The Making of a Modern Mexican Cook

Food has been a topic, a hobby and an important obligation for generations of women in my family.

When I was a child, I was shuffled back and forth between two homes. During the school year, I lived in my grandparents’ home in Mexico City. For the holiday season, I would move to Cuernavaca, where my parents lived. This double life allowed me to learn both my grandma’s and my mother’s cooking.

I remember distinctly that in both homes, cooking began at 6 a.m. and the kitchen stayed open until the last member of the family came home. That often meant closing at midnight. I won’t even begin to talk about the quantity of dishes and masses of people that traversed through the kitchen during birthdays, baptisms and weddings. Often, those dishes would take weeks to prepare.

For my grandmother, the kitchen was a sacred place. There she spent most of her time, cooking or teaching the cook how to prepare old and difficult Mexican dishes. Thanks to her willingness to share those secret recipes, my mother and I can keep up the tradition of delicious, refined and elaborate Mexican cuisine.

Given the sanctity that my grandmother conferred upon the kitchen, it was only natural that it occupied a huge, well-lit room. It was extremely well equipped too. My grandfather invested a very good slice of his salary to please my grandma. The best kitchen appliances were bought at Sears, Roebuck, which in the 1940s became the first American department store to open in Mexico and thus the symbol of modernity. Her traditional side, however, demanded that the hardware and utensils came from known and reliable European labels. And, naturally, there were marvelous earthenware pots and casseroles from Puebla and Oaxaca.

The cook had go to the market twice a day, the first time very early in the morning. I remember her emptying an enormous basket filled with beef, fish, chicken, eggs, tortillas, vegetables like huitlacoche , huauzontle , all kinds of fresh and dried chiles and pumpkin flowers, spices and herbs like anise and mint. There were also the amazingly colorful and flavorful Mexican fruits: watermelon, mamey , guava, tejocote , avocado, mango, sugar cane. To prepare aguas frescas and lemonade, she brought jamaica flowers, chia seeds, oranges and limes.

Every afternoon, a young man from a nearby hacienda would arrive on his horse, two big aluminum cans of unpasteurized milk hanging from his saddle. The arrival of the milkman meant that it was time to go back out to buy bread.

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Sometimes grandmother, whom we called Nita, would allow me to go with the assistant to buy the bread. I really loved it. The smell of freshly baked bread was extraordinary: scents of cinnamon and recently sifted flour. I went crazy buying the bread from the rich variety of the so-called Mexican pan dulce (literally, “sweet bread”): gendarmes , polvorones , campechanas , pambazos , mon~os , semas , corbatas and conchas , which later would be filled with nata , the creamy skin that formed on the milk as it was boiled for pasteurization.

The second most important room in my grandparents’ home was the pantry. It was always locked, and my grandma kept the keys hidden in her apron pocket. The pantry had been built with a special system for ventilation, and there she kept big sacks of sugar, salt, flour, coffee, rice, all kinds of beans, chiles, dried mushrooms and spices.

There were also large shelves to keep the preserves for homemade Mexican desserts, like pine nut, almond or walnut creams, pastes made of fruit and cajetas , a thick, golden syrup made from cooked milk. There were large bottles of olive oil and vinegar. Cases of wine, beer and pulque , a Mexican beverage extracted from the agave. Pulque is essential in preparing many sophisticated Mexican dishes from the state of Hidalgo, where my grandmother’s family was from.

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My grandmother’s generation grew up with the 20th Century, but their costumes and habits had been shaped in the 19th Century, when France was the model country. By the time my mother married, Mexico, albeit very nationalistic, was beginning to look to the United States. Modernity was the rule, simplification the motto.

The nearness of the United States had created a new attitude in Mexican women. Although my mother’s kitchen was still high on ritual and the cook still went to the market twice a day and the number of hours devoted to cooking were still too many, early in her marriage my mother decided she would not remain in the kitchen all day long as my grandma had. Fortunately for her, she was able to increase the number of people working in the kitchen, and the new kitchen equipment available then in Mexico made things easier.

Another difference between her kitchen and grandma’s was in the variety of foods. Grandma would rarely venture into other kinds of cooking--though Mexican cuisine is, of course, influenced by European cuisine. In my mother’s house there was Mexican, French, Italian and sometimes even Chinese cooking.

