Puebla

In colonial times in Mexico, the Spanish built many cities on the site of indigenous towns or religious centers, so the blending of cultures started immediately. In fact, one of the first mestizos born here was the son of Hernan Cortes and La Malinche, his interpreter/lover. Diego Rivera painted this child as a blue-eyed baby carried on his mother's back in a mural on the stairwell of the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City.

The mural also depicts abuses by the conquerers such as forced labor, whippings, rape, killing. One of the twelve missionary friars Spain sent in the earliest days of colonization, Fray Toribio, in an effort to curb abuses, decided to found a new, totally Spanish town away from native populations. This is now the city of Puebla, whose historic center is classic Roman / Spanish urban planning: a large open square, now the park-like Zocalo
with cathedral on one side and municipal building on the other, and streets heading out from the square in an even grid.



This city, on the major route between Veracruz and Mexico City, has always been important in Mexican history. The first battle in the Revolution against Porfirio Diaz (1910) took place in the house of the Serdan family, where six people fought against 500. Notice the bullet holes still in the walls.
My route to school every day takes me along calle Aquiles Serdan; I'm happy to know now who he was. After the battle was clearly lost, he hid under the floor trying to live to fight another day. Unfortunately, a cough gave him away and he was killed, along with his brother and a friend; his wife, mother and sister Carmen were arrested. These were the six who fought against the 500. One room of the Serdan memorial is dedicated to Carmen; inside is a box containing soil collected by women from every state of Mexico to place here in her honor.


Every Mexican city has streets named for its heroes and important historic dates: Hidalgo, Morelos, Madero, Juarez, 5 de mayo, 18 de noviembre, 16 de septiembre. Of these dates, most Americans have heard of Cinco de Mayo. This date commemorates a battle against French invaders that took place in Puebla in 1862. Under the command of General Zaragoza, the Mexicans, mostly indigenous and poorly equiped, defeated the French, who later won the war. In his honor, the city was renamed Puebla Heroica de Zaragoza. This statue of General Zaragoza is near the hill where the Battle of Puebla took place.

I spent a weekend in Puebla with two other Fulbright teachers, Cece and Nancy.


We enjoyed staying in the centro historico, trolley tours of the Cerro de Guadalupe where the Cinco de Mayo battle took place and of nearby Cholula, site of an ancient pyramid larger in volume than Egypt's Cheops, but now looking more like a hill with a church on top.





Entrance to the archaeological site is through the ancient tunnels of the pyramid.


Here, in 1519 Cortes, warned about an Aztec ambush, struck first, killed thousands and vowed to build a church for every day of the year. There are 39 churches in this small town, many built atop former temples. We went to a very interesting one in nearby Tonantzintla, decorated in a style called indigenous baroque, synchretism at its most beautiful. Spanish culture and Catholic religion may have been imposed on the indigenous, but they did not abandon their native beliefs, symbols and motifs.

El Mercado de San Juan

The first thing I do when I enter the San Juan Market is breathe deeply and absorb all the wonderful aromas. Then I let my eyes join the sensory delight as I walk slowly through the fruit section, where each and every fruit is perfect, without blemish and beautifully displayed. Vendors often offer samples, especially when I ask the name of some exotic species, so before I've taken five steps, the taste buds join in. Today I bought apples and peaches with a heavenly aroma. Of course peaches remind me of my mother, so I'm always glad when they're in season, but these duraznos are smaller, more yellow, and more fragrant than our beloved Georgia peaches.

Next come the vegetables, arranged in pyramid-like tiers with an opening at the top through which sometimes a person, standing on a bench, pops up to help. More often someone is on the floor, trying to direct the customer's attention to his or her stand. Some of the vegetables, especially the baby ones, are already cleaned, shelled, cut or otherwise prepped for cooking. Today I noticed some new-to-me mushrooms (hongos) and stopped for a conversation about how to prepare them: rinse the hongos, saute some onions and garlic, add the hongos and saute a bit, then add chicken broth and last a sprig or two of epazote (an herb). Top with a dried chile de arbol.

So the next stop was to a chicken stand. I avoided the one that displays chickens with neck, head and feet still attached and asked a man plucking off the last of the little feathers from chicken at another stand for enough to make a broth. He placed on the scale what was left after cutting off the thighs, legs and breast - basically the spine with wings attached - and I asked him to add a breast, leg and thigh.

