Chiapas cuisine and some cultural notes.
Chapter 3. Chiapas
Unlike the other Maya states of Mexico, Chiapas is geographically diverse. Ranging from sea level to 13,000 feet, it takes in tropical rainforests, burning deserts, cool mountain woodlands and frigid cloud-wrapped summits. Ethnically, its indigenous inhabitants include speakers of several different Maya languages, as well as totally unrelated languages such as Zoque and Chiapanec. The largest linguistic groups are the highland Maya Tzeltal and Tzotzil. Both live in scattered, dispersed communities that have their own dialects and costumes. Other, smaller Maya groups include the Tojolabal, Mocho, and others in the highlands, and various lowland groups including some related to the Yucatec. Refugees from wars in Guatemala have introduced other Maya languages. Nothing could be more different from the Yucatan Peninsula, with its uniform limestone terrain and uniform Yucatec or Spanish linguistic scene.
Basically, the state consists of a high mountainous plateau between Atlantic and Pacific lowlands. The plateau is bisected by the deep, hot, and dry gorge of the Grijalva River. Most of the population is concentrated in the middle altitudes–roughly from 2000 to 8000 feet. The old centers of population and civilization were high, around 7000 feet, but economic and demographic growth had led to migration to the lowlands. The capital was once at San Cristóbal de Las Casas in the highlands, but is now at Tuxtla Gutiérrez, much lower down and more accessible by roads.
Chiapas was conquered in the 1520s. In the 1530s, the great protector of indigenous peoples, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, became bishop in the (then) capital, San Cristóbal, which later was named San Cristóbal de Las Casas in his honor. Las Casas was one of the most fearless and heroic figures in Spanish history, continually risking his life to tell the true story of the destruction of Native Americans and to advocate for them in Spain and Rome. Unfortunately, he had less effect on attitudes in Chiapas than one might have wished.
Chiapas was part of Guatemala until the mid-19th century, when Mexico took it over during a period of dubious relations between the two countries. Thus, Chiapas took part in Guatemala’s brutal and bloody past, characterized by extreme ethnic and class tensions. The problems have never quite gone away. Large landowners exploited Maya labor to produce cheap coffee, cattle, and other commodities. Chiapas saw several local rebellions, often Mayan attempts to preserve local autonomy (Bartolome 1988; Bricker 1981; Rus et al. 2003. The Mexican Revolution of 1910-21 was brutal and bitter. Then in the 1990s came the Zapatista movement, started by a millionaire’s son from northeast Mexico but followed enthusiastically by displaced and embittered Maya. Problems still exist (see Rus et al. 2003). Parts of Chiapas remain unsafe to visit today. The wonderful rainforest—Mexico’s finest and most diverse—is suffering. The struggle between Zapatistas and the Mexican state has left much of the forest unprotected and exposed to wanton destruction.
Until recently, Chiapas was relatively remote and unspoiled–the world of jaguars, wild turkeys and huge snakes immortalized by the great Chiapan zoologist Miguel Álvarez del Toro in his book Así Era Chiapas (“This Was Chiapas,” 1985). The remoteness and isolation was limited, because Chiapas is on the main route from central Mexico to Central America, and has always been a crossroads and a trade center. Much of it was (and is) far enough off the beaten path that it became a haven for anthropologists seeking the romantic and isolated Native—though, to the anthropologists’ surprise, the romantic Natives included many migrant workers, politicians, mechanics, and long-distance traders. Far from being isolated, the highland Maya live on or near the Pan-American Highway, which started as a pre-Columbian road used by conquering Aztecs. Many Maya became porters, then muleteers under the Spanish colonists, and now truck-drivers dominating much of the south Mexican carrying trade.
Today, though Chiapas is still Mexico’s poorest state except for Oaxaca, most of the forest is cleared for farming, and paved roads reach most areas. The economy is improving, due not only to oil discoveries in the lowlands but also to tourism, intensive agriculture, and trade. However, modernization has also led to an initial period of thoughtless destruction of resources. In addition to conflict, rapid population growth has been hard on the forest. The usual problems of conversion of forest to cattle pasture have occurred. Fires escaping from grassland have devastated otherwise safe mountain areas.
Fortunately, many Chiapans have realized this was suicidal, especially after the eloquent leadership of the aforementioned Miguel Álvarez del Toro. Chiapas is now active in conservation. Much damage had been done, and progress is slow, but at least the public is willing to work for change.
The Aztecs named the area “Chiapa”—”chia field”—from the abundance of chia, a sage (Salvia hispanica) that produces edible seeds, excellent food rich in protein and oil. Not only chia (now rare) but almost any imaginable crop grows somewhere in the state, thanks to the diversity of landscapes and the incredible resourcefulness of the local farmers. The markets are a riot of color–not only of fruits and vegetables, but also of flowers, for Chiapas is a commercial growing area, producing flowers for all south Mexico. Nor are cultivated crops the only things sold; one can find as many as twenty kinds of wild mushrooms, some imperfectly known to science.
Naturally, this leads to a high standard of cooking. Chiapas is one of those places, like France in the old days, where you can stop at humble roadside stands or urban working-class cafes and expect good or even great eating. Not all restaurants are good, but the average is high, and some of my finest meals in Mexico have come from impulsive turnoffs into tiny, isolated stops among Chiapas’ highland pines or lowland palms.
Chiapas’ cuisine, outside of actual indigenous communities, is much less Indian than that of the rest of south Mexico. There are two reasons for this. First, the indigenous people were and are relatively poor. They created a wealth of maize dishes–drinks, tamales, tacos–but little haute cuisine. Those interested in Highland Maya food can find incredibly detailed accounts in The Flowering of Man by Dennis Breedlove and Robert Laughlin (1993; see vol. II, pp. 549-556) and La alimentación Mocho: Acto y palabra by Perla Petrich (1985); the latter is the best account (so far) of food production and consumption in an indigenous community in south Mexico. These works provide instructions for making a number of tamales and other dishes, but most dishes involve only masa and beans, and are not necessarily the most exciting fare. In all the Maya groups, maize remains not only the staple food but the ritual and religious center of activity. The Mocho think it is so pure that it is entirely digested, body wastes being from other foods (Petrich 1985:131). Long and complex ceremonies exist for every stage in maize production and use, and maize is always central in offerings (see e.g. Vogt 1969, 1993). As in Yucatan, sacrifices involve both solid and liquid maize preparations of various kinds. There are supernatural lords of maize, and maize came from the spirit world, via caves—magical universes for the Maya—or other magical sources.
Second, Chiapas’ cool highlands and crossroads location attracted Spaniards and other Europeans from the earliest days. Chiapas is more Spanish, culinarily, than any other south Mexican state. The Spanish influenced Maya cooking profoundly here, by introducing wheat, pigs, sheep, and other European foods.
The Tzotzil Maya of Chamula became famous sheep-raisers and wool producers. They kept sheep in the wet highlands where the Spanish could not keep the sheep alive; this was because the Chamula, being careful and perceptive in their relations with nature, could deal with diseases and parasites that required extreme care and skill to avoid. For example, they quickly realized that liver flukes could be avoided if the sheep were kept away from waterside vegetation. The flukes spread via the water (and snails in it), but the Chamula thought the connection came through fluke-shaped leaves of waterside plants. The Chamula deduced that the leaves turned into worms if the sheep ate them—a nice example of coming up with a plausible but dubious explanation for an empirical and correct observation (Perezgrovas 1990).
The cool highlands were attractive not only for comfort, but–even more important to a Spaniard–for pork curing. The conquistadors could endure incredible hardships without flinching, but being deprived of Spain’s serrano hams and incomparable sausages was too much to bear. Such products ripen only in cool mountain climates, so Chiapas soon became a leader in charcuterie. As one enters San Cristóbal de las Casas (still the center of the highlands), almost the first shops one sees are the venerable and magnificent ham and sausage companies. I provide here a few recipes for general interest, but would-be sausage-makers should note that they need Chiapas’ home-raised pigs, special smoking woods, and unique climate. (These recipes, and some of the Chiapan Indian ones that require ingredients I do not recognize, have—unlike the other recipes in this book—not been kitchen-tested; I merely translate the sources, especially the Banrural cookbook, Conaculta Oceano 2000a.).
