Best Way To Get Around:

In Mexico City there are good places near the tourist zones.

Polanco. Ask your concierge for the "food area" between Polanco and Parque Lincon, there you can find good quality, clean restaurants, and a wide variety of real Mexican food, from tacos to tortas to roasted chicken and comida corrida.

Condesa. This area is famous for its restaurants, some of them are on the high end of the price range and tend to be more Fusion than Mexican, but stroll around and you will find something for your budget.

Paseo de la Reforma and Avenida Juarez corridor. Like in any tourist area of the world and especially ports, walk one block further than the main avenue and you will find real bargains, try to find where the office people eat and you won´t be disappointed.

Zocalo and Centro Historico. All around the area you will find an unimaginable variety of restaurants, some even have pre-columbian menus and offer things you would have to think twice before ordering (does fly larvae sounds appealing to you? or toasted crickets? corn fungus?) If you are not sure, try asking someone who already ordered and ask if you can have a little taste of their food, most of the people are friendly and understanding enough that they will be glad to share with you.

Coyoacan. Around the main square of this Colonial in town you will be able to find excellent restaurants with true Mexican flavor and menus. There is a famous Cantina called La Guadalupana, is more expensive but it depends on your tastes. If you want a more common place to eat there is the Food Market a few steps in the back of the cantina, offering all kinds of local dishes. A couple blocks north you find the local market which have a bit of everything including fruit and food stands.

Las Fresas are so popular that you won´t believe your eyes. They mainly sell Fresas con Crema (strawberries with fresh cream).

After a tired day of hiking, driving an ATV or a riding a horse at La Marquesa National park or Desierto de los Leones National Park, and a nice lunch of quesadillas or trucha (trout) you will be craving for dessert, stop at this spot, once you pass the toll booth exit and take the free road to Mexico city via the town of Cuajimalpa. Four hundred meters after the toll booth you will see a lot of cars parked on the side of the road, just after a pedestrian bridge over the freeway, that's if you are comming on a weekday, but if you come on a weekend afternoon or vacations you will be extremely lucky if you find a parking spot, but don´t worry people won´t stay long, they will order to eat in their cars on the go.

On weekends there are five counters to prepare the strawberries, so even if you see long lines you have a hope, but don´t smile so hard, the guy in front of you may buy eight cups of strawberries for his family waiting at the car. There is a sweet and mind-blogging aroma on the air, it's the platanos fritos (Fried Bananas? you may ask me, yes, but more accurately plantains). The main reason to stop here are the strawberries, though. They will put a layer on the bottom of the cup, then cover it with some fresh cow cream (not fat free at all, yum) add another layer of berries and so on, until they reach the top of the cup, then sprinkle chopped nuts, raisins and sugar, add a couple of milk cookies and you would be in bliss.

They also serve bananas and peaches with cream but the big hit are the strawberries.

If you are craving for some salty things they also have tortas and quesadillas but haven´t had those yet, my main and only reason are the Fresas.

Enjoy and Buen Provecho!

Go early in the day, unless you don´t mind things running out. This is a very popular place selling carnitas and barbacoa, the specialties of the house.

There is the restaurant area and also the zone for the "to-go" orders, we always prefer to eat at home, as you can have a more relaxed time and you make your own environment and choose your companions.

This place started as a stand in the sidewalk, but became so popular that they grew into a big 150-customer restaurant with full service. Their menu is not that varied, but offers you more than the carnitas and barbacoa, and they serve beers and a few other alcoholic beverages to go with your tacos while you watch TV, normally a soccer match or wrestling.

The fact that they are close to Coyoacan means that a lot of the customers buy their meat "to-go" and eat at home or maybe a little "party" at the office at lunchtime, so their busiest section is the one in the back of their parking lot. There you can buy by the kilo. The price is not exactly cheap, but their quality backs their fame. If you go on a weekend at lunchtime, it would be a sad experience to return empty-handed, because they may have run out of barbacoa.

