Bordertown 
A Good Mango Is Hard to Find
Unless you’re Susana Trilling, that is. At her cooking school in Mexico, the revered authority on Oaxacan cocina taught me how to turn the delicious fruit into a memorable dessert and to prepare many other traditional dishes. She can teach you too, and—this month, at least—you won’t have to leave Texas.
(Page 2 of 2)
Beyond the food, Trilling considers two concepts central to Oaxacan cooking. The first, guelaguetza, which means “reciprocal giving and taking,” refers to how rural farmers distribute their crops among one another and is also the name of the state’s biggest tourist event. At this annual July festival, the various indigenous groups converge on the city of Oaxaca to dance, play music, and exchange gifts, art, and crafts. Trilling’s other key concept is embodied in the word aprovechar, which means “to take advantage of.” While tortillas cook on the comal, for example, vegetables are roasted directly on the coals under it to take advantage of that heat; when the vegetables have cooled and been peeled, their flavors are stronger than they would be if they had been boiled or used raw. At the end of a meal, everyone at the table says “Buen provecho“—meaning, roughly, “take advantage of this food to improve your health.”
Oaxaca is an agricultural state with sixteen indigenous groups, each with its own dress, language, and traditions. The beauty of Trilling’s approach to teaching is that she gives culture as much importance as cooking, and there’s considerable travel involved in the longer courses. One morning during my five-day spring class, we toured the mammoth, ghostly Zapotec ruins of Monte Albán, outside the city of Oaxaca, where some 16,500 people lived at its peak, between A.D. 300 and A.D. 500. From there we drove on to Santa Maria el Tule, where the market stands in the shadow of an ahuehuete (a relative of the bald cypress) that is reputedly the oldest and largest tree in the world. At a fonda (diner) in the market, we snacked on empanadas de mole amarillo con pollo (pies filled with chicken in a yellow mole thickened with masa, or cornmeal). Next came the market in Tlacolula, where the specialty is unglazed red pottery from nearby San Marcos Tlapazola and the food in the stalls includes an especially flavorful sweet potato with a red skin. At Trilling’s favorite fonda here, we happily slurped a soup made with barbacoa de chivo, a goat that is cooked in the ground; lime and chopped cabbage, cilantro, and onion were served on the side, to be added at will. Then our van began climbing into the Sierra Mixe (named for the people who inhabit this eastern part of the Sierra Madres). We grew more and more silent as we ascended and took in humbling views of mountain peak against mountain peak, each a little higher than the one before. At the market in Ayutla, where the meat and fish were dried because it takes so long to transport them there, mustard greens simmered in ollas (clay pots) until ready to be eaten with salsa. Many of the women wore the blue and white cowgirl outfits of the nearby village of Santa Maria. Ten minutes farther on, in Tamazulapan Mixe, we were greeted by the smell of wild green onions and wild mountain apples. After we stopped to rest in the plaza of the municipal palace, where we watched boys playing soccer and men playing volleyball as local bandas competed for the right to represent the town at a national music festival, cheerful day-drinkers implored us to drink from their small bowls of potent pulque. Unfortunately, the mountains had become socked in with fog, and we couldn’t continue on to Totontepec, where the largest corn in the world is grown, its stalks averaging sixteen feet high and its ears sixteen inches long. On other days we visited bread-, cheese-, and tortillamakers and an elderly woman who showed us how to create frothy chocolate de agua (hot chocolate made with water) and tortillas embarradas, large, crispy tortillas called tlayudas that are spread with a bean-and-chile paste and usually eaten as a mid-morning or late-night snack.
But we also got a lot of cooking done ourselves. Trilling—a perpetually cheerful and often self-mocking teacher with a gift for making students feel they are learning even when they mess up—doesn’t like to give demonstrations; instead, students roll up their sleeves and, supervised by Trilling and her assistants, cook their own dinner. One morning we went to Trilling’s local market in Etla, which is known for its three cow’s-milk cheeses, to shop for ingredients. Later, fortifying ourselves by sipping beer and delicious lemon or hibiscus aguas frescas (flavored waters), we each fixed one dish for the evening’s meal. Saundra, an orthodontist and former University of Michigan professor, prepared arroz con chepil (rice flavored with a delicate pre-Hispanic herb that grows wild in the rainy season and has an intensely “green” flavor, like parsley or watercress). Her daughter Melanie made ensalada de piña, jicama, y aguacate (juicy pineapple-jicama-and-avocado salad), with the crunch of jicama and toasted pecans setting off the softness of the other ingredients. Olga, a retired New York City schoolteacher, and Pauline, a Toronto magazine editor, had the biggest challenge in chichilo oaxaqueño, the most unusual of the seven moles. Traditionally served over pork or beef, it derives its remarkable taste largely from poached chayotes (green, pear-shaped squash) and string beans, burnt tortillas, and the blackened seeds of two Oaxacan chiles. When the garnishes of lime, roasted green chile, and onion were added, the flavors really came alive. I fixed caldo de gato, clear beef (not cat) broth with summer vegetables; it was rather bland until we added a salsa of chile, tomatillo, and garlic. For dessert we enjoyed a pay de queso (farmer’s cheese pie) with guava that had been made by Leigh, who was in the music business in Detroit, and Joan, Pauline’s mother. There were no kitchen disasters, and that night I slept well on a full stomach.
Only Leigh and I were left on the day we visited the central market in Oaxaca and watched chocolate being made. We also wandered through sections full of stalls with incredibly fresh fruits and vegetables and a huge area of unfamiliar regional chiles. One corner of the market deals exclusively in dried gusanos (“worms”) and chapulines (“grasshoppers”), both considered delicacies; superstition holds that anyone who eats chapulines in Oaxaca is certain to return. In the amazing seafood section, we bought three gleaming red snappers weighing a total of two kilograms (around four and a half pounds) for about $13.25.
After returning to Rancho Aurora, the three of us produced an explosive coctel de camarón (“shrimp cocktail”), a hearty arroz a la jardinera del Restaurante Yalile (a rice dish with potatoes, carrots, and other vegetables that is named for the Tuxtepec restaurant where Trilling first learned it), and a refreshing ensalada de botana (an appetizer salad of lettuce, tomato, radish, avocado, green onion, and cheese in a jalapeño dressing). But the real treats were pescado empapelado al diablo and ante de mango. For the former, one of the snappers was topped with a devilish hot sauce, wrapped in banana leaves, and placed in an aluminum foil tent atop a hot comal. Steamed quickly in the foil, it was unbelievably moist and tasted out of this world. The ante de mango, an intensely flavorful mango pudding that requires no cooking, is unlike any other dessert I can think of. It has become a favorite at my house, but then I have yet to meet a Oaxacan dish I don’t like.
Seasons of My Heart, phone and fax 011 52 95151 87726 or 011 52 95150 80044; seasons@spersaoaxaca.com.mx; seasonsofmyheart.com. One-day class $75, 4 days $850, 7 days $1,695, 10-day culinary tour $2,300; prices include everything but plane fare. Two students lodge at Rancho Aurora’s bed-and-breakfast, the others in town at Casa Colonial and Posada de Chencho. A van provides free transportation to and from the hotels as well as the airport.
Pages: 1 2
My Library
