Mexican Queretaro-style lentil soup with nopales: Sopa de lentejas con nopales estilo Queretaro
This recipe, adapted from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, contains the characteristically Mexican ingredients nopales, fresh green chiles and cilantro.
Ingredients
½ cup brow...
read more
Fragrant, flavorful allspice: An essential Mexican seasoning
Mexican-style rabbit in red pipian with wild mushrooms: Pipian rojo con conejo y hongos silvestres
This colorful alabrije rabbit by Jacobo Angeles races across the Mexican mountain meadows.
© Alvin Starkman, 2008
I taught this in a cooking class I gave last summer in Cuetzalan, Puebla, where I ...
read more
Mexican chicken and allspice stew: Chilpozontle
A specialty of the Puebla mountain town of Zacapoaxtla, this Mexican dish uses allspice leaves as well as berries in a savory chicken stew. If you can't get allspice leaves, fresh bay leaves work well....
read more
Mexico City's Modo Museum whets the collecting appetite
I once lived next to an elderly woman in Mexico City whose home was a veritable museum of unique and occasionally bizarre collectibles. Her living room was given over to the collection and there was ba...
read more
Miel de maguey: an ancient Mexican sweetener brings hope to modern villagers
Reading the recent Mexconnect article Tears of the maguey: Is pulque really a dying tradition? brought me to the realization that here in Cholula, many of the pulquerías (pulque bars) have slowly and ...
read more
Mexico City's San Fernando Cemetery for famous sons, present or not
The San Fernando Cemetery first began operating in 1713. The poor were first buried there, in the section known as the "Panteón chico." Later, aristocrats nudged their way in, and then in 1835 the "Panteón grande" was constructed and it became an all-purpose public bone yard.
read more
Leonora Carrington in Mexico City: perspective of a person, place, and time
Tears of the maguey: Is pulque really a dying tradition?
If pulque can create such positive results in all of our daily lives, why is it in danger of extinction? What happened to pulque? It appears to be the victim...
read more
Cinco de Mayo: What is everybody celebrating?
Ask about the history behind these celebrations, and a few may be able to tell you that the Mexicans defeated an invading French army on that date in 1862. Beyond that — except maybe in Puebla — general knowledge of the circumstances becomes sketchy. Why were the French there? What happened next? Did the French just go away? Many teachers in the U.S. still tell their classes that May fifth is Mexican Independence Day, which is dead wrong.
read more
Anthony Wright pens his first Mexico novel: Infernal Drums
I first came to Mexico in early 1992, and it was very much a deliberate choice since it is obviously a long way from Australia. Not exactly a run over the border. My plans were to travel around the world for a year and return to Australia. I was determined to write in Mexico because I was interested in the Beats and the fact that William Burroughs wrote Junkie in Mexico City.
read more
Did You Know? Cinco de Mayo is more widely celebrated in USA than Mexico
Why this one? The main reason is that the Battle of Puebla marks Mexico's only major military success since independence from Spain in 1821.
On May 9, 1862, President Benito Juarez declared that the Cinco de Mayo, the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, was to be a national holiday. In the U.S., the Cinco de Mayo has been transformed into a much more popular cultural event. read more
Good Friday in San Miguel de Allende
Holy Week — from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday — is observed throughout Mexico. However San Miguel de Allende's fervor and pageantry is some of the most powerful and beautiful.
The image of El...
read more
Tears of the maguey: Is pulque really a dying tradition?
A magical plant of Mexico
A long time ago, before the Spaniards came and changed everything, the people of the Mexican highlands cultivated maguey plants. Like the people, the magueys are native to th...
read more
The Through Line: A Journey from Darkness into Life
Popular Ajijic photographer Jay Koppelman has two things to celebrate this winter: one, the recent opening of Studio 18, on Colón 18 in Ajijic, which features exclusively his photographs; and two, the recent publication of the first collection of his Mexico photographs, in a handsome coffee-table format, The Through Line.
read more
Candied walnuts: Nueces garapiñadas
Candied nuts are a favorite treat in Mexico, and may be made with walnuts, pecans, almonds or peanuts. Walnuts are most prevalent during the winter holiday season. This sweet is one of the things we ca...
read more
Puebla style eggnog: Rompope
This beverage was first made by the colonial-era nuns at the Convent of Santa Clara in Puebla, and the Santa Clara brand is still one of the most popular. It is fun and very easy to make at home. Unlik...
read more
When I took Fernando to Guanajuato