The dried chiles are at the other side of the market; en route I picked up a bag of veggies to add to the broth and then slowed my pace as I passed the fruit stands again. I confess to being utterly ignorant about identifying one chile from another -the variety is extensive - so I just asked the very ancient woman sitting by the stand for a chile de arbol. She seemed to think this was a strange request, so the woman at the next stand came over and suggested for her to give me five pesos worth, about two hand-scoops. From this, I surmise that I should probably add a chile de arbol to top each serving of the soup. These are narrow red chiles, about three inches long. Now I recognize them: they're always atop the Enchiladas Baja (stuffed with seafood and covered with a white sauce) that I like to order in Mazatlan. I made the mistake - once - of putting a whole one in my mouth.

Some careful readers of this blog (perhaps Melanie and Susan) will remember my frustrated search for bread similar to Calandra's. A few months ago the search ended at a stand in the San Juan Market that also has a very good assortment of cheeses and cold cuts from Italy, Spain and France. I always spend a long time at this place and usually end with a sampling of my favorite Mediterranean flavors: Parmigiano Reggiano and salami from Italy, manchego de tres leches (cheese from 3 milks - goat, sheep and cow) and jamon serrano from Spain, and some chevre from France. The vendors always give you a little sample of whatever you order; in fact, if you order several things you can make this a very pleasant snack or lunch, especially since they offer little glassses of wine to cleanse the palatte. Once Bill and I ordered so much here that they even made us a dessert: a piece of bread with a scoop of Marscapone drizzled with honey and topped with a pecan.

Here's a photo of our niece Libby and friend Tamie at the cheese stand.



Today I watched the young man slice my Parmigiano Reggiano and noticed that he gave me a rather large portion of rind. I had to ask him for the word for rind (corteza) before I could complain and ask for a different slice. The two women standing by me enjoying their own samples of cheese gave me an approving look that made me feel as if I had passed some sort of ama de casa (housewife) test. The young man very courteously sliced another portion and then gave all three of us glasses of wine. After a toast to our health "Salud!", I leisurely strolled through the fruit again, breathing deeply, and walked back home.

Mothers' Day and a Short History Lesson

This year I celebrated Mother's Day twice. Mexican Mother's Day is always on May 10; ours was May 11 this year. Even though Bill and Dan are far away - Maine and Vermont - I enjoyed the weekend.

Today Dulce and her family invited me to spend the day at their sports club, near the Bosque de Chapultepec. And what a club it is! Two Olympic swimming pools, another for platform diving and another for children; courts for tennis, frontennis, squash, badminton, basketball; an indoor track elevated over the basketball courts; rooms for aerobics, dance, Tai Chi, spinning and weights; computer center, library, spa, TV room, restaurant. And should anyone need a break from all these sports, Chapultepec Park is a short walk away. In fact, you can see the Castillo in the distance in this photo of Dulce and her brother Mike.








Frontennis is similar to racquetball, but it's played outside and with three walls instead of four. It was a demonstration sport in the Mexico City Olympic Games of 1968; Dulce's father played in those games and now coaches an amateur team. Last November he was inducted into Mexico's Sports Hall of Fame. We watched some games, had lunch, and then went to the park to visit the Castillo, built in the 18th century when Mexico was still Nueva España.

In the 1840's the Castillo was the Colegio Militar (military school), scene of the final battle in the Mexican-American War (1846-48)in which six young cadets, now known as the Niños Héroes, perished defending the Colegio against the U.S. invasion in a war that lost for Mexico half of its territory (now parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Wyoming and all of California, Nevada and Utah). Texas had already become a state in 1845, after having won its independence from Mexico in 1836.

It's a sobering experience to visit this museum (as well as the Museum of Interventions ) and realize that I, as a U.S. citizen, have benefited from the policy of Manifest Destiny while Mexico still suffers from the loss. And I say to myself, "Well, you're looking at this event from a perspective of 160 years later." But then I read this quote from Ulysses S. Grant's memoirs in a brochure I picked up, "I don't believe there has ever been a more iniquitous war than the one the U.S. waged against Mexico. Remembering that invasion, I am ashamed for my country."