A little parenthesis on Barbacoa. In Mexico, it is not synonymous with BBQ by any means; here a barbacoa is a specific dish, normally lamb cooked in an underground earth oven, with the meat wrapped in maguey leaves places in a big pan over hot coals and big slabs of stone, then covered with more maguey leaves and soil. The package is left to slowly cook for many hours, maybe even overnight, and then it's ready to eat. The result is very, very tender meat that will almost melt in your mouth. The juices of the meat were collected on the pan and are served as a consome. You add some lemon, chopped onion, and cilantro, and they are good to enjoy with the company of fresh tortillas. Barbacoa are normally served only on weekends or big holidays, due to the prep they require.

The name is misleading, the Sirenita (mermaid) offers no seafood, but instead you get a very tasty and affordable meal, very Mexican.

In the entrance you will see the "comal" or grill where they prepare the "antojitos" (little cravings), in this case: Huaraches gigantes, alambres, sopes, huevos rancheros, gorditas de chicharron, and quesadillas. I will go through every one on detail.

This is an upscale taco place and very popular.

This is a place where any tourist will feel safe and free from worry of Moctezuma (not Montezuma) revenge. The place is spotless clean and the staff is very efficient and attentive, but the price is higher than the average for this kind of food.

The name is an internal joke of the owners; in the past they had another place called El Charco de las Ranas (Frog's Pond) and after several years of highly financial success, the operation was too big and they began fighting, so this party decided to establish a new one in a more upscale neighborhood and adopted a name accordingly to the the clientele and location, so now they are the "Swan Lake". The menu is basically the same: tacos al pastor, tacos de bisteck, etc.

One thing besides the succulent tacos al pastor that you should try is the chicharron de queso, a huge roll of fried cheese. Beware, it's really big!!!

The usual soft drinks in Mexico beside soda pops are "aguas" or fresh fruit waters; the more traditional ones are Horchata and Jamaica. Horchata is made with ground, uncooked rice and melon seeds with a touch of cinnamon. Jamaica is like iced hibiscus flower tea. Both are drank with ice and are very refresing and have no gas at all. Other flavors that may be available are tamarind, melon, and watermelon, depending on the season.

These days Lago de los Cisnes is very successful and they operate several branches in many expensive malls.

The busiest "Taqueria" in the area and even some people come from far neighborhoods to have this ones.

On busy days (weekend of a payday) the put 4 "trompos" with meat to roast, they open around 4 or 5 (adding to an impressive 400-500 kg or 1,100 lbs!!!) in the afternoon and usually finish at 5 or 6 the next morning and are busy all that time. There are so many persons in the street that you will think that they are given away free samples, but no, the tacos are 11 pesos each (normal price around the city at the end of 2008) but they are bigger and the salsa is to die for.

The portions are bigger than most of the chain taquerias but that is not all the secret, the meat is top quality and fresh all the time, the flavor is the result of a special secret recipe unique to owner, and the salsas are so good you may want to take some on a cup to pour over your eggs on breakfast (that is what I do). Take a look a the picture of the "molcajete" the stone mortar bowl, is so big that it needs two guys to carry it around (and that is when it's empty) and now imagine that they refill the thing several times during the night to keep customers from fighting over the salsa, that should give you and idea on the popularity of this taqueria.

I have been a loyal customer for more than 20 years and I think I still have another 20 before I get bored of this tacos.

Buen provecho.

P.s. According to the owner, they won a taco festival in Estadio Azteca (largest Soccer stadium in the world) competing against the big chains.

This is a very successful franchise, the "Café de Chinos" is a specific style of Cafes in Mexico. The distinctive thing is that Chinese Immigrants came to Mexico and instead of Laundry places they opened Cafes but didn't serve Chinese food, instead the "café con leche" (lot of milk with just a bit of strong coffee) with on-site baked biscuits, rolls, buns and simple and cheap meals are offered.

The main and original place is located in Av. Alvaro Obregon, so the name of the franchise as all the people referred to them as Los Bisquets de Obregon in the early days. Being a franchise the prices have gone up, but not enough to prevent families from attending. Also, the friendly old atmosphere is changed as the new branches have nice modern furniture instead of the old wooden benches of traditional Chinese Cafes and a wall of soda bottles behind the counter. What has been preserved is the glass display with all the fresh baked goods of the day, a lot of people go window pointing to choose their favorites to take home.