Beef is also cured. The tasajo is excellent. Cecina is made by marinating sliced pork in strongly salted and peppered bitter orange or lime juice and sun-drying it. It is simply grilled.
One typical Chiapas lunch is a plate of cold cuts. It might include peppery country pates, ham cured in herbs and brown sugar, back bacon, local cheddar-like cheese, butifarra sausage, chorizo, stuffed and pressed turkey, local forms of mortadella and salami, cold pork stuffed with almonds and olives, cured pork leg, fresh (uncured) sausage, and vegetable garnishes. The visitor unused to heavy-duty carnivory is not going to want more meat for a while. Vegetarian tourists in Chiapas have a hard time; they must seek out special tourist-oriented restaurants or markets in San Cristóbal or Tuxtla.
The lowlands produce cacao for chocolate. Indeed, the Soconusco—the Pacific coastal lowland belt—was so famous in pre-Columbian times that the Aztec empire launched a major conquest there to get control of the chocolate. (Remember that cacao beans were the official currency at that time.) Cacao production has declined in that area, but is being revived. A precious few trees of the ancient, superior cacao varieties have recently been rediscovered. Locals are cooperating with anthropologists such as Jan Gasco and Barbara Voorhees (to whom thanks for this information) to revive quality cocoa farming.
Among more recently developed local specialties, cheese is outstanding. The Ocosingo Valley, in the mid-levels of the hills, produces some of the richest and finest cheeses in North America. They range from cheddar-like to cottage style, but the best are the sharp, tangy, salty Mexican-style cheeses. These have medium fat content and are round and beautifully white. Ocosingo is a paradise for cheese-eaters (as well as for lovers of rural scenery), but the recipes themselves are ordinary Mexican ones–the attraction lies in the cheese itself.
I have tried to find Native American recipes, or at least ones that seem relatively so. Highland Maya cuisine grades into standard Chiapaneco cooking. The Banrural-Conaculta cookbook for Chiapas has rendered the world a signal service in documenting Zoque cuisine, otherwise unknown to the world. Zoque is a language spoken by a small, little-known group in northern Chiapas. Ninguijuti (Meat, below) and Pusxinu (or puxinu; Vegetables, below), along with ordinary popcorn balls (Pusxinu; Conaculta Oceano 2000a:56) represent all I can find of Zoque cuisine, except that another delicacy noted by the Banrural-Conaculta cookbook explains (p. 66) that ants known as nucú are a delicacy. Insects are widely eaten and relished in Chiapas, as in neighboring Oaxaca. In the Chiapas highlands, I have watched a Chamula Maya mother and daughter eat wasp larvae straight from the paper nest, according to the Australian recipe for witchetty grub: “Don’t cook. Don’t kill. Just eat.”
Chiapas’ varied geography and highly differentiated local regions guarantee plenty of local dishes. Each town seems to have its own. San Cristobal is especially rich, but even such a minor regional center as Tonala has some, such as huevos turulos. “Turulo” is the local term for someone or something from Tonala. The dish is not the most sophisticated in the world—it is simply eggs scrambled with black beans and topped with sliced raw onion and powdered white cheese—but it is very good, and it shows the tendency of even the smallest regions to have their own foods.
The varying altitudes of Chiapas make it difficult to specify how long soups are to be boiled. At the high elevations, water boils at a low temperature, with the delightful result that soups can be simmered a long time without overcooking the vegetables. This produces a truly superior soup. Outside the mountains, the only way to approximate this is by cutting the vegetables up fairly fine, adding them very late in the cooking process, and cooking for a very short time. Delicate ones like sweet corn kernels should be brought to the boil–no more.
Salsas in Chiapas are (once again) similar to the more generic ones of Yucatan. Chopped fresh chiles, onions, and tomatoes in lime juice, often with chopped cilantro, is standard. Blended red tomato sauce with ground toasted dried red chiles, garlic, salt and sometimes other ingredients is also typical. Green salsa, made of blended tomatillos (small husk-tomatoes, Physalis spp.) and green chile with onion or garlic and salt, is also common. Recipes for these salsas can be found in any Mexican cookbook.
An important plant in Chiapas is chipilín (Crotalaria longirostrata), an alfalfa-like plant grown for its edible, mild-flavored leaves. Alfalfa sprouts make a reasonable (though not terribly close) substitute. One could even use pea tendrils (available at Asian markets). These are similar in texture and flavor, though not looking much like chipilín, and are often used in Chiapas.
Arrayán leaves are called for in several recipes; the arrayan is a bush endemic to the area. The name means “myrtle” in Spanish, but the Chiapas arrayan is not much like a Spanish myrtle. Bay leaves make a good substitute. Another useful flavoring herb is avocado leaf. I have seen a kettle of chile and beef simmering with a whole branch of avocado leaves thrust in. Mexican mountain avocado leaves have a wonderful spicy taste. Closely related to bay leaves, they have a similar flavor and culinary use, but must be used fresh rather than dried–hence their absence from markets. In the United States, most California avocados have spicy-flavored leaves, but Florida and Gulf Coast avocadoes are derived from Caribbean ancestry with virtually tasteless leaves. If you don’t live near a Californian or Mexican avocado orchard, use bay leaves. Conversely, if you do have access to such avocado leaves, try them in the following recipes.
TAMALES AND RELATIVES
Chiapas Chalupas
25 toasted or fried tortillas
1 lb. black beans, cooked
1 lb. carrots
1 lb. beets
1/2 lb. hard cheese, grated
1 lb. pork loin
6 cloves
3 large lettuces
Lard or oil
Salt to taste
Grind and fry the beans. Cook the carrots and beets; peel and cut up finely. Chop the lettuce finely. Cook the pork with the cloves and cut into narrow strips.
Cover the tortillas with beans, then with the other ingredients, sprinkling with cheese at the end.
It is possible to fold the tortillas over, thus producing tacos. Cooked potatoes or plantain can be added.
One can also substitute any other meat for pork, and can be creative about flavoring it. Turkey cooked in chile sauce is one of the common alternatives. Vegetarians can be assured that they will not be violating tradition if they leave out the meat and use more cheese, or use mushrooms. In short, this is true street food–you use what’s available and good.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:20)
Chipilín Tamales
4 lb. masa
1 lb. lard
1 large bunch chipilin
1 lb. tomatoes
2 fresh red chiles
1 fresh white cheese
Leaves
Blend the vegetables and the cheese.
Prepare the masa in the usual way, but incorporating the leaflets of the chipilin (discard the stems).
Make tamales in the usual way.
If your neighborhood market is out of chipilín, the nearest equivalent is alfalfa sprouts. Any mild-flavored greens, cut up, will do.
A variant stuffing involves dried shrimps.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:18
Chipilín with Sandwiches of Masa and Cheese
1 lb. masa
1 large bunch chipilín
4 oz. dry Mexican white cheese or mild feta cheese
4 oz. butter
1.2 lb. dried shrimp
2 tbsp. achiote
1/2 small onion
1 gfarlic clove
2 tomatoes
2 eggs
Oil
Salt to taste
Separate the chipilín leaves from the harder stems (discard these). Steam the leaves.
Blend up the tomato, onion and garlic. Fry.
Add the cooked leaves and the shrimps.
Dilute half a cup of masa in a cup of water. Dissolve in this the achiote. Add to the tomato sauce.
Meanwhile, mix the rest of the masa with the cheese, butter and eggs. Form small rounds. Fry golden.
Anoint these with the tomato-chipilín mix, making open-face or covered “sandwiches.”
