When I was a teenager, my grandfather Agustín Flores Castruita would call me every Saturday morning to let me know exactly which church festivals he would be hitting up that day.
These festivals, in East Austin, Texas, where he lived, were like circuit parties for the neighborhood’s older Mexicans and Mexican Americans. There were concerts, dancing, ice-cold beer, tacos and — his favorite — gorditas de chicharrón. I knew exactly where to find him when I’d arrive: next to the mariachis, with a can of Lone Star in one hand and a gordita in the other, belting out “El Rey” by Vicente Fernández. The song would end, and he’d raise his beer and shout with a loving but almost sad yearning, “¡Mi México!”
Agustín was born in Torreón, a city in the northern state of Coahuila. Five years later, in 1910, his father sold the family’s dairy farm and bought a small farm just south of Austin, moving everyone across the border. Even though my grandfather spent only the first five years of his life in Mexico, he held onto his love of the country.
He’d tell of driving his Ford Model A over the dirt roads between Austin and the Mexican border during Prohibition. Sitting back and smiling, he’d recall the dances he went to, the food he ate and the affordable tequila he’d buy openly at the cantinas — unlike the ridiculously expensive moonshine served in secret at the speakeasies in Austin.
He was my only connection to Mexico, my history and my culture. Both of my parents were born in Texas and worked hard to fit in — to do what they thought was expected of them as an American family. But my grandfather planted a seed in me that could be nourished only by frequent trips across the border. They were never enough: I felt like I was caught between two worlds, one wholly white American, where I felt compelled to fit in, and the other Mexican, where, like so many first- and second-generation immigrants, I didn’t understand how or where I fit in.
What I did understand, though, is that I always felt more connected to the people in Mexico than the people in the United States. Mexico was where I wasn’t the only brown person in the room, where I was surrounded by people who looked and thought and talked like me, who loved the same food I did and who didn’t consider me a foreigner.
When I would go to Mexico, I used to apologetically tell the locals I was American. But they would say, “No, tu corazón es Mexicano.” Your heart is Mexican.
So, in October 2019, I flew to Mexico City, bought a car and set off on the journey that would change my life. I drove more than 25,000 miles and explored 300 cities and towns across all 32 states in search of my connection to Mexico — to find people that looked like me and my family, and to find food like my mom and grandma made.
It turns out that the food I grew up with, what I thought were canonical Mexican dishes, were simply regional, familial adaptations of food that you can find around the country. Dishes like tamales, pozole and mole have an almost infinite number of variations, with the personality and sazón (style and flair) of the cook taking center stage. If I were to ask 10 people to make the exact same dish, each would be different — and delicious — and appreciated and celebrated for it.
In the United States, cookbooks and recipes written by people of color are often labeled “authentic” as a marketing superlative. When I started researching the cuisine of Mexico, I fully bought into that notion and believed that I would find one true version of each dish. I’d drive into a new town and order the same dish over and over again at different restaurants, taking notes on what they had in common and how they differed. Then I interviewed cooks and asked them why they made these dishes the way they did. The answer was very simple: because that’s the way they liked it.
In Mexico, people cook the food they love to eat without any fear of getting it wrong. And just like cooks in the United States, Mexicans use food to celebrate individuality, creativity and diversity.
For The Times, I chose recipes that I felt were essential to my Mexican cooking journey — dishes from vastly different parts of the country — whose ingredients, methods and techniques have made me a better, more creative and fearless cook.
This list is not meant to be definitive. Representing an entire cuisine in 10 dishes is foolhardy, if not impossible. And while I can provide you with a very good recipe for pescado zarandeado from the coastal state of Nayarit, it cannot compare to the experience of eating red snapper just out of the ocean, marinated and grilled over a fire on the beach.
In selecting these recipes, I wanted to offer the regional specialties that I love most, like the tostadas de mariscos from Ensenada — towers of seafood piled onto freshly fried corn tortillas and topped with spicy salsa, avocado and lime juice — or the sweet-tart mole negro from the Oaxacan highlands, made with native chiles. I want you to revel in variations of dishes you might already be familiar with — like chiles rellenos made not from charred poblanos but from dried ancho chiles — and those you may not be, like sopa Tlaxcalteca, a hearty, comforting soup from the state of Tlaxcala, just east of Mexico City. In it, chicken and seasonal produce are simmered in milk to create a velvety broth topped with crispy tortilla strips, fried chiles de árbol, crema and queso.
These are dishes you’d encounter while exploring the puestos (food stalls), visiting food trucks in the heart of a city or dining at your best friend’s grandmother’s house. There is no pretense. There is no righteousness. There is only good food made by people who want you to love it as much as they do. So if your heart races and your mouth waters for Mexican food, our neighbor to the south is but a few recipes — or a quick and inexpensive — flight away.
