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INMEXICO,
the official party line is “For everything
bad, mezcal—and for everything good, too,” but
when it comes toOaxaca’s revivedmezcal produc-
tion, it’s almost all good.
Though the smoky spirit has been around for centuries, bar luminaries like Jim
Meehan of NewYork’s award-winning cocktail den PDT have started cra ingmenus
around it in only the past few years. In 2009, 50,000 people turned up to the annual
at Casa Crespo, a restaurant
and culinary school in the city
of Oaxaca.
Before the Spanish
arrived with their pigs, cows,
wheat and cumin (and certainly
before the French brought cream
sauce), Oaxacans enjoyed duck
taquitos;
bu‘pu,
a beverage made
from creamed corn and topped
with cacao; and
sopa de milpa
,
a soup of squash blossoms ,
mushrooms, sweet corn and
chipotle—all dishes you can find
in Carrizosa’s restaurant.
But possibly the most cel-
ebrated pre-Hispanic culinary
creat ion is
caldo de piedra,
or stone soup, a ceremonial
meal eaten by the indigenous
Chinantec people. In the spring-
time, when the soup’s ingredients
were most abundant, men made
it as a tribute to the women
and girls of the village. A er col-
lecting the necessary tomatoes,
cilantro, chilies and fish, they
heated a bunch of river stones in
a fire, created huge bowls in the
sand and added the hot stones
to cook the soup.
“We grew up with
caldo de
piedra,
” says Cesar Gachupin
de Dios, head chef at, fittingly,
Caldo de Piedra in Tlalixtac de
Cabrera. “I learned to cook it at
the age of 9. Inmy village, it’s still
eaten on the banks of the river
every spring.”
Whi le Gachupin de Dios ’
restaurant is very much about
preserving tradition, there’s also
a broader movement thrust-
ing pre-Hispanic food into the
international spotlight. “Oaxaca
was always known as a poorer
area,” Carrizosa says, “but now
that Americans have go en into
eating seasonal and local foods,
tourism’s been good here.”
As for Carrizosa’s favorite
dishes, he says he prefers those
associated with certain times of
the year. He particularly favors
salsa de chicatanes,
a spicy num-
ber made with flying ants that’s
about as seasonal as it gets: The
main ingredient appears for just
a few days each May.
Where There’s
Smoke, There’s Fire
Production of tequila’s
rough-and-tumble
cousin heats up
mole negro:
The
mole
that’s made it in
the world at large derives its flavor from
a blend of chili, cinnamon, chocolate
and sesame seeds.
mole amarillo:
This local favorite
gets its yellow color from
masa
(corn
dough) blended with chili, cumin,
tomatillo and tomato.
mole colorado:
Similar to
mole negro
but less chocolaty,
colorado
’s rich flavor
comes from tomato, clove and allspice.
mole coloradito:
This ruddy sauce is
also based on chocolate and chili, but
achieves a sublime texture with help
from peanuts and raisins.
HOLY
MOLE
OutsideMexico, there’s
only one sauce known as
mole
, and it’s a savory,
cocoa-y revelation. But
in Oaxaca, the locals
claimnot one but seven
signature varieties:
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