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:20)
Garfish tamales
From the north part of the state–near Tabasco. Compare the Tabasco recipe for this.
2 lb. masa
1 small cooked garfish
1 lb. lard
3 garlic cloves
2 onions
1 lb. tomato
1 yellow chile
1 bunch chives
Banana leaves
Salt to taste
Bone and fry the fish.
Chop the vegetables finely. Add to the fish. Cook quickly.
Make tamales in the usual way.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:18)
Green Corn Tamales
20 ears of green corn
1 1/2 lb. sugar
1 lb. butter
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Shuck the ears, but be careful not to damage the shucks. Grind the corn. Beat in the other ingredients. Wash the corn shucks, trim off the tips, and make tamales–two tablespoons of mix per leaf of shuck. Steam for 45 minutes.
The corn in question would be regular eating corn: firmer and less sweet than United States sweet corn. If using sweet corn, cut down the sugar considerably, and the butter somewhat.
Green Corn Tamales, II
18 ears of sweet corn
1/2 lb. cream (get Mexican-style sour cream if you can find it)
8 eggs
1/2 lb. butter
Sugar to taste
Cinnamon
Mexican white cheese
Salt to taste
Make as above.
A common variant saves you from so much cholesterol: leave out the eggs and butter, cut down on the cinnamon, and use fairly soft cheese. This produces, basically, a cheese tamale.
Both forms are common market fare, and excellent.
Pork Rib Tamales
2 lb. masa
2 lb. lard
1 lb. potatoes
4 dried chiles
6 toasted (or fried) tortillas
Lard for frying
1/2 lb. tomatillos
1 lb. tomatoes
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
3 tbsp. achiote paste
5 cumin seeds
Saffron
2 lb. Small pork ribs, cut up (as in “country style”)
Salt to taste
Cook and mash the potatoes, mix with the masa and lard, and prepare the tamale dough with this.
Toast and seed the chiles. Grind, along with the tomatoes, tomatillos, onion, garlic, achiote, cumin seeds and saffron. Do not grind too fine. Cook the ribs in this, quickly; or cook the ribs separately and simmer briefly in this sauce. Make tamales the usual way. They have to be large, to accommodate the rib bones.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:19
Rice Tamales
2 lb. rice
1 lb. butter
1 lb. sugar
1 quart water
2 tsp. baking powder
Corn leaves
Cook the rice. Dry it out and grind it. Beat the butter until creaemy. Beat in the rice powder and baking powder. When it is thoroughly beaten up, add a bit of warm water, and then beat in the sugar. Meanwhile, soak the corn leaves to soften.
Put two or three tablespoonfuls of mixture on each corn leaf, wrap, and steam 3/4 hour.
Tamales with Saffron
4 lb. masa
2 lb. lard
2 lb. chicken meat, shredded
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
15 highland Chiapas chiles (or less, or even more, to taste)
2 pieces of French bread, toasted (optional)
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 lb. tomatoes, chopped very fine
20 saffron threads
1/2 tsp. ground clove
Almonds, plums and/or pimento strips (optional)
Salt to taste
Banana leaves
Grind all the spices (together with the toasted bread, if wanted). Fry the onion and garlic in a few ounces of the lard; take out and discard if you want. In the oil, fry the tomatoes, then add the spices and cook down to a sauce. Add in the chicken. Some sugar can be added if desired.
Mix the masa with the rest of the lard. Add the salt. Anoint the leaves with this. If wanted, add to each tamale an almond, a plum, and/or a pimento strip. Then add the sauce and cook as usual.
Tamales with Hojasanta (“mumu” or “momo” in parts of Chiapas)
2 lb. masa
1 lb. lard
1 lb. beans, cooked, mashed and fried
20 small highland chiles–seeded, fried and ground
2 tbsp. dried shrimps, ground
2 tbsp. ground squash seeds (sikil)
30 hojasanta leaves
6 bunches of maize leaves
Salt to taste
Mix the masa with the lard and salt. Mix the beans, shrimp, squash seed meal and chiles. Soak the corn leaves. Make tamales on the hojasanta leaves, wrap up, and wrap these in turn in the corn leaves. Steam half an hour.
A variant recipe uses far more squash seeds–two cups. This makes a much richer tamale. Suit yourself.
(Freely based on Conaculta Oceano 2000a:17, plus field experience)
Vegetable Tamales
4 lb. masa
2 chicken breasts, shredded
3 carrots
3 summer squash
2 lb. tomatoes
1/2 cup chickpeas (cooked)
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. baking powder
2 lb. lard
Salt to taste
Corn leaves
Mix the lard, baking powder and salt with the masa. Fr the garlic and onion, cut up, then add the other vegetables, all chopped finely. Then add the meat and spices. Then make and cook tamales in the usual way, steaming for an hour.
SOUPS
Bread Soup
A thoroughly Spanish recipe, but too popular in Chiapas to leave out.
6 sweet rolls (any kind of Chiapan-style sweet bread: rolls with a little sugar and shortening)
4 French rolls
2 carrots
Handful of green beans
6 baby summer squash
2 hard-boiled eggs
1/4 cup cooked chickpeas
1/2 onion
2 tomatoes
1 sprig thyme
sprig oregano
4 tbsp. lard
2 quarts chicken stock
2 plantains, sliced (and fried if you want)
3 oz. raisins
3 tbsp. sugar
A few threads of saffron, and/or a cinnamon stick
A few peppercorns
Salt to taste
Cut the breads into small slices and toast. Cut up and cook the vegetables separately. Grease a saucepan. Alternate slices of bread with cooked vegetables; scatter in the herbs and raisins. The last layer should be bread, with slices of egg on top to decorate. Then pour on the stock and cook just enough to make the whole dish piping hot.
The stock should be just enough to cover the bread and be more or less absorbed by it. This is one of those “soups” in which the spoon will often stand up by itself. It is interesting in that it is the only soup I know from south Mexico that resembles the migas (crumbled bread) dry-soups so extremely common and important in southern Spain.
Variants exist with other spicing; with parsley, mint, or epazote; with wine; etc. Creativity is the watchword.
Chipilín Soup
What would Chiapas do without chipilín? It’s a vital source of vitamins and minerals in the diet. A simpler form (without the dumplings) of this superb soup is particularly popular–more or less a daily food.
2 quarts water
1 green or maturing onion with stem
1 green chile
Grains from two ears of sweet corn
1 large bunch chipilín
1 lb. masa
3 oz. lard
1/2 lb. fresh Mexican white cheese, crumbled
2 avocadoes
2 limes
Cut up the vegetables and put in the water.
Mix the masa, lard, and salt.
Make dumplings of this, stuffed with the cheese. Add to the soup. Boil all, quickly.
Serve with slices of avocado, more cheese, and lime wedges.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:25)
Cream of Chipilín Soup
A basic soup in south Mexico. Many great minds have expended noble energies in creating variants, some of which are listed below.
2 cups chipilín leaves
1 tbsp. butter
4 very young, tender summer squash
Grains from 4 ears of sweet corn
1/2 cup cream
1/2 quart boiled milk
1 small onion, cut in quarters
Salt and pepper to taste
Start the soup by cooking the leaves in water.
Meanwhile, fry in butter the onion (chopped). Take out when golden. Put the cut-up summer squash and fresh corn into the oil and fry quickly.
Add in the milk, pepper and salt. Cook a minute or less.
Turn off the flame, and add the cream, stirring constantly.
The really traditional, indigenous form of this soup leaves out the butter and milk. Fry the onion in oil or lard. Use corn meal, or toasted corn meal (atole), instead of milk. In this case, mix the corn meal into the water first. Then add the leaves, and proceed otherwise as above. Add some white cheese, crumbled or in chunks.
Variant: The fresh corn is left out when not in season.
Variant (upscale): To the basic soup, add maize dumplings. Cook. Near the end, add white Mexican cheese squares. Serve with a dollop of Mexican sour cream poured in. Variant of the variant: put the cheese in the dumplings—i.e., make a half-inch-thick ball of corn meal with a bit of cheese in the center.