Rick’s Essential Recipes
Well known in Mexico and the United States, chiles rellenos are most often thought of as featuring charred, batter-fried and stuffed fresh poblanos, but dried chiles are also commonly used. Dried poblanos, called anchos, are similar in texture and flavor to dried apricots but with a smoky, slight spicy finish. Soft, pliable and mildly sweet, they can be stuffed without having to be charred and peeled. (View this recipe.)
This pre-Hispanic dish comes from Mexcalitlán, a small island in the state of Nayarit on the mid-Pacific Coast. Originally, the fish was seasoned with a chile-lime salsa and grilled over a zaranda, a pit made of mangrove wood from which the dish gets its name. But there are many regional variations, using either freshwater and saltwater fish, found along the Pacific Coast as well as inland, in the northern central states. (View this recipe.)
Mole negro is one of the most striking and complex moles from the state of Oaxaca. The color and flavor come from nearly incinerating the chilhuacles negros, the native dried chiles used for the base. They’re then rinsed and soaked to revive their flavor and to remove the bitterness from the charring. What results is a velvety black sauce that’s traditionally served over roasted poultry, but also pairs beautifully with roasted vegetables and fish. (View this recipe.)
Sold in the markets and street stalls of Puebla, chanclas poblanas are made with a slightly flattened, flour-dusted, oval-shaped bun called pan para chanclas which gets its rise and flavor from pulque, a fermented alcoholic drink made from the maguey plant. (Chancla, which means flip-flop or sandal, refers to the shape.) Then, they’re opened and stuffed with chorizo and bathed in a rich tomato-guajillo salsa. They’re messy, but they can be eaten with your hands or a fork and a knife. (View this recipe.)
Sopa Tlaxcalteca, from the central state of Tlaxcala, is a seasonal chicken soup simmered with ripe local produce like corn, carrots, mushrooms, squash and squash blossoms. What makes it special is the whole milk that is added to the simmering broth. It lends a very slight creaminess that accentuates the sweetness of the vegetables and amps up the richness of the chicken stock. There are many soups in Mexico, but this is easily one of the most comforting. (View this recipe.)
These empanadas are very common in the food stalls of the mercados and tianguis (open-air market) in the southern state of Chiapas. A plant native to Mexico, chipilín lends its leaves to stews and salsas, and is mixed into corn masa to make tortillas, tamales and empanadas in the country’s center and south. Adding chipilín to masa lends a subtle herbaceousness that complements the earthiness of the corn. If you can’t find it, spinach, chard or kale is a great substitute. (View this recipe.)
Encacahuatados are mole-like sauces made with peanuts, dried chiles, tomatoes and cinnamon. Traditionally, they are served with chicken and prepared for special occasions, like birthdays and holidays. In Xalapa, a town in central Veracruz along the Gulf Coast, encacahuatados are made with pork, whose richness pairs well with the nuttiness of roasted peanuts in the spicy-sweet sauce. (View this recipe.)
Flor de jamaica is a type of hibiscus flower that is dried and often boiled with sugar and spices to make agua fresca, a sweet-tart beverage found across Mexico. In a savory main, the boiled flowers, which have an almost meaty, mushroomlike texture, are often pan-fried, seared or charred. But here, they’re stewed with dried chiles, cinnamon and sweet potato to make a saucy filling for a gordita — a thick corn patty that’s griddled, split and stuffed. (View this recipe.)
At the beautifully abundant Mercado Negro in Ensenada, Baja California, the clams, mussels, oysters, shrimp and fish that are for sale each day are highly sought after by locals and chefs. Almost more common than street tacos served there are these tostadas, made in stands that sell towers of fresh, raw seafood tossed with squeezed lime juice and topped with a number of different housemade salsas. (View this recipe.)
One of the best food experiences you can have in Mexico City is walking up to a sidewalk taco stand late at night and smelling the incredible aroma of meats and vegetables simmering in a huge pot over a gas flame. The taqueros start early in the day and add meats like suadero, pork, offal, tripe, chitlins, pig and beef feet, chorizo, onions and chiles into a giant pot, where they cook until the meats fall apart and the flavors fuse together in perfect harmony. On the menu at many of these stands, tacos campechanos include a little bit of everything in those pots. (View this recipe.)
A plant-based breakfast or midday snack sold in the streets of Oaxaca, tamales de rajas y queso rival pork- and chicken-filled tamales in their appeal. Unlike their corn husk-wrapped northern cousins, these tamales feature charred banana leaves, which give them a roasted, almost vegetal flavor. The masa is then pressed on top before it’s filled, sauced and wrapped. (View this recipe.)
