Mexico Trip Food Glossary
This is 2 months late, and I make no apologies.
As all of you know, before I left for Rwanda and before I bade Boston farewell, I took a trip to Mexico with Amaris. We went to Mexico City (which I adored) and Tulum (which I loathed). We consistently ate really well. Beyond eating well, we ate new.
Eating new is harder than it sounds. After all, one of the beautiful things about food is how it can’t help but travel. As commodities, as techniques, as crops, as condiments - food moves and takes ahold as taste. It’s also why so many food stories are about encountering unlikely analogues. “They have this too!” we say, wonderstruck with familiarity. Al pastor, for instance, is Mexican shawarma. Xawaash is Somali garam masala, and garam masala is Indian five-spice powder. Singani is Bolivian pisco and pisco is Chilean/Peruvian tsipouro.
But precisely because we so often eat the same, that moment of recognition can become disappointing instead of gleeful. In biology, there’s a thing called “convergent evolution”: it’s when separate genealogies of organisms evolve towards the same forms. Nature keeps turning animals crab-shaped. Wouldn’t it feel like a shame, if from all the different ecological zones humans spread to, and all the different cultivation practices we arrived at, the convergent evolution of foodways resulted in us all eating more or less the same? To me, it would feel like the world had suddenly gotten smaller and less interesting.
This is why eating in Mexico was so much fun. Since so many of the ingredients we encountered were endemic to local ecologies, they were unequivocally unique to the place. It became a tantalizing provocation: if the peoples that have inhabited this land can mine its forests, its desserts, its yeasts for such varied deliciousness, what about every other place? As a bit of memory-keeping, I’ve made some notes on foods that were new to me in this glossary.
Avocado leaf
I encountered this in a cocktail at Limantour as a garnishing oil floated atop their mezcal martini riff. Avocado leaves have a complex aroma that reminds me of the greenness of anise and eucalyptus. There’s a medicinal bitterness at the end that I can imagine playing nicely with gin.
Huitlacoche
Appetizingly called “corn smut” in English, Huitlacoche is a delicacy that forms when a fungus infects ears of corn. Kernels distend and discolor into an ominous-looking purple. The result is this mushroomy grain-fungus mutant. Huitlacoche tacos showed up on a couple of streetstand menus, but the real revelation was at EM, where we had a huitlacoche tart that was covered in a layer of queso blanco shavings that looked like like snowfall. The unctuous huitlacoche filling had a deep moreish flavour, like dried mushrooms, chocolate, and MSG. Big fan, highly recommend.
Habanero tostada
At a bunch of places in Tulum, we were offered a black salsa with the warning “es muy picante”. The black flecks suspended in oil - and in one place, honey - were habanero chilis that had had been charred on an open flame. This was exciting to me because it’s really weird. Habaneros are typically prized not just for their heat, but for their floral aroma. It’s why habanero-mango salsa is so good. To my mind, toasting them would kill that suggestion of juicy fruit that sits behind the pain in fresh habanero. What seems to happen in the toasting process is that the chilis acquire a delicious smokiness and take on cacao-like flavors. The toasted habanero salsa also seemed a little less spicy than fresh habaneros, though that might have been because the seeds were taken out.
Hoja Santa
Hoja Santa translates to “sacred leaf”, though Wiki tells me that it is also called “Mexican pepperleaf”. At Molino el Pujol, the leaves were used like a second wrapper layered over the blue corn tortillas in the avocado taco. Hoja Santa are subtle and sweet-tasting. Maybe it’s an association drawn by the experience of eating the raw leaf, but “mild betel leaf” feels like a helpful tasting note. I don’t know if this happens in Mexican cooking, but I feel like you could make an amazing saag out of Hoja Santa.
Mamey + Pixtle
Mamey is an indigenous fruit that tastes like a cross between sweet potato and chikoo - it has a slightly mealy texture, that I was weirdly okay with. Chikoos are one of the few fruits in the world that I really loathe, so I was surprised to like mamey as much as I did. I think the starchy not-sweet sweetness is what made me a convert.
Pixtle is the seed of the mamey fruit. I’m not entirely certain how it was prepared but the marshmallow-like soft serve on our mamey tart (at EM, again) was flavored with it. There, I detected a really yummy marzipanniness. This would make sense since the kernels of other stone fruit (apricots, cherries, plums) contain amygdalin, the sweet aroma we most commonly associate with almond extract.
Pulque
Pulque is an alcoholic beverage made from the sap of the agave plant. This is different from mezcal and tequila, that are made using the heart of the agave.
I’ve wanted to try pulque since I heard in a seminar that it is fermented by a bacteria called Zymmomonas mobilis, rather than yeast. As fermentation nerds know, yeast strains can exert a huge effect on flavour in alcohol fermentations - surely, then, alcohol fermentation by an entirely different organism would taste mind-breakingly different.
I’m unable to report any mind-breaking, mostly because I didn’t really know what to look for. I’ve never had agave sap or agave sap fermented by yeast, so how would I begin to unpack what agave sap fermented by bacteria tastes like in comparison. I also suspect that since pulque is a wild fermentation, that yeast, Zymomonas mobilis, and other bacteria are jointly involved in the alchemical process.
On purely its own merit, though, pulque is good and weird. It’s viscous, sweet, a bit sour, and yeasty. It’s served in hefty pints, but is low enough in ABV that it doesn’t knock you out. I found myself feeling hydrated and gently euphoric after my glass of pulque.
What made pulque weird and addictive for me was its texture. Amaris and I both felt that when we slurped at it, it seemed to have a little bite to it like aloe vera or chin chow. As soon as we tried to bite the pulque, as you would bite any jelly, it melted back into fluid. This puzzled, delighted, and frustrated - I found myself in a private battle with my pulque, trying to trap the non-Newtonian fluid between my teeth, and drinking more as a result.