The Emotional Epicurean: Aha Oaxaca

I remember the first meal in colorful, fiesta filled Oaxaca. It was breakfast at Andariego restaurant at Oaxaca. Drinking chocolate made from water by adding the famous Oaxacan chocolate and whipping up a layer of foam that tasted like the mighty Aphrodite's heart had been squeezed into it. The soft omelet served with refried beans with a splash of intense anise flavor from crushed avocado leaves - a flavorful change from the re-re-re-fried beans topped by layer of sharp melted mucky cheese at the restaurants back home. Then the spinach juice - refreshing like the pot of immortal nectar extracted from the bottom of the ocean.

Oaxaca - culturally and anthropologically the most diverse state in Mexico, with the valley Zapotecs who have strong pre-Columbian cooking techniques and ingredients using very little lard and meat; the isthmus Zapotecs who are tall and colorful - whose cooking is tropical, more Columbian with sharp spicy flavors and Oaxaca city is the perfect fusion of these - making it the gastronomical delight of Oaxaca. The fusion of pre-Columbian ingredients such as wild greens, chili, cocoa beans, squash, corn and tomatoes - with Spanish ingredients, meat, fat, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, onion and garlic creates the land of seven moles. The way most girls remember their first kiss, I remember my first mole in Oaxaca - at Los Pacos. At the end of the meal, I met the cook to ask her how she made the mole. When she could not tell me exactly what went in, she brought the ingredients out one at a time to show me. The roasting and grinding of the three chile's- mulatto, guajillo, chilhuacle, the sesame seeds, almonds and egg bread, onion, garlic, thyme, Mexican oregano, sweet raisins and bananas to make the Mole Colorado. It was love at first taste.The perfect creamy indulgent combination of spice, sweet, nutty, tart, salty all at once.
Mezcal, the country cousin of Tequila, is made by artisan distillers and each city has a favorite local Mezcal. Mezcal with salt and crushed chili accompanied every dinner before the feast of moles. Stimulating the gastric juices and a ravenous appetite for the moles.

The Central market (next to the Zocalo) and the 20 de Noviembre market is packed with food stalls selling rich frothy chocolate water in large cauldrons, the wonderfully brothy caldo de pollo, cactus fruit (called tuna) flavored ice-creams, soft salty cheese - queso fresco anejo and cojita, every part of the pig, and chili's of every shape, size and heat, which when toasted on the comal (grill) and ground create that special, wonderfully flavorful Oaxacan meal.

This is my Oaxacan meal back home.
Rice - my favorite rice is Jasmine, not Basmati, or Spanish or sticky. Jasmine rice is so wonderfully fragrant and easy to cook. Some aromatic onion, garlic, and chepil leaves slow cooked with chicken broth in a large cast iron pot is the perfect way to bring out the best of Jasmine rice. Chepil leaves are hard to find here, and so I used cilantro and cumin as substitutes. Watercress and parsley leaves will serve as adequate substitutes too.

Refried beans - no cheese, but garlic, onion, roasted cumin, and avocado leaves add a complex and smoky depth to the beans.

Salsa - I roasted tomatoes, jalapenos on a hot comal, and then cooled them until the oils were released. Then peel the tomatoes and jalapenos and crush them in a molcajete with chopped garlic, white onions and cilantro. Mouth watering (and eye watering).

The above three recipes are variations from my cooking class at Oaxaca at Seasons of my Heart.

Mole -This recipe is from Casa de Abuela and from the The Oaxacan cookbook by Zarela Martinez. Her food is for the heart and soul. She writes with such admiration, detail and love that is hard not to be taken over by this force of nature, that her book is. Her book was my Bible during my Oaxacan trip. The Mole de Almendrado is from her book.