RE: [CH] Message from Chowhound Message board....
Joan McCutcheon (joan@mccutcheon.com)
Sun, 16 Oct 2005 07:42:23 +0200
Me too!
Joannie
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-chile-heads@globalgarden.com
[mailto:owner-chile-heads@globalgarden.com] On Behalf Of Linda Panter
Sent: donderdag 7 juli 2005 1:39
To: chile-heads@globalgarden.com
Subject: [CH] Message from Chowhound Message board....
I want to go!!!!
Michoacan, Mex. (long VERY long)
From: kalypso@earthlink.net (Gayla)
Posted: June 26, 2005 at 19:09:34
Message: Sometimes the simplest food is the what sustains
the most, and that was certainly the case for me last week after
a red-eye flight from LAX to GDL (Guadalajara). Cristina (yes,
the one that posts on this board) met me at the airport and we
immediately set out on a 5-day road trip through Michoacan, being
home-based in Patzcuaro.
After about an hour and a half on the road we pulled off
about 9:30 AM just outside of Zamora for breakfast. This wasn't
just any old breakfast, nor was this any old road side stand. The
stand is famous for it's carnitas and justly so. Within minutes
of sitting down, a condiment tray was plunked down containing a
salsa cruda, a red table sauce, and an encurtido of mild white
onions, slivers of chile peron (aka chile manzana), seasoned with
salt, vinegar and fresh oregano. This was followed almost
immediately by a basket piled high with hot, fresh and pillowy
corn tortillas, fragrant with the aroma of corn and slight char
from comal. I hadn't realized just exactly how hungry I was until
I caught a wiff of those tortillas and began wolfing them down
trying each of the condiments as I went.
Lucky for me, the carnitas arrived just as quickly as the
condiments and tortillas had. Pork in Mexico is a marvelous, it's
still flavorful, toothsome and marbled with fat, and, thankfully,
lacks that sawdust texture and general lack of flavor of the
"other white meat". These carnitas had just recently come out of
the cooking fat, which was most likely lard. They were crispy,
fall apart tender, unctous, and when wrapped in one of the soft,
pliant corn tortillas and adorned with some of the encurtido and
a splash of red table sauce, about as close to food nirvana as
one can get. Corn, pork and chiles, how much simpler than that
can you get? The carnitas even made the cup of instant NesCafe
seem like it had just been freshly brewed. A half-kilo of
carnitas disappeared in the wink of an eye and left Cristina and
I well fortified for the remaining trip into Patzcuaro, which is
an incredibly beautiful drive.
Frankly, the purpose of this road trip was more related to
Mexican folk art than food, both turned out to be wonderful. I
saw and met some amazing artesans and craft people making
stunningly beautiful pieces out of a wide variety of materials,
that included, clay, copper, wrought iron, wood, needle and
thread and tule reeds to name a few. The next road trip I'll have
to make in a truck since I saw so many things I wanted to buy,
but wouldn't fit in a rollaboard and carry-on.
The food was just as bright and as flavorful as the folk
art was beautiful. We began each day with a breakfast that, while
not as hearty as the typical American breakfast, or as
soul-satisfying as the carnitas, was able to carry us through
most of the day. The first day we retrieved the car and drove up
to the Basilica in search of Cristina's favorite corunda vendor.
Corundas are masa based, stuffed, shaped like a giant pyramid,
wrapped in fresh corn leaves and then steamed. The ones we had
for breakfast were uncommonly light and fluffy and had been
stuffed with the doble crema Michoacan is known for and rajas
(strips of poblano chile). The whole corunda was then liberally
dressed with crema and a firey salsa de chile peron. Served with
a chocolate atole (more like champurrado), it was a fine way to
start the day. Another day began with bionicos purchased at the
local tianguis (i.e. street market) and a variety of fresh baked
pastries. A bionico is really nothing more than a parfait made by
layering assorted cut fruits, granola and yogurt in a clear
plastic glass and giving the finished product a good squirt of
honey upon purchase. The most substantial breakfast we had was
chilaquiles with a fried egg and beans one morning at the
sidewalk restaurant of the Gran Hotel on the Plaza Gertrudis
Bocanegra, which incidentally, also makes an excellent cup of
Cafe con Leche.
Restaurant meals were not our focus but there were a few.
In Santa Clara del Cobre, the copper center, we discussed the
merits of a solid copper bathtub built for two (and priced at the
bargain basement price of $17,000 pesos) over lunch at the
restaurant El Camino Real. The meal began with Sopa Tarasca, a
chicken stock based soup with skinny, crispy fried tortilla
strips, shredded cheese and an ancho chile floating on top.
Tasty, but a little pasty. For the sopa seca Cristina had Arroz
Mexicana, which was unremarkable. I had the Macarrones, the
Mexican version of macaroni and cheese, which was bland but
filling. For the entree Cristina had a veal milanesa that was
smothered with suave chile/tomato sauce studded with vegetables,
while I had thinly pounded pork loin smothered in what the menu
described as an orange sauce, but turned out to be more like an
orange sauce enhanced with mustard (probably French's out of the
jar), cloves, allspice berries and pepercorns, and it was utterly
good. Dessert choices were duraznos and gelatina con rompope,
rompope being an eggnog style liquor. Neither choice was
exciting, but knowing that that duraznos would be canned peaches,
we both opted for the gelatina. I don't think either of us
expected a dish of jello and eggnog to be anything other than
pedestrian. Boy were we wrong. Sometimes the most jaded and
skeptical of foodie paletes needs to be reminded how delicious
simple food really is. The gelatin was a pale, opaque yellow,
floating in a pool of rompope of the same color. The gelatina
lacked any hint of traditional jello rubberiness, but rather
seduced the mouth with a velvet and voluptuous mouthfeel and
refined and complex assortment of flavors. I've known for years
that rompope can work wonders in a dessert, but who knew that
plain old gelatin could actually be sensuous?
