Foods Of Michoacan Are Forever It's no wonder that Michoacan state is known as the soul of Mexico. Food writer Patricia Jinich finds Michoacanos generous, warm, hospitable and caring, and she can't get enough of their comforting cuisine.
Get recipes for Bean And Tomato Soup (Sopa Tarasca), Brisket In Pasilla Chili And Tomatillo Sauce (Carne Enchilada, above), and Cheesecake With Guava (Pay De Queso Con Ate De Guayaba).
You know how some people become attached to a certain dish? They try it somewhere once and then want to go back to eat it again and again, or they make it at home repeatedly in an until-death-do-us-part kind of vow? Well, I am one of those people, and I have made that vow with quite a few dishes from the Mexican state of Michoacan.
Michoacan Style Pork Carnitas With Green Apple Slaw Recipe
It surprises me how Michoacan's cuisine has remained such a well-kept secret. It has a defined personality and a complex layering of delicious flavors like the more popular cuisines from Oaxaca and Puebla, but its dishes seem to be a bit more comforting and use fewer ingredients.
What's more, some of Michoacan's basic ingredients, such as pasilla chilies, tomatillos, cotija cheese and fruit pastes, have become readily available in stores outside of Mexico.
In the cities surrounding the Patzcuaro Lake area, we saw the famous fishermen using their immense nets, which seemed to fly off into the sky, before sunrise. We tasted to-die-for fish soups, meat stews, tamales and sweets that cooks prepared for [Day of the Dead].
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My love for Michoacan is inevitably tied to its food, but it goes well beyond its kitchens. The first time I went to Michoacan as a little girl, it had such an impact on me that whenever our family planned a trip, I begged my parents to return there. It wasn't only the enchanting cobbled streets, the immense wooden doors framed in cantera stone, the aromas of freshly made breads and ground mountain coffee, or the town squares filled with dozens of home-style ice cream carts and sweets stands, all surrounded with colorful balloons and birdseed sellers. There was something more.
I returned a couple of decades later, as a production assistant for a traveling cooking show. It was breathtaking. As we researched for and filmed foods prepared for Day of the Dead — a Mexican holiday celebrated this week — we traveled from town to town, sampling delicate and simple dishes in the markets filled with fresh ingredients and goodies that women brought in baskets and set down on mats on the floor.
In the cities surrounding the Patzcuaro Lake area, we saw the famous fishermen using their immense nets, which seemed to fly off into the sky, before sunrise. We tasted to-die-for fish soups, meat stews, tamales and sweets that cooks prepared for this occasion.
Foods Of Michoacan Are Forever
Former political analyst Patricia Jinich left her job in a research policy institute to pursue her passion: Mexican food. She is the official chef of the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C., where she heads Mexican Table, a culinary program with workshops, cooking demonstrations and tasting dinners. She lives in Maryland with her husband and three young sons. Read more at her blog, Pati's Mexican Table.
Day of the Dead is one of Mexico's most meaningful celebrations, and Michoacan is a spectacular place to experience it, partly because of its beauty and cuisine, but also because of the richness and depth of its centuries-old traditions.
The Purepechas, also called Tarascos, who remain the predominant indigenous group of the region, believed since pre-Hispanic times that the dead return once a year to visit those they miss. Centuries of intermarriage between Purepecha, Spanish and Catholic Church traditions and ingredients resulted in an eclectic mix of rituals and exquisite foods.
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Last year, a decade after my second trip, I returned to Michoacan to do further research for the culinary program I teach at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. We brought our three young sons, and I was eager to share with them the things and foods I had been fascinated with on previous trips. Yet as soon as we unpacked, it became clear that there was so much more to taste and learn. I experienced new things along with my boys.
After a stay in Morelia, the colonial capital where we tasted traditional and modern spins of Michoacan cuisine, we spent a sweet time in the small town of Santa Fe de la Laguna among a Purepecha community. Some of the women fed us their traditional foods and invited us into their kitchens to teach us how to make those dishes. They also taught our boys, with so much patience and tranquility, how to work with their traditional black and green clay.
