Week Dos of Food Systems!

The first day of class, Thursday the 13^th of March, we traveled to a small market with a huge variety of fruits, vegetables, cheese, and meat. There we met Oaxacan chef Chivi, our instructor for the next two days. With her we planned the menu for the day: roasted peanuts with chile and garlic, tlayudas with black beans, homemade vegetarian nut asiento, quesillo, cabbage, three types of sauce: red chile salsa with sesame, guacamole, and a green chile sauce, jamaica water, and avocado ice cream with coconut cream, lime, and green mango. We explored the market and bought the ingredients to take back for class. Each ingredient was examined and we learned about its significance to the recipe. After a brief knife skills demonstration and practice session we jumped right in and began preparing the various elements of the dishes. There was much work to do, for each element had many steps. We worked in teams with Chivi guiding and spent about four hours working on the meal. Many techniques were learned – dicing, julienne, using the mocajete (mortar and pestle), sautéeing, roasting vs. dry roasting, and cooking with the comal. Our final meal included the appetizer of roasted peanuts with chile, salt, and garlic and the tlayuda (large, hard tortilla) which we spread with a paste made of oil and a variety of nuts and seeds and topped with black bean paste (black beans cooked with onion, garlic, and avocado leaves), quesillo, and cabbage. The tyluda was served with three different sauces. The salsa was made by roasting chiles and sesame seeds and blending them together using the blender. We also made a guacamole by blending avocado with garlic and onion. The last sauce was made by roasting green chiles and adding some onion and mayonnaise. We also made two toppings for the tlayudas, a sautéed mixture of carrots and onions with oil and a sautéed mixture of corn and an interesting type of fungi that grows on corn plants. The meal was incredible and we could taste all the aspects and different ingredients that we added.  Tasting the meal at all the different stages and levels was a new and exciting eating experience.

The next day we carried on with the skills we learned the day before to try and make mole coloradito with chicken and rice, lime and mint water, and fried plantains with sweetened condensed milk. We worked as teams again on each step of the mole – the chile blend, the bread fried with sesame seeds, the tomatoes, and the sautéed onions. The chicken was cooked in water with garlic and onions and herbs, which created a beautiful brother which we used to cook the rice and also added to the mole when it was blended together. After combining the separate aspects of the mole we added chocolate, oil, and sugar and cooked on the stovetop until it bubbled. The way we prepared the rice was new to us. We first washed the rice, dried it, and then fried it with oil before adding stock and herbs and letting it sit. The plantains were fried in oil and served after the mole, rice, and chicken, which we ate with corn tortillas. The plantains were drizzled in sweetened condensed milk, which added an incredible, sweet flavor. This whole process opened our eyes to new ways of cooking, challenging the idea that there is only one way to do something. We also learned valuable skills in the kitchen through observation and trying things firsthand.

This past weekend we took a short trip to Capulalpam de Mendez, a small rural village a couple hours from Oaxaca center. This was our second time visiting, but this experience was very different from the first. We stayed in the same posada that we had stayed in before and spent the weekend helping the owners cook our meals.

We were greeted with a delicious meal when we arrived mid-morning on Saturday. As we were digesting, we began talking about our plans for comida. We were to make verde de pollo, agua de lima limón, and agua de granada china. Instead of going to a market to acquire the necessary ingredients, we took a walk in the yard. There we harvested many herbs, vegetables, and fruits including hoja de aguacate, epazote, and yerbasanta. We then assembled to prepare the food.

 The process went surprisingly quickly because there were so many hands working. There were many parts to the meal, which all came together to create a dish of mole verde over chicken, rice on the side, a choice of two fruit juices, and of course tortillas. When we were finished gobbling up this delicious meal we began our next project: preparing cacao beans and corn for the molino, or grinding mill, in order to produce the masa necessary for the production of tortillas and the chocolate used to make hot chocolate. We ended the evening with a peaceful walk up to the church, which overlooks the town and the mountains beyond.

We rose early Sunday morning for a walk to the molino with the corn kernels and roasted cacao beans. We watched as these ingredients were ground into two different doughy products. When we returned to the posada, we made the cacao into fun shapes in which it could be stored and later made into hot chocolate, which we got to enjoy. We also made tortillas for our breakfast of empanadas with leftover verde, chicken, and quesillo. It was a wonderful last meal to bid farewell to Capulalpam.

~Lovingly written by Hannah Harrington and Kensey Hanson~