The next invaders were the French, who came in response to president Benito Juarez' having suspended payment on foreign debt. The Mexicans won the Battle of Puebla on May 5 (el Cinco de Mayo), but later the French prevailed, and Napoleon III named his cousin Maximilian Emperor of Mexico. Maximilian and his wife Carlota lived in the Castillo until republican forces advanced on the city, and the U.S. and Prussia put pressure on France to withdraw, leaving Maximilian to face his destiny without support. He was captured, judged, and killed by a firing squad. Carlota returned to Europe. Juarez, who led the republican forces, resumed his presidency of Mexico.

Juarez lived in the Palacio Nacional at the Zócalo, but Porfirio Díaz, elected president and then ruling as dictator for the next 30 years, sometimes resided in the Castillo. The Revolution of 1910 resulted in his overthrow, and subsequent presidents lived in the Castillo until 1939, when it was converted into the museum it is today.

Tepoztlán

Tepoztlán, a small mountain village between Cuernavaca and Mexico City, is a popular weekend retreat for hiking in the surrounding hills or just hanging out in a very pleasant ambiente. Legend says that the god of the wind chose this place as the home of his son Tepozteco. A favorite hike is up to the Pyramid of Tepozteco; another is to the Kissing Rocks; but simply walking around town is very pleasant. A poetic entrepreneur has opened several ice cream shops around town called Tepoznieves, where he sells nieves de dioses (snows, ice creams of the gods). Move over Baskin Robbins, Ben & Jerry's. Here are just some of the flavors:

Arrullo de Luna, Moon's Lullaby
Beso de Angel, Angel's Kiss
Canto de Sirenas, Mermaid's Song
Gardenias
Mil Flores, 1000 Flowers
Primavera, Spring
Oración de Amor, Love's Prayer
Oración de Viento, Wind's Prayer
Reina de la Noche, Queen of the Night
Serenata de Amor, Love's Serenade
Sinfonía de Mar, Symphony of the Sea
Pétalo de Rosas, Rose Petals

Other exotic flavors are also available: sorbets of avocado, celery, beet, lettuce, cactus, carrot, ice creams with rum, tequila, mezcal, various flavors with chile, as well as any fruit imaginable. One flavor is called Poblana; it's coffee, sweet potato and Bailey's Irish Cream. Now that's really fusion food!

You may think we did nothing but eat ice cream. Wrong! Belén, one of our friends and colleagues at ESCA, had invited us to her family home to experience a cooking lesson by Edith, our English department head.


The home first, then the food.

Belen's house, overflowing with artesanía and charm, was built by her grandfather and enlarged by her father. The family uses it as a weekend retreat. It has two bedrooms, a sitting room, a wide portico that opens onto a lovely garden, and - best of all- a típica cocina mexicana, a typical Mexican kitchen. This is Belen with her mother Marlu, who collected all the wonderful artesanía and decorated the home. She also taught me how to season the cazuelas de barro (pottery casseroles) to use them on the stovetop: rub garlic on the outside bottom, place coarse-grain salt in the cazuela, heat it until the salt begins to brincar (jump) and turn golden.





Edith taught us how to make chicken enchiladas in mole sauce: fiesta food! Mole is a sauce made of lots of ingredients - chiles, spices, chocolate, cinnamon, nuts, seeds (pumpkin, chile, sesame) tortillas, raisins, garlic, and more - ground by a stone rolling pin on a metate, a slanted stone surface. On a TV cooking show, La Ruta del Sabor, I saw it lovingly - and laboriously - prepared from scratch, but fortunately it's sold already prepared in the markets. So you take this powdered mole, fry it in some olive oil, add broth, and set it aside. When you're ready to assemble the enchiladas, heat a tortilla in a pan with a bit of mole and coat both sides before stuffing it with shredded chicken and cheese and top it with sour cream and some crumbled queso fresco. Serve with arroz (rice), frijoles (beans) and ensalada (salad). We had two types of mole: poblano (from Puebla) and negro (from Oaxaca). There are many others.

Does this one weekend give you any idea of the depth and breadth of the flavors of Mexico? Someone told me Mexico shares honors with France and China for developing the three best cuisines of the world.

Bill and I stayed at Jorge and Alejandra Ortiz' Casitas Tepoztlán, four lovely adjoining houses that open onto various gardens surrounded by volcanic stone walls topped with bougambilia and other extravagantly beautiful flowers. The Ortiz family also runs the Casa Gonzalez in Mexico City, our first "home" in the D.F. We are very grateful to them for their hospitality and friendship.