There was rarely a homemade preserve in my mother’s house, and the big sacks of such staples as flour soon disappeared. Perhaps the most dramatic difference between the households was the one between a hands-on cook like my grandma and a laissez-faire supervisor like my mother. Whereas my grandmother decided, directed and even cooked every menu, my mother dictated the menu but let the cook prepare the meal, only occasionally going to the kitchen to teach something or prepare a very delicate dish.

On those occasions when she did go there, it was hard to decide who was the better cook, mother or grandma. Tasting the food, one would hardly notice a difference, either in ingredients or in preparation.

Nowadays, although my mother enjoys cooking, she does not believe that taking charge of the kitchen is one of her most important duties. Perhaps this is natural, because she has twice been married to men who did not always appreciate a sophisticated dish. My late father hated garlic and demanded “simple foods”: grilled steaks with a good salsa and tortillas. Her second husband eats only because he has to; if he could discover the way to live without food, he would be happy.

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I am like my mother: The kitchen is hardly sacred. First, I live in the United States, not in Mexico, and the pace of life here is very different. I work at home, and the kitchen is closed all day, opening only for about two hours a day. For me, cooking is not a full-time business. While I cook, I listen to the news and run to answer the phone or the fax. Furthermore, I have no helpers in the kitchen to assist me in preparing complicated and elaborate dishes.

On the weekends, however, cooking is still a ritual in my house. My husband not only enjoys eating good food but also loves to cook. I like cooking, but it bores me, so I have tried to find ingenious ways to cook old recipes with new tools. To simplify the recipes, I have had to change methods of preparation and ingredients, and I mix Mexican food with other national cuisines that add variety to the menus.

My grandmother would have started a dish of black beans with epazote by laboriously cleaning dried beans of husks and stones and then boiling them for several hours in an earthenware casserole. I’m more likely to spice up canned beans with some epazote and a little crumbled cotija cheese.

For my grandmother, even something as simple as white rice was made by picking over the rice, washing it, soaking it, frying it in hot oil, draining it and finally boiling it in homemade chicken broth. In my house, I use converted rice and it’s ready in five minutes. Of course, she always made her tortillas from scratch.

For the most part, I do what could best be described as a very eclectic type of home cooking. Take for instance this menu: pasta, red snapper in a tomato-based sauce with capers, olives, onions and parsley and salad, with fruits and cheese for dessert.

When we have guests for dinner, I cook more complicated menus, and sometimes I even dare to prepare an elaborate dessert. But in preparing for a large party like a graduation or birthday, I call a catering service.

I remember, as if it was a nightmare, a farewell dinner for some friends who were going to live in Italy. I had promised them a good dessert from my grandmother’s recipes and chose a corn tart that took me 12 hours to make, working nonstop. I followed the instructions closely, mixing, boiling, stirring each ingredient and following the required times for each.

That night, as soon as I finished cooking the tart, I closed that little recipe book of old Mexican desserts forever. It was a big success, and all the guests that came to dinner still remember grandmother’s tart, but I will never again have the patience to spend 12 hours preparing one dish.

GRANDMA’S CREAM OF SQUASH BLOSSOM SOUP (Crema de Flor de Calabaza)

1 pound squash blossoms

2 chiles poblanos

Oil

1/3 cup fine-chopped onion

1 large clove garlic, minced

3 tablespoons butter

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

3 1/2 cups light chicken broth

2/3 cup crema Mexicana or heavy whipping cream

Salt to taste

Remove stems from squash blossoms. Clean blossoms and chop fine.

Roast chiles in oven or over high heat; when softened and charred all over, place under towel or in plastic bag until cool enough to handle. Brush off charred skin and remove stem and seeds. Cut into small squares and saute lightly in oil.

Saute onion and garlic in butter in heavy saucepan over low heat until translucent; do not brown. Add all but 1/2 cup chopped squash blossoms and salt, cover pan and cook over low heat until blossoms are quite tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

In blender, puree cooked blossoms with 1 1/2 cups broth and return to saucepan. Add remaining broth and cook over low heat until warm, about 8 minutes.

Stir crema Mexicana into soup and heat gently until soup comes to simmer. Taste and adjust seasoning. Serve garnished with reserved flowers and chile pieces.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

176 calories; 595 mg sodium; 52 mg cholesterol; 16 grams fat; 7 grams carbohydrates; 3 grams protein; 1.01 grams fiber.