Variant, or closely related soup (“squashvine soup”): Add the tender tips of squash vines–butternut squash is a good pick for this. The tendrils at the end, plus the very smallest leaves (under an inch wide), are used. Reduce the chipilín accordingly, or eliminate it altogether and just use squashvine tips. Good, garden-fresh, tender squashvine tips are among the most delightful of all vegetables.
(Rather freely based on Conaculta Oceano 2000a:26, with field experience added)
Covered Rice
A “soup” although the rice absorbs all the liquid. Such dishes are sopas secas, “dry soups,” in Spanish. This is not oxymoronic; no one expects sopas to be soups in the English sense.
This is a rather elaborate restaurant dish.
1/2 lb. rice
1 chicken breast, shredded
4 eggs: two raw, two hardboiled
2 large chorizos, sliced and fried
1 onion
1 tomato
3 large summer squash
33 carrots
1 can chickpeas
1 tbsp. flour
1/2 stick butter
3 oz. sugar
1 1/2 oz. capers
Almonds
Raisins
Saffron
Oil or lard
Salt and pepper to taste
Like Chinese fried rice, this dish is better with leftover rice–cook the rice well in advance.
Cook the rice with the saffron and, by preference, some of the raisins, almonds and capers. Chop the vegetables and cook briefly with salt. Take out and fry with the chicken. Butter a casserole dish. Layer rice with almonds, raisins, capers, slices of hard-boiled egg, and chorizo slices. Then top with the vegetables and chicken, then a last layer of rice.
Separately, beat the whites of the other two eggs till they form peaks. Add the yolks, flour and sugar. Cover the casserole with this and bake till all is thoroughly heated.
Naturally, simpler variants or relatives exist, grading downward into rice refried with vegetables and whatever bits of meat are available.
Dried Shrimp Soup
In contrast to the preceding, this is a typical household recipe.
2 lb. large dried shrimp
4 chilpotle chiles
3 guijillo chiles
1 1/2 lb. tomatoes
onion
2 carrots (optional)
2 potatoes (optional)
2 garlic cloves
Salt to taste
Water
Soak the shrimps in hot water, shell, and clean. Boil the shells for stock; strain. Add the shrimp to this–a total of 1 1/2 quarts water–with the chiles (seeded), garlic and onions.
Roast the tomatoes and grind. Add to the soup, along with vegetables as desired.
Variant: add a small can of pimento strips and grind these with the tomatoes.
Flower and Shoot Soup
2/3 lb. squash flowers
1/3 lb. tender tips of squash vines
2 ears sweet corn
2 large summer squash
1 tomato
1 serrano chile
1 quart water
Oil or lard
Salt and pepper to taste
Cut the grains off the corn ears. Separately, blend the tomato with the chile and fry the paste. Add the water, then the squash (cut up in thin slices), then the rest of the ingredients. Cook till vegetables just begin to soften.
It would be hard to imagine a more refreshing summer soup. For an even lower-calorie variant, don’t fry the tomato.
Young pea tendrils are also popular in Chiapas, and are even better than squash vine-tips. They should be stir-fried or steamed.
Green Rice (another “dry soup”)
1 cup rice
4 poblano chiles
2 cooked eggs
1 piece (size according to taste) of onion
1 sprig of parsley, and/or any other green herbs, such as cilantro or chipilín
1/3 lb. lard or oil
2 cups milk
2 cups water
2 garlic cloves
Salt to taste
Wash the rice and dry in the sun. Seed the chiles. Toast them and wrap in plastic or towel, then peel them. Grind them in the milk. In the lard, fry the rice. When it begins to color, add the onion and garlic, chopped. When these are transparent, add water, parsley, and salt; cover and boil. When it begins to boil, turn down flame to a very low simmer. Add the milk-chile mix toward the end and simmer till it is absorbed. Decorate with slices of cooked eggs.
A more folk variant leaves out the milk and eggs.
Juliana Soup
2 quarts chicken stock
1 chayote
3 summer squash
2 carrots
3 potatoes
Slice of cabbage, or few leaves of kale
1/2 cup cooked chickpeas
1 threads saffron (optional)
6 French rolls, sliced
Oil, if wanted
Salt to taste
Chop the vegetables finely and put to boil. Fry or toast the bread slices and put in bowl. Serve the soup over these.
A local version of standard French or Spanish vegetable soup. Kale and mustard greens are at least as typical of Chiapas as cabbage; try it with them. Naturally, this is another dish of a basically “open city” sort, and any seasonal vegetable can be used.
Shuti Soup
“Shuti” is an Indian name for large river snails, popular in Chiapas. This soup is included mainly for ethnographic interest, but it would be good with more or less any seafood.
Shuti
1/2 lb. tomato
2 quarts water
1 onion
1 hojasanta leaf
l/2 lb. toasted squash seeds
2 ancho chiles, seeded and soaked
Quickly cook and trim the snail. Cook all for 15 minutes.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:17)
Soup to Raise the Dead (Caldo Levanta-muertos)
1 tongue (veal or beef; whole tongue, untrimmed)
1 brain (ditto)
1 oxtail
1 chicken
3 large tomatoes
1 large onion
1 head garlic
1 large sprig thyme
1 large sprig oregano
Achiote
Small highland chiles
Salt to taste
Water
Boil and skin the tongue. Cook the brains briefly with salt. Cut up the chicken and boil. Separately, fry the achiote, then add in the tomato, onion, garlic, thyme and oregano (the vegetables being chopped). Add these into the pot with the brains; then add the meat, cut up. Cook till done. Fry the chiles and blend; add at the last minute.
This may or may not raise the dead, but at the worst it will do as well as anything else for the purpose. It is the sort of thing people love to recommend for a cold or a hangover; perhaps that is the source of the name.
Squash-flower Soup
1/2 cup cream
1/2 lb. squash flowers (trimmed of stems)
8 summer squash
4 poblano chiles
2 sweet corn ears
1 tbsp. chopped onion
1 tbsp. epazote, cut up
1 quart boiled bilk
1/2 stick butter
Salt to taste
Fry the onion in the butter. Cut the flowers into 3-4 pieces each and add. Seed, roast and peel the chiles; cut up and add. Then add the grains from the corn ears; then the squash, cut up. Stir-fry all. Season and cover. Boil for a few minutes, then add the milk and the epazote and simmer briefly. Finally add the cream.
Sweet Corn Soup
8 cobs sweet corn
3 tomatoes
1 1/2 oz. butter
1 onion
/2 tsp. pepper
Salt to taste
Water
Cut the corn off the cobs. Blend up some of the grains and add to some water. Blend up the tomato and fry in the butter with the rest of the corn, the pepper and the onion (chopped). Combine all and cook very briefly.
Tapachula Soup
Tapachula, the market city of far southeast Chiapas, has its own cuisine.
1 lb. squash flowers
2 tbsp. lard
1 onion
Grains from 2 ears sweet corn
2 quarts milk
2 oz. butter
2 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup cream
2 summer squash
3 tbsp. flour
2 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
Wash the flowers and remove stems. Cut up and fry in lard. Separately fry the onion (cut up). Add the corn. Add half the milk and combine all the above.
Blend all. Add the rest of the milk.
Fry the flour in butter. Mix in some milk (i.e., make a standard white sauce). Season with salt and pepper.
Meanwhile, separately, cook the squash; cut up; fry quickly. Then dip these slices in a flour-egg batter and deep-fry.
Put the cream in a soup tureen. Pour in the soup. Add the fried squash and serve immediately.
Tortilla Soup
A Chiapan variant of a universal Mexican staple.
