PART 4 OF 5 PARTS
I must say I was expecting the food in Oaxaca, despite its exalted reputation, to be as unsurprising as I’ve found it in many parts of Mexico where people rave about the cuisine. It’s taken me a few years to figure out what the problem is: I simply don’t much care for tortillas. I know, sacrilege.
But a couple of factors make Oaxaca different. First, because it’s a fairly cosmopolitan place, there are chefs who experiment with fusions of tried-and-true Mexican staples like tacos, tamales and chilaquiles with more European styles and ingredients. Yes, the tortillas are still there, but these creations make me love them.
Another thing that helps is that Oaxaca is considered the mole capital of Mexico. Here, in the birthplace of this rich, complex sauce, there are no fewer than seven distinct types, each with its own characteristic color: rojo, coloradito, amarillo, verde, negro, chichilo, and manchamantel.
A mole is a blend of chiles, nuts, seeds, spices and, depending on the type, might include chocolate, plantains or tomatoes. (I know making it is labor-intensive because I’ve helped do it in a Mexican home.)
So, given Oaxaca’s reputation, it shouldn’t be a surprise that even my three-star hotel restaurant’s mole—the negro—is among the best I’ve ever tasted. Then, a couple days later, I try a dish called enchiladas en tres moles at a different restaurant, and a new standard is set.
I’m usually pretty cautious about eating food from street vendors, especially when there are fresh, uncooked ingredients. But one offering I just couldn’t resist was a dish called molote.
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| Molote and taquito |
Molotes are golden-brown, kind of turd-shaped bundles with potatoes and other delicious ingredients stuffed into a wrapper of corn dough and then deep fried. The lady puts one on my plate alongside a crispy taquito, then ladles some bean sauce over the top. Next, a mild, green chili sauce, some lettuce, and finally a generous scattering of queso fresco, that ubiquitous crumbly white cheese that adorns so many Mexican dishes.
The grasshoppers are...whole
and entirely recognizable for
what they are.
Another dish stands out—as much for the shock factor as its culinary appeal. One evening I try a chicken breast stuffed with chapulines, roasted grass- hoppers. And, no, the grasshoppers are not ground up into some innocuous powder; they’re whole and entirely recognizable for what they are. Nonetheless, as long as I avoid looking at it, the meal is superb.
Also on my list of must-tastes is the tlayuda, sometimes unjustly referred to as Mexican pizza. It’s a dinner-plate-sized crispy corn tortilla smeared with bean paste and asiento (unrefined pork lard), and topped with cheese, salad veggies and some kind of meat. It’s lovely, but I wish I had a fridge in my hotel room, as it’s a lot of food for a shrinking old man whose appetite’s further stunted by the sudden change to a warm climate.
One of the meat options for your tlayuda is tasajo, described as a thin slab of salt-cured beef, resembling jerky. But it’s nothing like jerky, not nearly as dense, chewy or intense. In fact, I find it very hard to distinguish the one I'm served from another cut of beef I like, a flank steak called arrachera. Thanks to the curing process, both are usually fairly tender, but quite salty.
I find that hot chocolate is on
just about every restaurant’s and
coffee shop’s menu.
Oaxaca’s also famous for its cheese. The most common one, known as quesillo, is a white, semihard cheese, similar to un-aged Monterey Jack, but with a texture similar to string cheese. (We even buy it fresh when we’re in Zihuatanejo, one state to the north, from a guy who dispenses it from a big plastic bucket along the main beaches.)
Yet another food—if you can call it that—that distinguishes Oaxaca from the rest of Mexico is its chocolate. I’ve tasted it in many forms, but the way I most enjoy it is either in the raw, chunky form used for cooking, or in liquid form, as hot chocolate.
In Oaxaca, I find that hot chocolate is on just about every restaurant’s and coffee shop’s menu. You order it made with either water or milk. And it’s absolutely to die for.
Another typical drink—fascinating, but one for which I would not die—is tejate, a traditional beverage sold by street vendors which dates from pre-hispanic times. It’s a thin, milky brew of pulverized corn, seeds of the mamey fruit, cocoa flower and honey—served cold. Unappetizing globs of the corn solids float on top. But it has an interesting, mildly sweet, refreshing flavor. Let’s call it an acquired taste.
And, as long as we’re including drinks, I mustn’t forget mezcal. Oaxaca is said to be the birthplace of the spirit, made from juices of the agave plant—just not the blue Weber agave that defines genuine tequila. In fact, over 90 percent of Mexico’s production occurs in Oaxaca. I’m no expert on either libation, but it appears mezcal has even more varieties than tequila’s blanco, reposado and añejo.
It falls first into three broad categories: mezcal, mezcal artesanal, and mezcal ancestral. Within those genres there are about half a dozen classes, the most common of which parallel those of tequila. There are also a few variations involving extra distillation, aging vessels of different materials, and infusions of other flavors.
In 1994, mezcal obtained its Appellation of Origin, certifying its provenance from Oaxaca or one of several surrounding states. Once considered a cheap high, infamous for its burn—and the real worm pickled in each bottle—many mezcals now take themselves quite seriously, some occupying higher shelves than tequilas in liquor stores.
As foo-foo as the stuff has become, I still find the mezcal sold by a guy on the street corner in Zihuatanejo in repurposed plastic soda bottles to be the best I've tasted.
In two weeks of not-very-aggressive exploration, I know I've barely scratched the surface of Oaxaca's wellspring of dining and drinking delights. Still unchecked on my list: memelas, enmoladas, caldo de piedra, just to name a few. Just that many more reasons to come back!
Stay tuned! My next post in the series, Art and Handcrafts, should be landing here in the next day or two.
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