In Mexico a good breakfast may consist of Café con Leche, a couple biscuits of buns and then a heartier dish like Enchiladas or Huevos Mexicanos. You can get all this for less than us$10 per person, it used to be much less expensive, but with the franchising costs it is now only seen at the real Chinese owned places off-franchise.
Part of the franchising act was to add a second "bisquets" to the name, so officially they are called "Los Bisquets bisquets de Obregón" but nobody call them that way.

In their website you can find the whole menu in English (www.lbbo.com.mx/menu_ing.html) and a branch locator, they now have spread all around the country, look for a new one near your USA city in the future.

This is really an institution, this restaurant specializes in "Huaraches" which literally means: "sandals". These are elongated tortillas with refried bean paste inside and you put anything on top, like a chicken breast or a couple of sunny eggs, or maybe mole con pollo, or if your budget is low or you hunger is not big enough, then a huarache solo (plain) would be.

This restaurant is located near the Mercado de Jamaica, one of the largest markets devoted to fresh flowers in Mexico City. The place is a breakfast and lunch option only, as they are open only from 7:30am through 3pm from Tuesday to Sunday. If you go early be prepared for a loooooong wait, they are very popular, even though there are three other restaurants selling huaraches.

If you want to avoid the crowds, don't go too early in the morning as all early shoppers are hungry and will fight with elbows and teeth for a seat. Another option is to eat the old style, buy a "to go" order and eat standing on the sidewalk, that will be a more real Mexican experience (but a bit messy, depending on what you have, like mole or lots of salsa).

There are white clothed waiters and you get silverware with your huarache, but the place is still very authentic, they appeared in a TV program that goes around Mexico in search of the most traditional and tasty dishes: "La Ruta del Sabor" from Canal 11 a cultural broadcasting station.

To get there from the Jamaica Market, go to the main avenue of the area Avenida Morelos and locate the parking lot, from there cross the street and walk past three smaller restaurants until you reach the corner, look for the yellow building and a hanging sign of a Huarache (a sandal), this is the real one, the others are just taking advantage of their fame. They are modern enough to have printed laminated menus, and they have a website, unfortunately only in Spanish, but they have an animated map, so take a look there and at their menu, click on any item to get a description with picture.

www.elhuaracheazteca.com/elhuarache/new/localizacion.html

Opened in 1935, this place is an institution in the whole country.

What are churros? Imagine a donut, deep fried, but almost straight and crunchy (the crunchiness is due to the shape of the edges, they are very thin and so get deeper fried). After they take their dip in the very hot oil, they are drained and then sprinkled with lots of sugar and cut to the proper size (a bit longer than 2 ballpoint pens). Then you just eat them, preferably when still hot, with a cup of hot chocolate (not cocoa, chocolate) or cafe con leche or just milk.

Churros are very very cheap, 2.50 pesos (April 2007) apiece. And a package of 4 churros with a cup of hot chocolate (not cocoa, but real chocolate) is only 37 pesos.

If you notice in the pictures there are different types of chocolate on the menu: with milk, or with water (which was the original way) or thicker than usual.

How to get there?
You will find this place in the downtown area called "Centro Historico" on the really busy avenue "Lazaro Cardenas also called Eje Central", it's really easy to find, if you take the subway you have to take Line 8 and get off at "San Juan de Letran" Station. The restaurant is in the corner of the avenue and Uruguay street, just a few steps of the East entrance. This churreria is open 24/7. Amazing! It never, ever closes, I have been there at all times (even 3:00am after Christmas eve) and they have a large clientele, sometimes you need to make a line to enter, imagine.

Just beware, the area is a beehive and will be really crowded, even on weekends as there is technology mall nearby and everybody goes shopping there to get a computer, gadgets, or spare parts, the cheapest place in Mexico and a huge variety.

Buen provecho.

This is a very old Tortas place, it began around 1930 and it is still going strong with the third generation from the same family running the business.  The tortas at "Monje Loco" are object of a cult, and we can't find the reason yet. A torta is something very similar to a sandwich but with different type of bread, imagine a baguette the size of a hamburger bun, a big one in this case. You slice it open and stuff it until it seems not able to held more, and there is your torta del Monje Loco.

