Slow Food Mexico is part of the larger, international organization Slow Food, which supports organic, sustainable eating around the world. Yesterday one of the Mexico chapters sponsored a gourmet food fair in Coyoacán.
Local restaurants and small-business owners from all over the country had set up dozens of items under a white tent: artisan mescal, Mexican wine, Querétaro and Jalisco cheeses, tamales with various fillings, fruit jams, dried and candied xoconostle, heirloom beans, seeds, fresh fish from Michoacán.
I wanted to eat it all, ALL ALL. But I settled for 60 pesos (about $4 USD) to taste three dishes. My friend Emily did the same, and we decided to share.
First up were the tamales, made by El Tajin Chef Adriana of Cafe El Popular in the Centro. The filling contained quelites, a dark, hearty leaf; nata and requesón, a type of mellow Mexican ricotta. It was served with a little olla of salsa. I took a picture before I got to the quelites, because I was too hungry to wait.
Then we tried a strawberry tamale, which had strawberries mixed directly into the masa, and a few bits of gooey strawberry pulp. Yum.
We tried trout from D.O., an upscale Mexico City restaurant. It came with a citrus syrup dotted with orange rind, a toss of pepitas, and a scoop of lentil-wild rice salad. Utterly divine.
Then there was the decadent gut-bomb, in a good way, of a turkey tamale wrapped in hoja santa leaves, doused in tomato sauce and topped with a dollop of nata. God. Can you imagine? It tasted as rich as it looked. I loved the idea of serving it in a cornhusk.
Update: Ruth of Alegria in Mexico says these were made by Gerardo Vazques Lugo of Nico’s restaurant. He’s also the Chapultepec Slow Food convivium leader, and one of the Sunday event’s main organizers, along with Alicia Gironella De’Angeli of El Tajin.
We also tried a wonderful selection of cotija cheeses, aged and crumbly, each sitting in its own little pool of marmalade. (The pineapple marmalade speckled with vanilla bean outshined them all, and I wanted to spoon it into my purse and take it home with me.)
In another aisle, a soon-to-open Condesa bakery called Acento had set up a basket brimming with concha rolls, muffins and chocolate croissants. I watched two people in a row walk by, gaze at the bread and murmur, “Qué bárbaro. Qué delicia!”
Bought a chocolate concha, and it was fine. A little dry. (I’m sticking to my belief that conchas must be tried within an hour or two of baking.)
At the end of the day, I came away with a package of fresh trout, a jar of tecojote marmalade from Michoacán, a bag of heirloom pinto beans, and my favorite, a lead-free clay bean pot, which I bought after being inspired by this refried beans post on Mexico Cooks.
I’m in love with my new pot, which is now sitting on top of my kitchen cabinets. It’s round and chubby and so cute. I plan to make some beans on Saturday, so I’ll definitely have to take a few pictures and show you.
Update: Forgot to mention that the beans and bean pot came from Xoxoc, a husband-and-wife team based in Hidalgo state that make wonderful xoconostle products, and also seek out small-batch bean producers in Mexico. They’ve provided beans to Rancho Gordo, the well-known heirloom bean producer in Napa, California. (Check out the New York Times article on Rancho Gordo here.)
Your first bean pot is very special and the beans that you cook in it will taste fantastic. Then, someday it will break and you will cry and you will never find another one that cooks beans quite as good…so take good care of it 🙂
Aww. This story makes me sad, Bob. I promise to take care of my bean pot.
Lesley, I’m especially curious about two things that you wrote.
One was “First up were the tamales, made by El Tajin Chef Adriana of Cafe El Popular in the Centro.”
Is that to say that a chef from the noted restaurant El Tajín is now working at the Café El Popular, notable in the past for being available 24/7 but for plebeian fare?
Second, in regard to “Bought a chocolate concha, and it was fine. A little dry. I’m sticking to my belief that conchas must be tried within an hour or two of baking.”; my opinion that conchas and other pan dulce are meant to be at least eaten with café or chocolate, if not at least dunked. That takes care of the dryness.
Of course, it does leave crumbs of topping in your hot drink.
I love Bob’s comment. I am avoiding the sorrow of bean pot breakage as I just bought a two pot stainless steel clad FAGOR pressure cooker set. I guess I’m just not a romantic traditionalist.
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
Don Cuevas: No, Chef Adriana works for El Popular. El Tajin should have been read as a strikethrough. That means I had it in an earlier version of the blog entry, but then I realized my info was wrong, and I didn’t want to remove the entire word for transparency’s sake.
Bah on dunking conchas in coffee. Is that the measure of a good donut? I daresay not. The bread has to stand up on its own. If we’re truly talking about the best conchas in the city, I’m not going to pick one with a dry crumb, just because it’s dunkable.
Couple of things. First, when I lived in Mexico years ago, it was the custom to enjoy pandulce and hot chocolate late in the evening, and the pandulce was generally dunked in the hot chocolate. But, as you say, if it’s good enough to stand on its own, go for it!
Second, I’m glad you bought a traditional olla. Granted the stainless steel frijole pot (can’t even call it an olla) will never break (itself or your heart) but it lacks the visual and textual richness of the real thing. You could call it “mi enamorada” or “mi frijolito”. Let us know!
Dave Gardner
I enjoyed reading your post! It seems like everything you tried there are great. With that amount you were able to try great treats that I myself would love to try. Inspiring and at the same time makes readers hungry! Thanks for sharing your adventure! Looking forward to read more!
algunas conchas son un poco secas pero con buen sabor, otras no; depende de lo bueno que sea el panadero para prepararlas. A mi me gustan tambien un poco secas claro que con buen sabor y acompanadas con chocolate abuelita. Y si alguien gusta de conchas no secas alli esta BIMBO o TIA ROSA jeje, pero yo prefiero sobre todo ir a lugar donde el panadero las cocina y comprarselas recien salidas del horno.