GRANDMA’S CHIPOTLE MEATBALLS (Albondigas)

MEATBALLS

1 onion

1 clove garlic

1/4 pound boiled ham

1/2 pound ground veal

1/2 pound ground pork

1/2 pound ground lamb

1 cup fresh bread crumbs

1/4 teaspoon crumbled dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon crumbled dried marjoram

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

2 eggs, beaten lightly

2 hard-boiled eggs

2 tablespoons cooked white rice

Mince onion and garlic and chop ham. In large bowl, combine onion, garlic, ham, veal, pork, lamb, bread crumbs, thyme, marjoram, salt, pepper and eggs. Form mixture into 24 meatballs.

Chop hard-boiled eggs. In small bowl, combine hard-boiled eggs with rice.

Poke hole into middle of each meatball with finger. Into each hole, stuff 1-2 teaspoons rice-egg combination.

CHIPOTLE SAUCE

2 pounds tomatoes

2 cups tomatillos

1 onion

1 clove garlic

2 canned chiles chipotle en adobo

1/4 cup vegetable oil or lard

2 cups beef broth

3 sprigs parsley

3 sprigs cilantro

Salt, pepper

Cover tomatoes and tomatillos with boiling water and let stand about 5 minutes. Peel tomatoes.

Remove husks from tomatillos. Chop onion, garlic and chipotles. In blender, puree tomatoes, tomatillos, onion, garlic and chipotles.

Heat oilin large heavy skillet over moderate heat and add puree. Cook, stirring with wooden spoon, 3 minutes. Transfer puree to large heavy saucepan, stir in broth, parsley, cilantro and salt and pepper to taste, then simmer.

Add meatballs, a few at time, to simmering sauce. Cook, stirring occasionally, until done, about 1 1/2 hours. Using slotted spoon, transfer meatballs to heated serving dish.

Bring sauce to boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened.

Pour sauce over meatballs and serve.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

408 calories; 1,257 mg sodium; 215 mg cholesterol; 24 grams fat; 20 grams carbohydrates; 29 grams protein; 1.44 grams fiber.

MY CHIPOTLE MEATBALLS

MEATBALLS

1/2 onion

1 clove garlic

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1 egg

1 tablespoon bread crumbs

Salt, pepper

Mince onion and garlic. In large bowl, combine onion, garlic, ground meat, egg, bread crumbs, and salt and pepper to taste. Make 24 meatballs, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter.

CHIPOTLE SAUCE

1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce, plus equal amount water

2 or 3 canned chiles chipotles in adobo 1/2 onion

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon oil

In food processor or blender, puree tomato sauce, water, and chiles chipotles to fairly smooth sauce.

Slice onion and garlic. In large heavy saucepan over low heat, cook onion and garlic in oil until soft. Do not brown. Add tomato-chipotle sauce and bring to simmer. Add meatballs, cover dish and cook over low heat until done, about 50 minutes.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

295 calories; 557 mg sodium; 99 mg cholesterol; 21 grams fat; 9 grams carbohydrates; 18 grams protein; 0.87 gram fiber.

GRANDMA’S FLAN (Flan a la Antigua)

1 cup sugar

1 quart milk

1 vanilla bean or cinnamon stick

Pinch salt

4 eggs

6 egg yolks

Place small, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add 1/2 cup sugar and cook until sugar on bottom of pan has melted and is transparent. Raise flame and stir sugar with wooden spoon until deep brown and foamy. Pour caramel into 2-quart flan mold and turn quickly, tipping from side to side to spread even coating of caramel over bottom and halfway up sides of mold.

In saucepan, heat milk, remaining 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla bean or cinnamon and salt; simmer briskly until reduced by about 1/2 cup, about 15 minutes. Let cool.

Beat eggs and egg yolks together. Add eggs to cooled milk and stir well. Pour mixture through strainer into coated mold. (Rinse vanilla bean, dry and store for use again.)

Cover mold. Set in baking pan on lowest shelf of oven. Add boiling water to pan to come to halfway up sides of mold. Bake at 350 degrees until knife inserted in center comes out clean, about 2 hours. Cool. Invert onto serving plate.

Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

171 mg sodium; 426 mg cholesterol; 12 grams fat; 41 grams carbohydrates; 12 grams protein; 0 fiber.