1/2 cup cream
18 tortillas, toasted and cut into wedges
2 oz. grated Mexican white cheese
1 tomato
1 small chile (fresh, or, if dried, seeded and soaked)
3 cups chicken stock
Sprig of mint
2 garlic cloves
Pinch of black pepper
Salt to taste
Peel the tomato (after immersing in boiling water for a minute to make this possible) and blend up with the chile and garlic. Combine this with the other ingredients and bring to boil.
Here, too, anything and everything goes. Leaving out the cream; adding some of the chicken meat; using other herbs; adding more vegetables–No two soups need be alike.
MEAT
Asado
2 lb. meat (pork or lamb, preferably)
4 ancho chiles
2 garlic cloves
/2 tsp. pepper
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 bay leaves
2 arrayan leaves (a local Chiapas plant; just use more bay leaves)
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vinegar
1 oz. lard
Salt to taste
Seed the chiles and fry. Blend up. Separately, grind the garlic, thyme, and oregano. Cut up the meat and fry it in the lard. When it is half done, add the other ingredients and cook another 20 minutes.
Variants on this theme involve marinating beef or pork steaks in the recado and cooking them in a pan, etc.
Chanfaina
Chiapas version of a classic Iberian dish.
2 lb. sheep tripe and/or assorted variety meats of sheep or goat
Piece of sheep’s liver
2 tomatoes or 1/3 lb. tomatillos
1 ancho chile
1 small French roll, toasted
1 sprig parsley
1/2 tsp. achiote
/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Oil
Salt to taste
Wash the tripe and cool with salt. Separately, blend the tomatoes, chile (soaked and seeded), toast, liver, pepper and cinamon. Fry the achiote and then add in the blended vegetables. Then add the tripes and parsley, all cut up. Boil.
Chanfaina a la Chiapa de Corzo
Chiapa de Corzo is an old, tranquil market town in central Chiapas.
1 1/2 lb. beef variety meats: liver, heart, tripes, kidneys
1 tomato
1 onion
Sprig of thyme
2 cinnamon sticks
2 cloves
2 black peppercorns
1 tbsp. breadcrumbs
1/2 cup liver paste (homemade; cook and grind the liver)
2 tbsp. achiote
Lard
2 tbsp. vinegar
Salt to taste
Cook the beef parts in salted water. Take out the meat; save the stock. Cut up the meat.
Chop the tomato and onion and fry in lard. Add the cut-up meat and stir-fry. Then add the stock from the meat. Dissolve the ground liver and breadcrumbs in some of the stock. Add the vinegar, achiote, and spices. Combine all and cook ten minutes.
Chojen Salad
A common Highland Maya dish with a Maya name.
½ lb. cold roast beef
1 onion
2 tomatoes
3 bunches of radishes, cut up
Juice of 2 limes or bitter oranges
Green chiles
Salt to tasste
Cut up all ingredients finely. Mix.
A standard variant uses a beef stomach, cooked, cooled, and cut up. This may not be to the taste of all readers.
Cocido
1 lb. beef, cooked and cut up
1 lb. pork ribs, ditto
1 lb. pork back meat, ditto
1 lb. beef brisket, ditto
2 tomatoes
1 onion
1 garlic clove
1 bunch cilantro
11 tsp. achiote
Longaniza, sliced
3 chayotes
Handful of green beans
6 small potatoes
4 carrots, cut up
1 small cabbage, cut up in chunks
2 corn ears in chunks
1 quince, cut up and cored
3 small sour apples, whole
6 peaches (fairly hard ones)
1 plantain
6 summer squash
Water
Salt to taste
Put in a large pot enough water. Add salt, onion, garlic and tomato. Separately, fry the achiote; throw out the seeds and add the oil to the pot. Then add the meats and vegetables. Simmer for about half and hour.
Cold Pork Leg
Another of the cold meat dishes so popular for lunch in Chiapas.
1 pork leg
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
2 bay leaves
2 arrayan leaves (or 2 more bay leaves)
2 limes
Water
Salt to taste
Spice mix:
2 ancho chiles
1 tomato
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
2 bay leaves
2 arrayan (or bay) leaves
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. pepper
Oil
Salt to taste
Marinate the leg in the lime juice with water and salt for 3 hours. Then take out of this liquid and boil in water to which the herbs are added.
Meanwhile, seed and fry the chiles. Blend with the other ingredients (except the leaves). Fry the resulting mix quickly, adding the whole leaves.
Cover the leg with this, bake half an hour, chill, and serve sliced.
Variant: Make more recado, slash the leg, and rub the extra recado into the slashes. This is less authentic but spicier.
Grilled Ham
1 smoked ham (Virginia ham will do)
5 onions
4 heads garlic
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
6 laurel leaves
5 arrayan leaves
1/2 lb. brown sugar
1 large piece of pineapple
1 stalk of fennel (finocchio)
7 quarts or more of water
Boil the ham for two hours or more with all the ingredients except the sugar. Cool and skin it. Slice. Sprinkle the slices with sugar and grill them.
Fiambres
Fiambres just means “cold cuts” in Spanish.
1 veal tongue
1 chicken
8 pig’s feet (that is, 8 feet, not the feet of 8 pigs)
1 lettuce head
6 tomatoes
6 onions
3 avocados
8 radishes
2 oranges
3 tbsp. vinegar
/2 cup oil
Salt to taste
Boil the meats. Make a salad with the lettuce (cut up), tomatoes (in strips), onions, oil and vinegar. Cut up the meats and mix into the salad. Garnish with radishes, orange slices and wedges of avocado.
It is good to make this in two parts: first mix the meat and dressing, then leave it to marinate for a few hours, then add the vegetables just before serving.
As the name suggests, you can really use any cold boiled meat for this.
Mixed Meats with Beans
Variant of the pork-and-beans dish (probably of Celtic ancestry) known everywhere in the Hispanic/Iberian world.
2 lb. black beans
6 oz. salted meat
6 oz. chicharron (fried pork rinds)
6 oz. longaniza sausage
6 oz. pork short ribs
1 onion
1 head garlic
Pickled serrano chiles
Salt to taste
Wash and soak beans. Cook with garlic and onion. After half and hour, take them off the fire and add in the meats. Cook another half hour. Add the chiles and cook ten minutes.
We recommend that the salt meat be soaked and drained first, and the sausage fried to get rid of excess oil.
Mole Chiapas Style
A local variant of the Mexican staple.
1/2 lb. mulato chiles
1/2 lb. ancho chiles
Oil
Chicken or turkey boiled with an onion; save the stock
1 plantain
3 oz. raisins
5 oz. sesame seeds, toasted
3 pieces of sweet bread, toasted or fried
1 tortilla, toasted or fried
1/4 onion, cut up and fried
2 lb. tomatoes, cut up and fried
Salt and pepper to taste
Seed and fry the chiles. Soak in the stock.
Fry the onion, then the tomato.
Blend the chiles and stock; separately, the onion and tomato; then the other ingredients, all in the stock.
Cook till the mix thickens. Pour over the fowl.
Variants: cinnamon and garlic can be added to good advantage. Other spices are possible but less traditional. (Chocolate is not used in Chiapas moles.)
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:44)
Ninguijuti
Interesting for the indigenous name, from Zoque.
1 lb. pork chops
1 lb. pork loin meat
2 tbsp. lard
2 tomatoes
3 garlic cloves
Hot chile to taste
2 tbsp. achiote paste
Juice of 2 limes
3/4 cup masa
Salt to taste
Cut up the meat. Cook in a little water. Then fry in lard.
Blend the tomato, garlic, chile and achiote. Add to the meat. Add the stock, beating in the masa and lime juice.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:45
Picadillo
1/2 lb. beef
1/2 lb. pork leg
3 potatoes
1 tomato
1 chayote
2 carrots
2 ears of sweet corn
4 oz. string beans
1 quince
Large sprig of mint
1 lb. cabbage
1 tsp. achiote
3 garlic cloves
1 quart water
Oil
Salt to taste
Cut the meat up finely. Chop the onion and garlic. Fry in oil in the saucepan. Add the tomato, finely chopped. Then add the water, salt and achiote. (If you use the grains, not the paste, fry separately and take the seds out.) When it begins boiling, add the meat, then the quince, then the vegetables–the sweet corn last, toward the end. Finally add the leaves from the mint, just before serving.
