Mexico | Gherkins & Tomatoes

A Lesson from the Day of the Dead

November 2, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Time comes to a halt on All Souls Day (Todos Santos), November 2, a day of ancient ritual. I learned that lesson when I spent the day with a Mexican family in Puebla, Mexico. To miss this celebration of death was simply unheard of. Our place was the cemetery, where the grandparents lay under thick slabs of cement, their fading photographs a testimony to the relative shortness and impermanence of earthly life. After packing up various mole sauces, tortillas, pozole, […]

Categories: Photography • Tags: All Saints, All Souls' Day, Day of the Dead, Death, Meditations, Mexico, Photography, Puebla

December 12: The Virgin of Guadalupe

December 10, 2011 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Patron Saint of Mexico and the Americas Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes once said that “…one may no longer consider himself a Christian, but you cannot truly be considered a Mexican unless you believe in the Virgin of Guadalupe.” Apocryphal or not, the story of the Virgin of Guadalupe makes fascinating reading. And the food’s pretty good, too, like most feast-day food tends to be. But first a little history. An Aztec convert, Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin*, first saw the Virgin […]

Categories: France, French Cooking, Mexico • Tags: Atole, Cooking, Culinary History, Food, Food History, France, French Cooking, Mexico, Recipes, Saints' Days, Virgen de Guadalupe, Virgin of Guadalupe

In the Kitchen with Barbara Kingsolver: I

December 8, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

I’m going to bed every night now with Barbara Kingsolver’s latest book, The Lacuna: A Novel, about Mexico, politics, art, El Norte, and — best of all — cooks. After her last book (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life), Kingsolver still finds food a fascinating part of life. In The Lacuna, here’s how she describes the cook who works for the chief protagonist’s family: When Leandro came he would push the fire to the sides, keeping the heat […]

Categories: Book Reviews, Books, Cooking, Latin America, Lit & Food, Mexico, United States • Tags: Barbara Kingsolver, Cooking, Cooks, Mexico, The Lacuna

Halloween: Art

October 31, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! For more on the Day of the Dead in Mexico, see my previous post: Día de los Muertos (Todos Santos)/ Day of the Dead Food-Laden Altars .

Categories: Art, Halloween, Mexico • Tags: All Souls' Day, Art, Day of the Dead, Halloween, Mexico, Skull

Idylls of Cuisine, #35

October 25, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

[A photograph, and nothing more, for silent contemplation.]

Categories: Halloween, Mexico • Tags: All Souls' Day, Bread of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Halloween, Mexico, Pan de Muertos

Slapdown Corner: For the Love of Food!

July 22, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Like a pot of water heating on the fire, the “meaning of foodie” conversations percolating out there come to boil at times. And at times the heat gets turned off and things simmer down.* Until the next finger-pointing pundit comes flying out of the air. Frankly, it gets tiresome when people exercise their index fingers and sneer out the word “foodie” as if you were a secret sinner, hoarding peccadillos like so many bags of rice. Which was for all […]

Categories: Editorials, Mexico • Tags: Foodies, Ibn Majah, Mexico

Diana Kennedy’s Menu for Charles, Prince of Wales

July 20, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

In 2002, Diana Kennedy, well-known author of Mexican cookbooks, served the following menu to the man who would be king, Charles, Prince of Wales:* Cocktails & Appetizers Tequila Apéritifs Fresh Tortillas Small Pumpkin Seeds Toasted and Ground with Roasted Habanero Chilies Guacamole Enhanced with Grapes and Pomegranate Seeds Meal Cream-of-Squash-Flower Soup Pork Loin Baked in Banana Leaves Cactus and Fresh Young Peas in Green Chile Sauce Dessert Guavas Stuffed with Coconut Mango Sorbet Topped with Tequila-Soaked Strips of Mango Green […]

Categories: Menus, Mexico, Pumpkin, Recipes, Soup, White House • Tags: Cooks, Diana Kennedy, Menus, Mexican Cooking, Mexico, Prince of Wales, Pumpkin, Recipes, Squash, White House

Las Posadas and Christmas in Mexico (Part 2)

December 24, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

(Continued from December 23, 2008 …) What a feast lay there on the other side of the heavy wooden door, spread out before us on a long refectory table that used to be in one of Puebla’s convents! Tia had covered her table with an antique white-lace tablecloth. Shrimp cocktails, cold meat platters, seafood, pork tamales, tasty bits like tuna-stuffed pickled jalapeños, jicama like the street vendors sold, gleaming crystal glasses, colorful chins plates, and blazing candles covered every inch […]

Categories: Christmas, Mexico • Tags: Christmas, Cooking, Food, Mexico, Posadas, Recipes

Las Posadas and Christmas in Mexico

December 23, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

After the Day of the Dead, the weeks flew by, disappearing into the ether, gone without a trace. A certain insidious spirit suffused the streets, as if smoke kept seeping out of an old chimney. Life took on a somewhat sepia-like look. In other words, it was that magical, mystical time leading up to Christmas. Nacimiento, or crêche, scenes popped up in every street vendor’s stall. Even the Scroogy newspaper kiosk owner smiled when I bought the Mexican equivalent of […]

Categories: Christmas, Mexico, Soup • Tags: Christmas, Cooking, Food, Mexico, Posadas, Recipes

Día de los Muertos (Todos Santos)/ Day of the Dead Food-Laden Altars

October 31, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

(Note: The italicized portion of the following article is an excerpt from something I wrote for an encyclopedia on the history of dining and entertaining, Entertaining from Ancient Rome to the Super Bowl, Greenwood Press, 2008.) In Mexico, the Día de los Muertos (Todos Santos) (Day of the Dead/All Saints’ Day) resembles the norteamericano Halloween only superficially. Mexico is deeply, profoundly Catholic. And Mexico is also deeply, profoundly Aztec. Or at least traces of indigenous religions color the Catholic festivals […]

Categories: Bread, Halloween, Mexico, Pork, Recipes • Tags: Bibliographies, Calaveras, Cooking, Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, Food, Halloween, Mexican Cooking, Mexico, Pork Chile Verde, Todos santos

What’s True About Mexico

August 4, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Ever think about how a map of Mexico looks a little bit like Italy, only reversed? Mexico’s equivalent of the Italian boot of Puglia is the Yucatan, sticking out into the Gulf of Mexico like a big stubbed toe. The thirty-one states of Mexico, plus the federal district, hint at a culinary diversity that you’ll find only in places like Italy, where mountains and rivers and desert-like terrain prohibited easy hopping about from place to place.

Categories: Mexico, Recipes, Shellfish • Tags: Avocado, Food, Hot Peppers, Mexico, Recipes, Shrimp

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