But the most particular fact is that the tortas are cold, none of the ingredients are heated (but they are cooked like chicken breast or carnitas) nor the bread is. This is quite interesting because the flavor is very special and cannot be reproduced at home.

They are extremely cheap, for a huge chicken and oaxaca cheese torta you only pay mx$ 39 (September 07) or less than us$4 for something bigger than a big mac, and much more tastier and filling. See the picture with the half finished torta, the amount of chicken is more than triple of what a regular burger would get at McD.

El Monje Loco is not far from the Estadio Azteca -world's largest soccer stadium- and also is near a very busy public transport transfer point, both within walking distance so there are lots of customers in the area.

You may be puzzled by the name, Tuna in Mexico refers to a very sweet and tasty fruit that grow in Cactus. What can be more Mexican than that?

Some species of cactus called Nopal are quite common in most of the country, instead of the ones you see in the movies, the nopales have wide trunks from where a lot of oval leaves sprout mimicking the fingers of the hand, each of the leaves (finger) is called a Nopal, all of them are covered with porous full of spines—some big and menacing but other are almost invisible and thus more dangerous. If the nopales are young, then they are edible and tender.

Sometimes during extended droughts the farmers will use a flamethrower to burn all the spines in order to feed the cattle.

The fruit of the nopal is called Tuna, they are round and also sprout in the edges of the nopal, just like another "finger". This fruits began with a nicely colorful flower that attracts insects and hummingbirds to polinize them. When the fruit reaches maturity they can be the size of a small apple with an almost cylindrical shape. The tunas are also covered with spines so they are not that easy to handle. I have seen the farmers collect them with a pair of long sticks and then all the tunas they collected over open plastic sacks and passing a broom over them several times to swipe the spines.

All the tunas you buy at the market should be spine-free so don´t worry too much. To eat the tunas (if they are not peeled by the vendor) you should cut the ends and make an incision along the skin to remove it, the result is a kiwi-like fruit, but the inside is full of little seeds covered by a very moist and sweet pulp. Don´t even try to remove the seeds, it is useless and would take you forever, just bite them and enjoy the really refreshing taste.

In traditional markets and little towns you can buy all kind of products made with tunas: "aguas frescas", marmelade, candy, "cheese", soup, etc.

Buen Provecho.

This is the most typical and a little exotic staple you will find in most of the places you visit in Mexico. The origin is not Aztec, though.

In any little town you will find a taqueria offering Tacos al Pastor, you will notice immediately as they put the vertical rotisserie at the entrance of the restaurant to attract the clientele.

Traditionally the rotisserie would be layered with charcoal brickets, and that heat is responsible for slow-cooking the meat. Nowadays the use of gas and refractory bricks is necessary due to the volume of tacos needed. The meat is usually marinated pork, with the achiote paste one of the main ingredients, which gives the meat an orange-redish look, but it depends solely on the cook preparing the meat. The meat rotates slowly and as each section is cooked the "taquero" will slice a thin portion out of the "trompo" (stack of meat) and put it on the tortilla.

A little bit back in time for the origins of this Mexican specialty. In the end of the 19th century a family from Lebanon came to Mexico and brought their Kebab style tradition, here after many many years and cooks the recipe was transformed from lamb meat to pork, and adding the achiote marinade and topping the transformation with a chunk of fresh pineapple at the top of the rotisserie to add a touch of tropical flavor, another Mexicanization of the long almost-forgotten recipe (if you want the original one, try the Tacos Arabes, no marinade no pineapple).

Pineapple? You would ask, well, yes, its flavor combines very well and its sweetness will balance the fieriness of the hot salsa you will have your taco smeared with. Some skilled taqueros will flip the pineapple on the tortilla with a flip of the wrist making it a show like the Japanese Teriyaki chefs.

One special note: in Mexico we put Limón (lime for you) in almost all of our food, its acid flavor will merge so nicely with the meat that you will wonder why you don´t have this at home daily!!!