The other restaurant meal we ate was in town at Don Rafa's.
It was memorable for two things, a much better version of Sopa
Tarasca and a much better version of Macarrones. The soup had a
richer flavor and lacked the pastiness of the version we'd had in
Santa Clara del Cobre. The macarrones had been made with Oaxacan
string cheese and the addition of some sauteed onions and
mushrooms, elevating this comfort food just enough for it to be
ever so satisfying. I had a nondescript milanesa and Cristina had
a chicken breast in the local mole, which was really quite good,
and dessert was a respectable flan.
The remainder of our food came from either markets or
street vendors. At night in Patzcuaro the vendors selling
Enchiladas Placeras take the place of the market vendors. Stroll
around the parimeter, watch the cooks as they work making the
enchilada platters and choose which vendor suits your fancy. A
platter easily feeds 2 hungry people, 3 if you're not so hungry,
and consists of 12 small enchiladas, sauteed veggies and meat,
which is usually chicken. The enchiladas are filled with a dab
(and it really is a dab) of a potato/cheese mixture. The platter
is garnished with a ladle of salsa, a handful of encurtido and a
pickled jalapeno. It's an impossible amount of food that seems to
disappear far more readily than it realistically should.
If you are a health conscious traveler, the one thing you
probably don't really want to do is watch how an Enchilada
Placera platter is actually made. A very large metal comal is set
up over a very fast, very hot propane powered burner that puts
out some serious BTUs. The comal has a well in the center in
which most of the cooking is done. As the orders come in the cook
liberally ladles soft lard into the well in the comal. The
chickens are precooked, having been boiled earlier in the day.
The cook adds whatever pieces have been ordered to the lard to
heat them through and crisp them up. As the chickens are cooking,
the cook then takes a handful of fresh corn tortillas, rifles
them to separate them, and quickly dips them into a red chile
sauce. With the free hand, the chickens are moved out of the oil
to the side of the comal and the dipped tortillas then go into
the lard for a quick fry and flip. They are moved up along the
edges of the well, filled with the potato/cheese mixture, folded
in half and sent back into the lard for a qick dip. The completed
enchiladas are then moved over to the chicken and a very generous
serving of cooked potatoes, carrots and onions is slid in for
it's tour through the lard. A large oval platter is lined with
romaine lettuce leaves, the enchiladas shingled out across the
romaine, the potato/carrot mixture dumped on top, then the
chicken pieces, some cheese, and lastly the condiments. Total
time from the moment the chicken goes into the lard, to the
moment the jalapeno hits the finished platter is probably not
much more than about 5 mintues, which is probably the saving
grace with respect to the lard. The temperature of the lard is so
hot, and the amount of time the food actually spends in it is
really comparatively short. Thankfully, almost all the lard
remains in the comal well and is not absorbed into the food,
which really does come out remarkably greaseless. It's hard to
say which I liked better the enchiladas or the veggies, the
chicken being more of an afterthought than anything, all of it
was good. It didn't matter that I could hear my arteries snapping
shut with each bite, some things are worth a little lard, and
Enchiladas Placera is definitely one of them.
On a corner very near the Gran Hotel another vendor sets up
and dispenses tacos, probably the best tacos I've ever
had..........anywhere. They are made with very small corn
tortillas, maybe about 4" in diameter and filled with your choice
of beef steak, tripe, chorizo and a couple of other meats. They
get a garnish of green salsa, finely minced onion and cilantro.
There are some additional garnishes available to put on the
tacos, but they really aren't needed. The flavors are very pure
and clear and the garnishes the perfect enhancement. Just look
for the busiest street stand you can find. People were at least 2
deep all around this cart the night we ate there.
Situated in the portals of the buildings lining the main
plaza are vendors selling everything under the sun from cheap
jewelery to candies, empanadas from atun (tuna) to zarzamora
(blackberry) and exotic flavored ice creams and ices not to be
missed. Late in the day buy an ice cream and wonder over towards
the fountain in the main plaza to relax and watch the Dance of
the Viejitos beign performed by a trope of youngsters.
The street market yields the usual array of dead-ripe
fruits, vegetables and chiles that really do perfume the air of
the market. Tiny little wild cherries and wild blackberries were
in season and intensely flavored. I also had my first taste of
nanches, a starchy, unsweet fruit with little flavor that leaves
a weird aftertaste in the mouth. Most likely an acquired taste.
On our way back to reality we stopped at the street market
in Quiroga for our last breakfast. Several weeks earlier a friend
of Cristina's had discovered a taco vendor in the market making
wonderful mole tacos. We were her first customers this day. As we
watched she rolled masa into logs and then pressed them out in
10" narrow ovals on a wooden tortilla press. The finished
tortilla was laid on the edge of a metal comal, filled with the
mole mixture, folded and slid into yet more lard to fry. After
much flipping and frying the tacos were stuffed with a little
shredded cabbage, salsa and cilantro and passed over to us. A
delightful way to start the day. This vendor also makes tacos
with chicken, cheese and rajas and spinach in addition to the
mole tacos. She sets up her stand on the sidewalk facing into the
market. She is roughly located between the pan dulce and bread
vendors and the walkway into the church.
5 days in Michoacan barely scratches the surface of
possiblities for food and folk art. I'll be back for both.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Linda
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me - I want
people to know WHY I look this way: I've traveled a long way and
some of the roads weren't paved.