Upon our return, I finally realized what makes the cuisine of Michoacan distinctive: its people. Michoacanos are generous, warm, hospitable and caring. No wonder the state is known as the soul of Mexico. And it is a beautiful soul for Mexico to have. The more I cook, the more I am convinced that the food of a place resembles the characteristics of its people. If asked to define in one word the cuisine from Michoacan, I would say soulful.
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In my until-death-do-us-part vow with the food of Michoacan, I shall keep sharing and cooking what I have learned from its cuisine until I am able to go back to explore and eat some more. What's more, if I'm given a license to come back from another world for Day of the Dead, I will happily feast on this menu with the people I love.After a stint in the balmy Yucatan, sweating over blistering salsas and relishing smoky pit-roasted pork, we're now heading west to Michoacán. Abutting the Pacific ocean, the state is often called the soul of Mexico. Fitting, then, that it borders tequila soaked-Jalisco, the wellspring of much of Mexico's culture, and Guerrero, where corn was first domesticated 9, 000 years ago in the Central Balsas River Valley.
Like the Mayans, Michoacán's native Purepecha people didn't just submit to the Spanish, or the Aztecs before them, and today the state is home to one of Mexico's most diverse indigenous populations. This heritage is reflected in the local cuisine, one that, journalist and Mexican food expert Gustavo Arellano wrote, maintains unusually close ties to its traditional kitchen.
What you'll find there is food both rustic and hearty but almost electric in flavor, with more tamales than you can shake a stick at. Dishes like fresh cheese cooked with chili, belly-hugging casseroles made of tamales, and lard-fried
Berta's Michoacan Style Red Enchiladas
Michoacán's cuisine isn't as famous as the primal cooking of the Yucatan or the baroque food of Puebla, but it's just as worth digging into.
Beans and several local mushroom varieties bring a hometown face to the cooking. Michoacán cooks are particularly adept with chayote root, chili seeds, and a local wild green called lamb's quarters, using them all in expected and less-than-expected ways.
As elsewhere in Mexico, the state's geographic diversity lends itself to a bounty of deliciousness. Mountains surrounding a coastal plain ensure plenty of rainfall, which has helped Michoacán become Mexico's top producer of avocados (as much as 92% of the country's crop is grown here). But many more fruits grow around them, such as blackberries, tamarind, and guava, and all make their way into the cooking.
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, a firm, sharp, and salty cow's milk cheese that's grated as a garnish for all kinds of dishes, used as liberally as Parmesan in Parma. The state's hot coastal plain lends itself to ranching, which means cattle for beef and dairy, though pigs are important too, both for carnitas and the state's spin on chorizo, which sings with chile and vinegar.
Aside from the Yucatan, there is nowhere in Mexico so renowned for its tamales as Michoacán. Tamales get weird here, and cooks do things to them that'd be considered unorthodox elsewhere in the country, like serve them with sauce or sour cream on the side, or, gasp!, as a side dish with certain stews. Michoacán tamales often have no filling, and the dough is made not with masa but fresh corn.
, or fresh corn and sugar. The latter are made with a mix of sweet-juicy and starchy corns, creating a texture that is, Diana Kennedy writes, spongy and like British steamed pudding. Uchepos, on the other hand, are served (not stuffed) with cheese and crème fraiche.
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, triangular-shaped versions with savory fillings, served with sauce on the side. What makes them unique, Kennedy adds, is the particular preparation of the corn, which results in a sturdy dough, and the use of the corn leaf for wrapping.
, which are made with rice flour, dairy, and egg yolks for festive occasions. They're found as far east as Puebla and seemingly always enjoyed with a warm beverage like hot chocolate.
And for the leftovers there's casserole. Extra uchepos will get layered in a baking dish, covered with chiles, cheese, and crème fraîche, and then baked. Remember when I said this food was hearty? It's also really good.
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