Another special note: Salsas. This is a topic not to be missed, in Mexico salsas are usually hot and very spicy no matter what the guy in the next table tells you, or if the cook says it´s mild, NEVER believe them. First you should put A drop in your food to measure the hotness of the salsa. The color has nothing to do, nor the size of the chile peppers, there are some red ones so small that they look like toy chiles, but are really powerful. In a good taqueria you will have at least two different kinds of salsas: roja (red) y verde (green), the color depends on which chiles were used. If you only find one kind of salsa it means that you arrived very late and the favorite of the clientele is gone or you got a so-so taqueria. Some places carry the salsa verde con aguacate (avocado) but don´t think that it will be safe because you like guacamole, it can be as fierce as the other salsas.

Remember, always try a drop of each salsa before putting a spoon full of it in your taco. Buen provecho.

This corn soup is nothing you have had before if you haven´t been to Mexico. The flavor is not sweet, as the corn grown in this part of the world is different than the yellow variety more common in the USA and Canada.

The peculiarity of the corn used is that it opens (flowers) like popcorn, but in a stew.

The basic ingredients are Maiz Cacahuazintle (this is a variety with the kernels bigger and whiter than average, hominy is very close) you get this one dry and already off the cob; some lye or lime to prepare the corn; a pig skull with some other meat like the loin; oregano for serving.

Look here for a way to prepare the kernels, http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/pozole.htm, and also a recipe very close to the traditional ones I have seen. Be aware that each region of the country has its own version, sometimes is green, other times it has more ingredients or maybe spicy from the beginning.

This soup need long hours of boiling otherwise the kernels will be hard and the broth won't be tasty. Even if you don´t want to eat the meat you need the pig skull to boil along for a tastier soup.

A lot of people can make Pozole, but only the seasoned cooks have the magic touch, so I´m always looking for new horizons with a good cook.

At the table you are free to put the garnish of your liking and it changes also with the region of the country. You may find: lettuce, sliced radish, avocado, chicharron, Tostadas (fried tortilla), cabagge, different kinds of chiles, but the one thing that can never miss is the limón. Buen Provecho.

First of all, one important thing about the Tamales. Just a little correction, the singular of tamales is tamal (no "e" at the end). Of course all Americans will find this strange, as the original Aztec (Nahuatl) word is: tamalli. But the regular modern use in Mexico is Tamal. Just making this clarification so you don´t sound "too gringo" when you come to Mexico.

Mexico has a strong tie with maize, it is used in all imaginable forms, from tortilla, to corn soup (pozole), to soups and gorditas, passing through quesadillas, tlacoyos, even hot drinks (Atole), colds drinks (tejate, pozol) and the tamal.

The tamal is a dough made of maize paste (nixtamal) beaten for long time with some lard and water. You take some dry corn shucks (I had to look for the translated name on this. hehe) and smear the dough on them generously and in the middle put something you like: chicken (green, red or mole salsa), pork, queso con rajas, even pineapple or other sweet (or make the dough sweet completely) and believe it or not, you can have one special flavor of tamal: Elote (corn), you wrap the resulting dough with the corn shucks and tie them with a small string taken also from the shucks. Then steam boil it for several hours and voila, you've got tamales.

You should eat them hot. In some places you will have a grilled tamal, they will heat the already cooked, but cold one and put on top of the charcoal, the flavor is just a little different.

One thing that is common in Mexico City (but people from other states would look at as being demented) is that a lot of people ask for a a Guajolota (literally translated as Female Turkey) which is a a Telera or bolillo (bread similar to a bagguette but sandwich size) cut in two (like a hamburger bun) with the tamal inside. Is having Masa con masa (dough filled with dough), it´s dry and don´t add anything to the flavor, but is very convenient to have a Torta de Tamal to go and eat on the run.

I found an interesting site devoted to the Tamal in English for your pleasure: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/tamales/

Buen Provecho

Easy one...eat it. Yes, really, you can safely eat a green tortilla. There is a variety of corn called "maiz azul" which actually is green (only the kernels, the cob is normal color), and good for eating, it is a little bit more rough than the normal white tortillas you find elsewhere and has a little bit of different flavor (if you have the green variety on the cob, you will find it tastier and a bit sweet).

