The photograph below is the Convent of Santa Rosa. Well, it was. Today it is a museum of ceramics, but it was originally built to be the Convent of Santa Rosa. This is the setting for one of the many tales of foods born in Puebla.
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| Was mole poblano born behind these walls? |
It is staggering how many different foods, some of local fame and some of national fame and even a few of wide spread international fame, had their start in Puebla. The beginnings of these foods are often an interesting mix of history and legend.
One of the most widespread foods in Mexico is mole (pronounced MO-lay). A mole is a sauce which could have a variety of ingredients, but always includes some dried peppers and cocoa. Every region in the country has its own take on mole, but the original and perhaps most well-loved in the nation is mole poblano. (Poblano means Pueblan or of Puebla.) It was the very first mole and there is a legend surrounding its creation.
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| Mole Poblano |
The word "mole" comes from the indigenous people who made sauces that they called mulli. Just like words taken into English are often changed to match our pronunciations better, the same happened to mulli, becoming mole in Spanish. So the idea of rich sauces pre-existed the coming of the Spanish colonists. But mole as it is known today originated in the 17th century.
The legend says that the Sisters of Santa Rosa invented it out of necessity. They received a surprise visit from some important dignitary. (In many versions of the tale it a bishop.) They hadn't prepared anything to serve the bishop and knowing they would need an amazing dinner, they rushed to the larder and took whatever leftovers they found there: Old bread (broken into breadcrumbs), dried chilis, cocoa powder, tomatoes, onions, and possibly some sweet fruits. They mixed this into a thick dark brown sauce which they served over meat. It was a hit.
Another food with an origin myth tied to nuns is Chiles en Nogada. Chiles en Nogada is a chili pepper that is stuffed with a sweet and rich sauce that includes nuts and usually meat. The whole thing is topped with pomegranate seeds. You can only find Chiles en Nogada on the menu in July, August, and September, because that is the time of the pomegranate harvest.
This myth takes place in 1821. Mexico had won its independence from Spain. The Mexican emperor, Augustín de Iterbide had just signed the Treaty of Cordoba which officially recognized Mexico as independent. He was returning from Córdoba back to Mexico City and would pass through Puebla. This is a rich legend in which the sisters of Santa Mónica developed the dish for the Emperor. The colors of Iterbide's army, called the Trigarante Army, were red, white and green. (This will give birth to the Mexican flag.) So the sisters wanted to use ingredients with those three colors to honor his victory and Mexico's independence. They chose green chiles, made a white sauce, and topped it with perfectly in season red pomegranate seeds. Today it is a dish still associated with Mexican Independence.
Chiles en Nogada may not be common in much of the world outside of Mexico, but a food that has a much wider reach is Tacos al Pastor. We've enjoyed tacos al pastor here in Puebla and we enjoyed them in the US as well. But their preparation is different. Here in Puebla the meat is on a long spit (called a trompo) and is cooked, rotisserie style, but vertically rather than horizontally. It's exactly like how meat is prepared for gyros and pitas in Greece and for Souvlaki in the Levant and the Balkan region. That might seem strange, but when you delve into the history of it, this all makes sense.
This is a surprisingly recent food, less than 100 years old. In the 1930s, there was an influx of Lebanese immigrants to Mexico, many of whom settled in Puebla. They brought with them their culinary ideas and techniques. One of these ideas was shawarma, seasoned lamb meat prepared on a trompo. When they got to Mexico, they were forced to make a few changes. Lamb wasn't prevalent in Mexico, so as the years went by, more and more of this variation was made with marinated pork. And the bread it was served on transitioned from pita to something similar, sort of a cross between pita and tortillas. This new food is still served today, called Tacos Arabe.
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| Arabe on the left, al Pastor on the right |
Tacos Arabe was a precursor to its evolutionary descendent, Tacos al Pastor. In many ways the two foods are similar, but the marinade changed to include fruit juices, oregano, chiles, and cumin. When you see meat on a trompo, if it is a brown color, it is meant to become tacos arabe. When it has a red color, that's meant for tacos al pastor. And at the top of the trompo, above the meat, is a large cylinder of pineapple. When tacos al pastor is prepared, the chef slices down the meat in vertical strokes with a knife, catching the meat on a long thin spatula. Then he slices off a few pieces of the pineapple. And the whole is served, along with cilantro, on corn tortillas.
Another food of note is cemitas. Outside of Mexico, cemitas may not be well-known. And to some degree, a cemita is merely a sandwich. But what makes it a cemita is the bread, also called cemitas. The bread has an interesting fusion history. When Mexico was still a colony of Spain, the Poblanos paid tribute to the king, and one of these tributes included two types of bread. The first was a descendent of the unleavened bread made by Sephardic Jews that dates back to Ancient Rome. It was a sort of long, hard, sponge biscuit. The other was similar to a French bread roll but was hollow. Both of these breads were made because they were durable, they could last four to eight months, long enough to cross the ocean on a trip back to Spain. They were also popular with the sailors.
It was a fusion of these breads that became cemitas. This wasn't a fast fusion, and cemitas didn't appear until the 19th century. In these early days of cemitas, they were filled with potato or beans or prickly pear. It was a food of the poor working class, and meat was scarse and expensive. Later, avocado was added because the bread was hard and the avocado helped to offset this. The cemita continued to evolve, and today is filled with meat like chicken of beef or carnitas (which is a marinated pork) and cheese like queso Oaxaca (also called quesillo.)
Finally, a food that we think we know in America, but we're wrong is the chalupa. Why are we wrong to think we know it? Because what makes a chalupa a chalupa is the tortilla. You see, tacos and chalupas are similar beasts, but the tortilla makes all the difference. In the U.S. a chalupa is made with a wheat flour tortilla that is deep fried. But in Mexico, a chalupa tortilla is made from masa flour. This is a flour made from nixtamalized corn. (This is the same hominy like corn that is found in pozole which I mentioned in my post about our trip to Cholula.) The dough is flattened and poked with a fork to prevent it puffing up when it is fried. Then it is fried (but not deep fried) giving it a crunch, but also, importantly, making it curl up on the edges. This curling gives the overall tortilla a boat-like shape. The word chalupa refers to the boatiness. The exact origins of the word are unclear, but it may come from an Aztec word for a canoe-like boat, or it may come from a Spanish word for a sloop. In Mexico, if it isn't served on this boatlike masa flour tortilla, it's not a chalupa. What Taco Bell calls a chalupa is really a taco with a deep fried shell.
Alrica often says her favorite part of travel is the food, and good news. She has no shortage of Poblano foods to discover and enjoy.
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