Pork and Beans with Chipilin
2 lb. pork
3 garlic cloves
2 big bunches chipilin
1 lb onion
2 jalapeno chiles
2 lb. tomatoes
2 lb. cooked beans
Cook the meat with the garlic. Whgen cooked, fry the chipilin, onion (chopped), chiles (seeded) and tomatoes (cut up). Add to the beans.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:39)
Pork and Sausage with Scarlet Runner Beans
Another variant on the pork-and-beans dish. See above, Mixed Meats with Beans.
2 lb. scarlet runner beans (or any dried bean)
2 ancho chiles
1 slice of bread
1 tomato
2 chorizos
1/2 lb. short ribs of pork, cut up
1/2 lb. longaniza sausage
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
Salt to taste
Wash, soak and cook the beans till tender (if dry, they will take a couple of hours or more). Seed and fry the chiles. Grind the bread and fry it up with the cut-up sausages and meat. Combine all and simmer. Arrayan or bay leaves make a very good addition.
Pretty much the same thing is made with lentils, which take much less time to cook and thus can be cooked with the meat (Conaculta Oceano 2000a:40).
Pork Leg
1 bone-in pork leg (3 to 5 lb.)
1 onion
1 bunch parsley
2 chorizo sausages
2 garlic cloves
3 oz. ham
3 oz. butter
3 large tomatoes
Juice of 5 oranges
1 tsp. pepper
1 cup water
Salt to taste
Rub the leg with butter, salt and pepper, and the juice of the oranges. Marinate in the orange juice overnight.
Bone the leg and stuff the resulting hollow:
Chop the ham, onion, parsley, chorizos and one tomato finely. Fry all. Drain thoroughly and stuff into the pork leg.
Add the water and the other two tomatoes, blended up, to the marinade. Bake the pork in this, basting occasionally. Serve decorated with lettuce leaves and other garnishes.
Puchero with Chaya
2 lb. pork chops
1/4 lb. rice
Oil
6 peppercorns
Sprig of thyme
3 tomatoes
1 onion
3 garlic cloves
1 large bunch chaya leaves
Cook the chops in 2 quarts of water with the onion and one garlic clove. Seaprately, roast and peel the tomatoes, and blend with another garlic clove.
Fry to color a strip on onion and the last garlic clove. Add the rice, fry golden, and add in the tomatoes. Add the spices.
Cook quickly, add 3/4 cup water, and then the pork and chaya. Cook til rice is done.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:28)
Siguamut
An indigenous dish, originally made with game. Also known as “siguamonte.” Any meat with bone in can be used.
2 lb. meat
1 tomato
1 onion
6 small potatoes
3 carrots
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp. achiote
1 sprig epazote
10 small highland chiles
2 tbsp. oil
Salt to taste
Cut up the meat and roast it. Then cook in salted water for an hour if using venison–otherwise, omit or reduce this step. Fry the achiote; then, in the oil, the garlic, onion, and tomato, all chopped. Add all to a baking dish with potatoes, carrots (cut up), chiles (toasted and ground), the epazote and the salt. Cook 15-20 minutes.
Variants exist; any game can be used, and the vegetables can be adapted as you wish.
Stuffed Chiles
1 lb. pork
10 poblano chiles
2 small onions
5 tomatoes
1 carrot
2 summer squash
1 1/2 oz flour
Few raisins
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp. pepper
4 garlic cloves
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
Oil
Salt to taste
Seed the chiles, fry, leave in a towel for a while, and peel.
Cook the meat with the garlic, onion and tomato. Cool and cut up. Fry the onion and tomato. Cut up the other vegetables and add in, along with the meat, raisins and seasoning.
Cut up the rest of the tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs. Fry and blend.
Stuff the chiles; powder with flour. Beat the whites of the eggs to peaks. Add in the yolks and a tablespoon of flour. Cover the chiles with this and fry in hot oil, then add the sauce and simmer.
Stuffed Onions
6 oz. cooked pork leg
3 large onions
2 oz. flour
3 tomatoes
3 eggs, separated
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
/2 tsp. pepper
2 garlic cloves
Oil
Salt to taste
Cook the onions with salt for 15 minutes (or less). Take out and carefully remove centers. Chop these.
Cook the pork and chop finely. Fry with the onion centers, one garlic clove (mashed) and one tomato (chopped).
Beat the egg whites to peaks. Add in the yolks and flour. Cap the onions with this and fry them in a good deal of oil. Set on paper towels to blot up excess oil.
Meanwhile, roast, peel, chop and fry the other tomatoes, with the other garlic clove and the herbs. Blend all.
Put the stuffed onions into this sauce and simmer 10-15 minutes.
Stuffed Pork Loin
One of the most popular dishes, existing in countless variants.
1 pork loin
1/2 lb. ground pork
1/2 lb. ground beef
2 eggs
4 summer squash
1 strip of pineapple
4 carrots
1 oz. lard
2 lb. tomato
3 oranges
1 head of lettuce
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
3 pickled jalapeno chiles
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp. pepper
Salt to taste
Open out and flatten the loin.
Mix the salt, pepper, garlic (crushed), ground meat, orange juice and beaten eggs. Cover the flattened loin with the ground meat. Put on this slices of the vegetables; then roll up the loin in such a manner that every slice of the final roll will be slightly different. Tie it into a log shape, with the stuffing in the center.
Fry it, adding the tomato (roasted and blended), pepper, parsley, juice of one orange, and salt. Cover and simmer for an hour.
Chill. Serve cold, adorned with its sauce and with lettuce leaves and jalapenos.
Variants are mostly in regard to the vegetables used in the stuffing and the manner of their display. For instance, they can be cut into long thin strips, such that they go all the way through the loin, making each slice the same. Of course, various herbs and seasonings are used to create other variations.
Also, one can oven-roast the loin instead of frying and then simmering. This isn’t quite as good, but may be necessary if the loin is very large.
Tasajo
A Chiapa de Corzo dish, traditional in festivals.
2 lb. tasajo
2 heaping tbsp. rice, soaked
1/4 cup achiote
1/3 lb. squash seeds, toasted and ground (sicil)
2 tomatoes
1/4 onion
4 oz. lard
Cook the meat a long time in a lot of water.
Then grind the rice with the achiote, in water, for a thick sauce.
Blend the tomato and onion. Fry in lard. Add the rice and achiote. Then stir in the sicil, dissolved in stock. Cook, stirring.
Serve as sauce on the meat. (Or–untraditional–cut up the meat and finish cooking in the sauce.)
Tinga chiapaneca
3 1/2 lb. turkey meat
1 lbv. beef
1 lb. lamb
2 lb. chicken
1 lb. pork
1 branch bay leaves
3 hojasanta leaves
2 ancho chiles
1/ lb. tomato
1 onion
1 tbsp. ground oregano
2 large sprigs of thyme
1 stick cinnamon
3 or more peppercorns
1/4 cup vinegar
4 garlic cloves
Cut up the meat. Boil in a bit of water with the bay and hojasanta leaves. Meanwhile, seed and soak the chiles; grind with the tomato, onion, garlic and spices. Add this to the meat. Cover and cook in oven for 2 hours.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:43)
Tzotzil Radish Salad
Radishes
Freshly made chicharrones (fried pork rinds) in 1″ squares
Cut up equal amounts of the above.
Season with chopped mint and parsley, and enough lime juice to thoroughly wet all.