In the past green tortillas were only available very scarcely with old women making tortillas in a secluded corner, the green corn on the cob was a little bit less difficult to find but it isn't the norm. I was surprised to find the green (blue) variety at one of the large supermarket chains. At the bakery section there is also a "Tortilladora" a machine that shapes the "nixtamal" (dough of maize softened with lime or carbonate) and cooks the tortilla in a never ending band. This machine works long hours making the tortillas and by lunchtime when all the housemaids and all the guys working in the nearby areas go to buy tortillas to have with their lunch. In Mexico you accompany the meals with both bread and tortillas, depending on the main dish and also the tortillas can be the main dish, like in chilaquiles, enchiladas or as the base of the tacos. And for really low budgets, you have tortillas, salt and chiles, believe it or not! Of course you will need a big stack of tortillas to cover that hole in your stomach but a lot of poor people still subsist on this diet.

So remember, if you find the green (azul) variety give it a try, is a nice variation to the routine and is more traditional.

Just an afterthought, if you have a white tortilla with green spots, don't eat that, those are fungus, hehe.

Mole is widely known for being the spicy sauce with chocolate. That is true but partially as there are many kinds of mole. Mole is the generic name for the thick salsa made with a lot of ingredients, it would be the equivalent of curry in Indian gastronomy.

In this particular case I´m showing you the one that goes with traditional Enchiladas de mole. This one is dark brown with tints of reddish. Depending on the recipe there can be as much as 8 to 10 different varieties of chiles, ranging from pasilla, morita, ancho, etc., it all depends on the region the mole is from, which ones are more easily available, and of course affordable. You also have chocolate of course, but don´t think you will be pouring MilkyWays and M&Ms, the true chocolate has very little sugar; you also have platano macho (plantain) as a great addition to the flavor and consistency of the sauce, you fry it and the mash into a paste before adding it to the mix.

The mole is not exactly an everyday dish in small towns, it is festive food for the gib occasions, like a wedding or to celebrate the birth of a son, on those days it would be Mole with Guajolote (the local turkey) which is tastier and more expensive than with chicken.

Now with modern transport and economy is easier and cheaper to get the ingredients and so you can have a plate of enchiladas de mole on an everyday basis available for any small restaurant.

The mildness or hotness of the mole depends on the recipe and the cook. Normally mole negro is not that hot, it may rank in the middle of the scale or lower, but if you find it too spicy for your taste you are advised to sprinkle some sugar.

Buen provecho.

... with the same ingredients but with a twist.

Tacos are made with tortillas rolled or folded around something, with quesadillas you put the raw dough of the tortilla and then put something inside, then fold, and then fry it. A variation would have the lady making special tortillas, a bit ticker, on the spot and then stuff them.

But another difference from tacos is the ingredients you put inside, traditionally you have meltable cheese (Oaxaca and asadero are the most common) and a variety of already cooked items that could be a main dish by their own, like chicken, chicharron, mushrooms, squash flower (Flor de Calabaza), corn fungus (huitlacoche, a delicacy in Mexican tables only available on the rainy season), cow brains (sesos), and lots more.

Quesadillas are made on the spot, so you will always have a freshly made one. As most of the food, you need to eat it while still hot, after an hour it won´t taste the same and the texture will definitively be lost, no microwave oven or Granny tricks will help in this department, if you don´t have your quesadilla on the spot you miss part of the experience.

One fact that may surprise you, is that normally there is only one lady (men are bad for shaping the quesadillas) preparing the quesadillas. Even on a very crowded food stand, the lady may have some help on other areas, but cooking is Her position. And they can have orders of 20 or 40 in a matter of a short time, so you need to be patient, this is not a McD (fortunatley) where food is made fast, true it´s junk food but more tasty.

These are special, you notice from the name, they are not just big tortillas, they are huge and are a bit harder.

In the state of Oaxaca they have a special tortilla, ingredients are almost the same but they cook the tortillas and then they pile them up and wait for customers. Doesn't sound that different right?

