Readings: Mexican Food, Markets and Blogs
Your local recaudería - or vegetable stand - may be even more important than your local market!
Mexico is such a great place to discover new tastes, new foods, and new universes of food - and I’m not talking about tex-mex or Taco Bell. It’s a universe that’s alien almost completely to people from other countries – and it often simply can’t be re-created anywhere else.
And of course – one great thing about the internet is it brings more and better experts closer than we ever used to get on television!
As a city girl – I can tell you – it’s important to know where you can get the best products to have on hand when preparing whatever dish. Outside of Mexico many of the most important ingredients are simply not going to be available. So it is vital that you get to know your local market! And remember – in addition to the great food, the Mercado Publico of any given town is probably responsible for giving as much Spanish language instruction to foreigners as the local Language Institute.
Mexico City is no stranger to great tianguis – in particular for fresh foods. And many – if not most – towns will be served similarly by these traveling markets – in addition to the established public market. The tianguis are put up and taken down once or twice a week in a specific locations in the street, and neighbors of the surrounding area will make it a weekly vigil to visit and pick up fresh veggies and other supplies.
The public market itself is within a what is normally a huge building with separate storage rooms – and many many individual locales – or food-stands, stalls, booths - whatever you want to call them in English. A less permanent stand might be called a puesto – such as what you will find in a tianguis or along the street – but in the market you will also find locales selling just about every other service or product you might need, and probably at much cheaper prices than at a centro comercial or any other store. Of course, some things can be had at local supermarkets, whether it is Walmart, or any of the local Mexican competitors, such as Comercial Mexicana and Soriana. But after living in Mexico even a week – a trip to Walmart’s produce aisle will remind you why you live in Mexico. Walmart’s pretty and manicured vegetables and fruits have – in general – no flavor and should only be purchased in an emergency or when quality really does not matter. When is that?
The Central de Abastos distribution center is so big the city treats it as its own neighborhood.
By the way – in Mexico City almost all of the products at your local market will come from the same place, the Central de Abastos, where every morning trucks loaded with every type of food products arrive.
Traditional Mexican Markets is the site for info in English on everything to do with the Mexico Mercado Publico. And with a state by state guide to traditional Mexican food – it’s a great way to learn what you should pick up when you’re venturing out. If you’re in the DF, Veracruz, Campeche or Morelos you can also find the nearest market by checking mercadospublicos.com
Like pretty much anywhere else in the world Mexico City is also a place that is really blossoming for the vegetarian eater. There are challenges but the number of restaurants that offer vegetarian is increasing every week. Good Food in Mexico City is as good of a vegetarian guide as any out there to what’s new and what’s worth checking out – not just vegetarian but with lots more to think about too.
For the more historical perspective that Mexican cuisine so often inspires, Rachel Laudan’s blog is the place to stop by.
In the market in Silao, Mexico, the very geographic center of Mexico, ten miles south of the the city of Guanajuato in the State of Guanajuato, the semilleros (seed shops) sell black eyed peas (Vigna unguicalata) along with all the usual Mexican beans. They call them veronicas.
You can see them in the sack at the back. When you ask the vendors how they cook them, they indicate that they “guisar” them, that is they put them in stews as they would habas or garbanzos. They do not eat them alone and simply boiled as they would the huge variety of Mexican beans. This makes sense because all three are Old World not New World legumes.
"Recipes by Leslie" has the goods on the Potato Enchiladas
What? You just want to cook? You can do that too. One place I keep stopping by lately for the more traditional – or because I just can’t remember that one small perfect detail that will really make the meal – is Recipes by Leslie. Her blog is relatively new – but here’s hoping she keeps up the good work.
Provecho Foodies!
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