Explore Mexican culinary delights

Cactus and corn, worms, grasshoppers, avocados and chillies. These are some of the tastes of Mexico. Maize is the staple, along with black beans, guacamole and quesilla, soft, chewy white cheese that appears in everything from stuffed peppers to quesadillas (a hot tortilla ‘sandwich’).

Restaurant food is interesting and offered very different tastes for me — dark, thick chocolate moles, spicy chillies, bitter greens and herbs.  Restaurants in Oaxaca are set in amazing spaces.  High-end Los Danzantes where we went for a birthday dinner, a vast space in a converted industrial building, featured all four elements:  Earth — in the textured three-story adobe walls, Water — in a shallow pond in the bar area, Air – with birds swooping high above us under the tented ceiling, Fire — with candlelight on the tables. A feature wall was made of squashed kitchen enamelware — pressed into large bricks in a garbage crusher. Wall behind the bar included bricks made of glass bottles.

Fusing the old with the new, the restaurant offers an imaginative menu with starters like fondue with huitlacoche mushrooms, quesilla, serrano and epazote. Mogo mogos stuffed with wedding stew and rib-eye stuffed dobladitas. Where to start? Epazote is a bitter Mexican herb — also known as Jesuit’s tea; huitlacoche — a fungus that grows on corn; mogo-mogo — a dough made from corn and plantain, stuffed and deep fried.

Almost impossible to choose with so many unfamiliar delights. In the end I opted for the chille ancho stuffed with huitlacoche mushrooms served over a coconut and plantain puree, garnished with goat’s cheese, chapulines and piloncello sauce. It looked amazing. Chille ancho is a large poblano chillie which dries to a dark chocolate colour and in its dried form is called ancho. Mild on the heat scale, it has an interesting flavour and I was very happy with the corn fungus stuffing!

The coconut plantain puree was a good contrast but a bit too sweet for me. Chapulines are tiny, dried grasshoppers — ubiquitous in the markets and on city menus. Added a good crunchy texture without really looking like grasshoppers at all! Piloncillo is a sweet sauce made from raw cane sugar — lovely combo of hot and sweet.

Sesame encrusted fish in a rich sauce of different chillies and spices looked fantastic — as was the duck breast in Jamaica mole — a bright red hibiscus sauce. And then there are the chillies. Fresh, dried, smoked, large, sweet, fiery, mild, small, crushed, whole, amalgamated into sauces (the famous moles of Mexico).

I bought a variety at a street market but it will take me a while to try out different tastes, combinations and pastes. Smoked chillies have a very complex flavour and I am keen to try some home smoking. Chipotle is the smoked jalapeno — and there is also the morita — a tiny black one that looks like a blackberry when dried and cured.

Another food to try at home is nopales — leaves of the prickly pear cactus plant. Used in many ways — raw, cooked, in stews and salads, the trick is to harvest very young with prickles still unformed. We will see how that works! Another pretty courtyard restaurant offered a salad of nopales, lettuce, asparagus and smoked cheese with worm and chillie dressing! My friend warily asked for the dressing on the side — but found it delicious.

Oaxaca celebrates many festivals — Las Calendas and a dish of that name featured large bitter leaves of hierbasanta (holy herb) stuffed with cheese, squash blossoms and poblano chillies. Delicious, it was as charming as the flavoured water we were gifted in the street to celebrate ‘Good Samaritan Day’ festival.

g.jeke@yahoo.com