Well, they stack them and have them cool to the point of the tortillas being hard. When a customer wants a tlayuda, they would smear some frijoles refritos, put some recado, col, salsa, cecina (salted pork), and queso blanco, fold it and warm it on the coals. Sounds like a taco, but just look at the pictures for the size. It doesn´t fit on the long plate where they are served. They cost a mere 35 pesos each. Can be the equivalent of four or five tacos.

This week I´m fortunate to have a small Oaxaca fair near my house and they have all kind of food from that state, yesterday I had some enchiladas de mole, mmmmhhh, yummmy.

... but there is a big difference, the tortas can have anything you fancy, from scrambled eggs to shredded chicken, to breaded beef to chorizo (a greasy sausage). The most common would be thinly sliced ham, though.

For making a torta, forget the hamburger bun, we need something more resistant that can hold all the stuff you are going to put inside. We go for a "telera", a fat and short cousin of a baguette, but not as crunchy and stiff. The telera needs to be strong but flexible.

The first torta came to life in 1892 in the hands of a guy named Armando Martinez, who thought it a good idea to use a telera (small baguette) instead of tortillas to pack meals to go, the idea soon sticked and word of mouth made him very popular, there are newspapers from the time with interviews and photos of him and his invention.

Unfortunately it didn't cross his mind to patent the idea, so now there a lot of big torta chain restaurants but he didn't benefit from the invention or the name.

Carnitas (little meats) are made of pork marinated with garlic, cumin, oregano, and other spices, the Michoacán style (so far the only one I know for carnitas) involves frying and boiling. You get the Macisa (only muscle) and cueritos (little skins), the first may not be rich in flavor so you add a little of cueritos which are fried and salty, plus the unavoidable salsa and there you go with your taco.

Chicharron, it's all about taking advantage of the whole pig, you deep fry the skin, in a process that takes advantage of the pork's own lard, and the result is a sheet of crispy, crunchy stiff "shell", you cut with your hand pieces of it and dip in the guacamole or in your taco.

Carne Asada a la Tampiqueña (steak grilled Tampico style), is not just the cut, not just the way to serve it, is the whole enchilada!

When you order Tampiqueña, you should get ready to eat, eat and eat a lot of good stuff. The steak may be regular fare for you guys used to eat the thin and well done steak in Mexico, but this time you add a little of other items to make a good dish an abundant one.

Serving a Tampiqueña involves the mentioned steak (in Mexico thin steak are almost always Well done unless you order a different degree specifically, the waiter won´t ask you); a salad consisting mainly on lettuce, tomato, onion and maybe dressing; an enchilada verde; a spoon of rice (maybe "jardinera"-with pees and carrot or "pintado"-boiled with tomato sauce); a portion of rajas (sliced green chile grilled with onion); avocado, and baked beans with a couple of totopos (the true origin of nachos).

Just listing all the ingredients is tyring, whew!

The idea of this dish is that you can have a small serving of many different flavors in just one serving. You don´t need to order the whole enchilada which normally consists on three pieces of rolled tortillas stuffed with chicken or cheese, you get one.

In this case, if you grab your Spanish-English dictionary it will say that Huaraches are the sandals made of leather that are used by natives of Mexico, but there is another use for the word.

The huaraches got their name after the sandals, because they have the shape and approximate size of one of those, sans the straps. To make one, you need the basic maize dough to make tortillas, but this time instead of a round shape you need a long oval and much thicker. And you will blend a bit of refried beans paste so the texture is going to be softer.

It will be cooked on top of a metal grill like a hamburger pattie (in the old times it was a flat rock over hot coals) with a little oil or lard. Once it´s done you will smear a layer of refried beans and then maybe top it with a breast of chicken, a thin rib or a couple of eggs. Cover it all with a spoon full of salsa and sprinkle fresh white shredded cheese with chopped onion, then you are ready to attack the beast, you may use fork and knife or eat from the plate directly, be sure you have a couple of napkins ready at hand.

Buen Provecho

This is a truly native dish, toasted crickets. High in protein and rich in flavor, the crickets are a seasonal dish and very sought after because they are very nutritious and tasty. It may sound gross to "civilized" people of big cities but the flavor is exquisite and the value of the food is unsurpassed.