POULTRY AND RABBIT
Chicken in the Pot
1 chicken
4 potatoes
4 chayotes
1/2 cup olives
3 tomatoes, cut up
1 onion, cut up
1/2 tsp. ground thyme
1/2 tsp. ground oregano
3 cloves
3 peppercorns
2 bay leaves
2 arrayan leaves (or two more bay leaves)
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 pinch saffron
Salt to taste
1 pimento, cut up, or some pimento strips (optional)
1 cup cooked chickpeas (optional)
1 cup vinegar
1 cup white wine
Cut up the chicken. Peel and slice the vegtetables. Combine all except the pimento and chickpeas. Cover the pot and cook in the oven. Adorn with the pimento and chickpeas at the end.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:40)
Chicken with Chorizo
1 chicken
4 chorizos
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1.2 lb. potatoes
1 quart chicken stock
Oil
Salt to taste
Chop and fry the garlic and onion. Add the chorizo meat (taken out of the skins). Drain. Fry well, then add the stock.
Cut the chicken into pieces. Add to the stock with the potatoes and cook all.
Chicken with Fruit
1 chicken, cut in pieces
Thyme, oregano, salt, and bay leaves to taste
2 tbsp. vinegar
1 chayote, cut up
1/2 lb. carrots, cut up
1 onion
1/2 lb. tomatoes
1/2 lb. potatoes, cut up
2 slices pineapple
8 prunes
2 tbsp. raisins
8 olives
1 ancho chile, seeded and cut up
Marinate the chicken in the vinegar with the herbs. Cook with all the ingredients.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:35)
Pressed Turkey
Otherwise known as “stuffed turkey.” Another passionate favorite.
1 turkey (8-10 lb.)
3 lb. ground pork
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 small can of chopped pimento
3-4 oz. almonds, finely chopped
1/4 cup vinegar
1 cup sweet wine
1 green onion with stem, cut up
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
1 head of garlic
Salt to taste
Cook and bone the turkey. Wash and rub with salt and pepper.
To the ground meat, add the other ingredients, except the herbs. Mix well. Stuff the turkey and sew it up. Cook in a large pot with the herbs and salt. Take out and press by wrapping it in a towel and leaving a heavy object on it; leave all night in the refrigerator to chill, thus weighted down. Serve cold, sliced, with lettuce leaves and radish for garnish, and red sauce.
Rabbit a la Zihuamonte
1 rabbit
2 potatoes
5 cloves
2 green chiles
3 tbsp. oil
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
2 tomatoes
1 ancho chile
1/4 cup masa
Sprig of epazote
6 peppercorns
Cut up the rabbit. Bake till golden. Then put in a pot with water. Add the potatoes, cloves and green chiles.
Cut up and fry the garlic and onion. When colored, add the tomato and the rabbit. Fry separately the dried chiles (seeded and ground). Add some of the stock, thickened with the masa. Stir. Add the epazote and peppercorns. Then add to the rabbit.
This dish is perfectly good made with chicken.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:38)
Turkey Chanfaina
1/4 turkey breast
Liver, gizzard, and if possible the feet, head and blood of the turkey
2 ancho chiles
1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1 tomato
2 tbsp. lard
2 plaintains
1 small piece of turkey fat
1 clove
1 peppercorn
Sprig of oregano
Stick of cinnamon
Salt to taste
Cook the blood in salted water. Cut the resulting coagulated blood cake into pieces.
Seed, roast and soak the chiles.
Cook the turkey parts.
Blend the onion, garlic, tomato, and one of the chiles with some of the stock. Fry this in lard. Add to the pot with the turkey parts.
Peel the plantain, cut up, and add. Boil till it is tender. Add the other herbs and spices.
As with other such recipes, if you find the blood and innards too gruesome, this one is perfectly good with just turkey meat!
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:37)
Charcuterie
If you are totally compulsive, here’s how to smoke meat Chiapas style: Build a box about 5′ square with a grill at the bottom. Suspend hams and sausages within. Put hot charcoal on the grill and cover with damp sawdust of pine and/or oak. Leave till the meats take on the color of old gold. This is a minimalist description. I haven’t tried it. Only someone who knows the tricks of the trade should make the attempt. Naturally, the charcutiers have more elaborate equipment.
Butifarra
These sausages are to be eaten as soon as made.
4 lb. fresh pork leg
2 eggs
1 lime
3 shots of brandy
3 tbsp. salt
2 tbsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. anise seed
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
2 bay leaves
2 arrayan leaves
3 quarts water
Sausage skins
Trim off some fat from the meat. Grind fine. Add the salt. Toast the anise seeds and grind them; add to meat. Add the egg, pepper, nutmeg and a squeeze of lime. Mix well, adding in the brandy while doing so.
Stuff the sausage skins.
Boil the herbs in water. Add the sausages and boil till done.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:39)
Chorizo
4 lb. pork leg
6 ancho chiles
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
2 tsp. pepper
1 head of garlic, peeled and mashed
Small cup vinegar
Salt to taste (a good deal is necessary)
Sausage skins
Grind the meat fine. Seed and soak the chiles; blend and add. Add the herbs and garlic, all ground, and the salt and vinegar. Stuff the sausage skins thoroughly, making sure there are no air pockets or loosely filled places. Dry or smoke the sausages.
As usual, you can just fry up the mix instead of making sausages with it.
Longaniza
4 lb. pork
3 heads garlic
2 tbsp. pepper
2 large tomatoes
Salt to taste (a good deal is necessary)
Sausage skins
Separate lean and fat pieces of pork. Chop up. Peel and mash the garlic; chop the tomatoes fine. Mix all and stuff the sausage skins, making sure they are thoroughly stuffed (no air pockets or loose places). Dry or smoke.
Moronga
2 quarts blood
1 large onion
2 tomatoes
1 piece of pork fat, ground
1/2 cut cooked rice
Fresh chile, to taste
Mint leaves
Salt to taste (a good deal is necessary)
Sausage skins
Heat the blood. When thoroughly hot, add the other ingredients, all chopped fine or ground. Stuff the sausage skins. Boil the sausages half an hour. Dry (best done in slow oven). Even without drying, they will keep, refrigerated, for a long time. Do not store unrefrigerated (even if dried).
Simple Pate
1/2 lb. liver
/2 lb. pork
/2 lb. beef
2 chicken breasts
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1 bread roll
4 oz. lard
Salt and pepper to taste
Cook and grind the meats. Fry the bread in the butter and soak in the milk; grind up. Beat the eggs. Mix all the ingredients and put into a greased mold that can be fitted into a bain-marie arrangement (easily jury-rigged with a couple of nesting saucepans). Cover and simmer till cooked solid. Chill, unmold, and serve sliced.
VEGETABLES
Baked Chayote
Scoop out the meat of a cooked chayote. Mash with sugar, cinnamon, allspice and raisins. Return to own shell.
Chiles in Escabeche
The same basic recipe is wonderful for wild mushrooms and other vegetables. For these others (and even for the chiles, if you prefer), leave out the ginger and perhaps the cloves and cinnamon, and add more aromatic herbs and leaves.
2 lb. serrano chiles
1 quart vinegar
1 onion, cut up
1 oz. salt
10 cloves
1 stick cinnamon
10 peppercorns
Sprig of thyme
Sprig of oregano
Small piece of ginger
5 garlic cloves
4 bay leaves
5 tbsp. olive oil, preferably extra virgin (though that is rare indeed in Chiapas)
Wash the chiles and pierce them with a fork. Boil the vinegar with the spices, adding the chiles when the liquid begins to boil. Cook till they are olive-colored.
Fry the onion, garlic and bay leaves in the oil.
Put this in a jar and add the chiles and vinegar.
If this is to be sealed and stored, sterilize as with any canned vegetables; but it’s a great deal easier to leave it in the refrigerator. Covered, it keeps indefinitely.
Putznick
This is a Zoque dish. Since the Zoque–the Indians of northwest Chiapas–are among the least known people in the Western Hemisphere, I include this recipe from the Banrural/Conaculta cookbook, for ethnographic interest. Cutunuck is the flower of a local tree.
