I don’t know exactly when my gardening obsession began, but I do remember vividly when I fell in love with the food and culture of Mexico. A whirlwind tour of Mexico City and Oaxaca in 2014 left me spellbound by the country’s incredible culinary landscape. In Mexico City, my travel partner and I dined on Michelin-starred modern Mexican cuisine at Pujol in Polanco, and sipped coffee in the dreamy cafes of Roma Norte. We roamed La Merced, a venerable, gritty maze of vendors in the city’s largest market, and snacked on chicharrónes in La Condesa’s hippest bars.
In central Mexico, we visited the centuries-old Tlacolula market, outside Oaxaca city, where Zapotec descendants in finely woven rebozos lined the walls with their wares, from live chickens and cut flowers to jewel-toned heirloom corn and sepia-hued pottery. Inside, we wandered the Barbacoa de Chivo stalls savoring traditional barbecued goat in a dark red chili broth. We ate char-grilled Tasajo served with grilled onions and flour tortillas atop painted wooden benches shoulder to shoulder with other happy diners in the hazy, dimly lit hall lined with Carnicerias. Long chains of chorizo sausages and cuts of beef hung from overhead racks, and I can recall like it was yesterday the sounds and smells of searing meat that surrounded us and the lingering smell of smoke that soaked into our clothes and hair.
All over Mexico, food shopping and eating is a jovial affair. We discovered a new mercado nearly every day bustling with vendor tables piled high with fresh produce: peppers, chilies, citrus, herbs, spices, mangoes, and tomatoes. We elbowed our way through tourists and businessmen to order from street carts selling the freshest tacos, tlayudas, football-shaped huaraches, and quesadillas stuffed with squash blossoms and queso Oaxaca in the market centers. A few fresh ingredients, a comal (a round terracotta cooking surface), a splash of frying oil, a few stackable chairs, and a sidewalk spot were all most vendors needed to make the day’s wages. They served carnitas, chorizo, lengua, and cachete tacos without frills on corn tortillas, a perfect canvas for accompanying condiments; a choose-your-own adventure presented in vibrant bowls for hungry customers. Bright salsas roja and verde, hot sauces, escabeches, lime wedges, chapulines (crickets), chopped white onion, and cilantro added contrasting flavor and crunch.
When I arrived back home to Massachusetts, I longed (and still do) for the punchy flavors and radiant culture of Mexico. Luckily, Nantucket’s produce selection in the summer very much resembles the year-round bounty available south of the border. With a few seasons under my belt, I can now grow a mean tomato, and I experiment with different varieties of hot peppers for sauces. Cabbage, alliums, and herbs are plentiful this time of year, making it easy to replicate the flavors I experienced in Mexico. Late season tomatoes, cilantro, and freshly picked garlic and onions are a dream in versatile salsa rojas and verdes. For escabeche, the more the merrier; green beans, onions, cucumbers, chili peppers, cauliflower, or carrots, are all perfect additions. The cabbage-heavy version called curtido, native to El Salvador and Central America, goes wonderfully as a topping for braised meat tacos. We are fortunate to have a large Salvadoran population on the island, and their local market, Salvadoreña Mini Mart, on Old South Road, carries many central American staples that I regularly keep in my pantry for when cravings strike. Dried chilies like guajillos and pasillas for salsas and braises; delectable hand-formed queso frescos, prepared cremas, and essential herbs like Mexican oregano. To my surprise, on my last visit, I discovered that they even had my favorite hot sauce for sale from the company El Yucateco: a jet-black variety made from charred habanero peppers, popular in Relleno Negro, a traditional Yucatan dish of braised poultry and hard-boiled eggs that I recently experienced while visiting there this past winter.
A handful of trusty kitchen tools make recipes easier to execute as well: a cast iron skillet for charring onions and garlic for salsas, a reliable blender for sauce-making, a mandoline, and a julienne peeler for efficient vegetable prep. A couple of fermentation-specific gadgets, like glass weights and air-lock jar lids, are added insurance for fermented foods like escabeche and curtido.
While I can’t be in Mexico all the time, cooking with island-grown summer produce and local ingredients keeps my wanderlust at bay and helps me recall all of those encounters with the talented cooks who fed my heart, soul, and belly with the simple, vibrant, and deeply memorable flavors of Mexico. ¡Salud!
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