Normally the chapulines are toasted in a comal over coal and they served right on top of your tortilla and doused with a nice salsa verde or pico de gallo. Is that simple and that tasty.

Buen Provecho.

Most farmers will cut the fungus or burn it, in Mexico farmers will thank the rain god and lovingly harvest the Cuitlacoche (or Huitlacoche) the blank fungus that grows on corn. As the fungus only grows healthy during the rainy season, cuitlacoche is only available at that time of the year, so you have to carefully plan your visit to Mexico.

The view may be gross to newcomers, but once they taste the mild and different flavor, they get stuck and order  more. Eating a fungus is nothing new, take for example mushrooms or Gruyere cheese, or more scarce the truffles, all of those are fungus, and this one just happens to be black instead of white or green, and huge instead of tiny. Looks are sometimes misleading, and this is truly the case.

You may mistake a tostada for an old tortilla that became too hard to eat, sorry but this is not the case. A tostada is made, always. You need to deep fry (or in some cases, bake) a tortilla in order to make a tostada, is just like have a slice of bread toasted, the same idea follows here. Some tostadas have a different mixture (those are the great ones) instead of just grabbing a tortilla and frying it, the flavor is quite different.

A traditional tostada is smeared with some refried beans then you add some shredded chicken and top it with lettuce, cream, shredded white cheese and a bit of chopped tomato or salsa. The special thing of the tostada is that it's a crunchy way to eat and is more fun and challenging than just eating a taco. This is the origin of what in the USA is Taco Bell, as some tostadas have grounded meat or other stews. But real tacos are soft and never have lettuce.

In Guadalajara there is a variety and specialty, it resulted from days old bread, instead of a problem it became a tradition.

When a birote (a piece of bread similar to a French baguette but the size of a hamburger gun) gets too hard and dry in other parts of Mexico is thrown into the garbage or ground to use in breaded beef. In Guadalajara a wise person decided to use the birotes anyway, they were hard to eat so the decision was to literally "drown" them in a hot tomato sauce for a few seconds, thus making them a bit softer and tastier, so the Tortas Ahogadas were born. You can ask them with pork meat or chicken and the tomato sauce can be spicy or not, your call.

Buen Provecho.

The variety of corn consumed in Mexico is not the same as in the USA, here we have the white corn, not the sweet yellow more popular up north. It's a bit harder than the yellow cousin but it's a pleasure to eat, there are two ways boiled or grilled on the coals (more difficult but a lot of people love it).

The boiled version is also different from what you are used in the USA, you arrive at a little Mom and Pop stand, where they have a huge pot boiling on top of charcoal.

You use a pair of thongs to choose the corn you want from the pot and then handle it to the person attending you, He or She will insert a stick on the bottom to make it easier to handle and the proceed to roll the corn on top of a big block of butter and then add mayonnaise and shredded fresh white cheese and a sprinkle of chile powder.

It may look like a corn popsicle, but is much easier and just a bit less messy to eat the corn while walking on the park!

If you have never had it before, the only way to describe this fruit is like this: the flavor would be a blend between papaya and banana and the consistency is firm (it actually has fibers, like mangoes).

In the picture I included an avocado, as they are cousins; both are fruits, both have huge pits/seeds, both grows in trees and both have coarse skins to protect the "flesh". A big difference with mamey is that it's really difficult to know when one is ripe, you have to ask the vendor to choose one ready to eat.
With avocados, it is easier, when you feel them and press a little they give way a bit, not too much, and another clue with avocados is the color of the skin, choose the black ones, if they are green they probably will be not ripe yet (but depends on the variety, some have thinner skins that stays green all the time).

Mamey is eaten preferably as a dessert, you just eat it from the skin in slices, or cut it and serve on a bowl by itself or with a bit of sweet cream. Also you can ask in a "Jugueria" for a "licuado de mamey" or in terms of the USA, a smoothy. Other options are ice cream or a more elaborated dessert like a flan or jelly but the best is when you get the fruit fresh.