1 cup cutunuck
1 tomato
1 onion
Chile to taste
1/2 cup squash seeds
2 eggs
Salt to taste
Boil the cutunuck. Strain and press out the water. Chop and fry the onion, tomato and chile. Add the squash seeds. Then add in the cutunuck, then the eggs (beaten).
The only Zoque dish I have actually encountered is ordinary beans with some bacon and pork.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:48)
Scarlet Runner Beans
“Botil” to the Tzotzil Maya, for whom these beans are an important food. These are large, mottled beans with a distinctive flavor. Ordinary beans or dried limas can be substituted. Use large beans that cook up soft but not mushy.
1 lb. scarlet runner beans
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp. flour
10 highland Chiapas chiles
5 tbsp. oil
Salt to taste
Wash the beans and soak overnight. Cook for an hour. Separately, fry the garlic and onion. Separately (again), fry the chiles, adding the flour slowly. Then combine all with the beans and simmer 15 minutes.
Any good dried chile will do. The highland ones are small and hot, so adjust quantities (one really big New Mexico chile can equal to ten highland ones) and hotness.
Soc Socpojin
Another recipe recycled from the Banrural-Conaculta cookbook for ethnographic interest.
3/4 lb. cooked black beans
1 large bunch chipilin
1 onion, chopped
1/2 lb. panela cheese
2 tbsp. lard
Fry the onion, added the beans, then the chipilin leaves. Serve with strips of panela cheese.
(Conaculta 2000a:49)
Vegetables in Escabeche
1/2 lb. fresh chiles
1/2 lb. carrots
1/2 lb. summer squash
1/2 lb. onions
1 cauliflower
Sprig of thyme
Sprig oregano
4 bay leaves (or 2 bay leaves and 2 arrayan leaves)
1 quart vinegar
1 cup water
1 tbsp. sugar
5 tbsp. olive oil
15 black peppercorns
5 cloves garlic
Salt to taste
Cut the garlic and onion into strips and fry. Cut up the other vegetables. When the garlic and onion are fried golden, add the vinegar and herbs. When this begins to boil, add the other vegetables. Cook briefly; stop when vegetables are still firm.
This dish can be eaten as is, or kept to marinate.
Any mix of vegetables can be used. Wild mushrooms are marinated the same way, and it is perfectly good for cultivated mushrooms as well.
White Beans
A nice vegetarian dish.
1 lb. white beans
1 ancho chile
1 small French bread roll
2 tomatoes
1 onion
3-5 serrano chiles, canned or fresh
1 small head of garlic
12 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. ground oregano
1/2 tsp. ground thyme
Oil and salt as needed
Wash beans and soak overnight. Cook with the garlic and onion for 45 minutes. Break up the bread and fry it with the chile (seeded and soaked), the onion and the tomato. Add these to the beans, then add the spices. Cook 15 minutes more.
Wild Mushrooms
2 lb. wild mushrooms
1/2 onion
2 lb. tomato
2 bell peppers
1 jalapeno chile, seeded
1 plantain, peeled and cut up
Lard
2 hojasanta leaves
Salt to taste
Wash the mushrooms and take off tough or spoiled parts. Chop the ingredients. Mix with lard and salt.
Lightly toast a banana leaf and lay the other ingredients on it. Wrap all in a sheet of aluminum foil and steam 45 minutes.
The original recipe specified the local cusuche mushroom, but any flavorful mushroom does fine. One can also leave out the plantain.
(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:49)
DESSERTS
Fruit Cheese
Peaches, apples, quinces, guavas and other fruit are preserved thus. See Guava Paste recipe in Yucatan section.
Cut up, peel, core or seed and bring to boil.
Put in a colander and leave overnight.
Weigh the pulp. Mix in sugar, equal to 2/3 of the weight. (Use the remaining juice, strained out, for making jelly–or just drink it.)
Cook down, stirring constantly, till it begins to separate from the sides of the pot. (Do this is a Teflon pot with a wooden spoon, unless you want a fearful mess.) Turn out into a pan, plate or dish, and cool till solid.
Sandy Cookies a la Chiapas
1 lb. flour
3/4 lb. sugar
3/4 lb. butter
6 eggs
1/4 cup lime juice
1 tbsp. lime zest
11/4 cup milk
1/2 tbsp. baking soda
Cream the butter, mixing in the sugar and then the flour. Beat in the eggs, one by one. After this, add the lime juice and zest, and, finally, the baking soda dissolved in the milk.
Butter a cookie dish or a mold and bake till golden. This recipe is for little cakes made in molds, but is fine for cookies.
DRINKS
The favorite local drink is raw rum, known as aguardiente (“burning water”) in Spanish, and in Highland Maya as pox, which means “medicine.” (As in Yucatec, x is pronounced sh.) It has the color and taste of water and the kick of a team of Chiapas mules. Alcoholism is a problem, so some of the Maya communities have been shifting from pox to cola drinks for ceremonial occasions. A myth has been duly elaborated that cola has magic powers. This has led to a new political tension: competition between suppliers of rival cola brands.
One of the great delights of San Cristobal is the punch, locally pronounced bonche, sold around the cathedral in the evening. It dispels the mountain cold. It consists of fruit cooked in water with spices, with pox added to taste.
A mescal is made around Comitan from the local agaves; it is something of an acquired taste, being reminiscent of soap.
Anisette
1 quart aguardiente (vodka will do)
1 lb. sugar
1 oz. anise seeds
Heaping tbsp. fennel seeds
Ten drops of anise essence
1 tsp. nutmeg
Mix and leave three days (more if you want it stronger, but it gets bitter). Strain and rebottle.
This makes a traditionally sweet, syrupy product. There is no reason not to cut the sugar way down, to make it bearable to those with a less sweet tooth.
All of Chiapas’ many wonderful fruits are made into liqueurs by similar methods. Take any fruit, macerate a bit if necessary, and steep in rum or vodka for a few days with a lot of sugar.
Bonche de Piña
1 pineapple
1/2 lb. sugar
1 stick cinnamon
1 piece ginger
10 allspice berries
2 1/2 quarts water
Mash the pineapple with water. Add the other ingredients and cook.
Lace well with pox (or equivalent–any sort of rum is great). Serve hot.
It is traditional to crumble up panque–pound-cake–into this, but the result is possibly a bit much for most non-Chiapans.
Bonche de Frutas
This is the fitting end of a Chiapan meal! There is nothing like warming up with bonche on a cold, drizzly night in front of the Cathedral in San Cristobal.
As above, but instead of pineapple, use finely cut up fresh apple, guava, pear, and perhaps a peach; also prunes, raisins, and bits of sugarcane.
The fruits and spices vary a lot. A cinnamon stick and some apple, guava and prunes are basic.
Chocolate with Egg
2 lb. cacao beans
2 lb. sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon
Toast the beans on a comal till golden. Take off the skins. Grind in a metate with the sugar and cinnamon. When finely ground, add the yolks, mix well, form into cakes and store.
If you aren’t cooking with a comal over an open fire, oven-roast the beans and grind them fine in a food processor (blenders don’t work for this).
Many people add finely ground almonds along with, or instead of, the yolks.
Sour atole
A Maya ritual drink.
2 lb. maize
1/2 lb. sugar
8 cloves
Cinnamon to taste
Water
Soak maize in water for three days, enough to produce some souring. Then drain, grind, and mix with 3 quarts water. Add the spices and cook, stirring constantly, till the atole thickens.
Tascalate
This is the traditional chocolate drink of south Mexico.
Mix toasted corn meal, chocolate, achiote paste, and chile powder or cinnamon, to taste, in water. Drink hot or cold.
This can be sweetened with honey or sugar, but traditionalists (among whom I number myself) prefer it with only the sweetness of the toasted corn meal. Usually, the chile is used in the unsweetened version, the cinnamon in the sweetened.
Local pozole (maize drink) is made with chocolate and is similar. (Pozole in the southeast is usually just cornmeal and water–not a rich stew as it is in north and west Mexico.)
