Mexican markets safeguard and enhance the value of its culinary culture through handicrafts, ingredients, beverages, utensils and a wide variety of recipes interpreted by craftsmen, traditional cooks and chefs.
With the help of Ofelia Toledo Bacha, a traditional cook from Juchitán, Oaxaca, Lucero Soto, a chef from Michoacán, and Jorge Córcega, a chef from Mexico City, the Ministry of Tourism (Sectur) invites people to discover the magic and diversity of the food, seasonal products and utensils Mexico’s traditional markets have to offer,
The markets bring together a variety of ingredients including corn, chili peppers, beans, cocoa, pumpkins, tomatoes and flowers. Depending on the region, producers offer fruits, vegetables and fresh herbs, seeds, insects, meat, fish, seafood or prepared dishes such as tamales, empanadas, atoles and flavored waters.
Ofelia Toledo explained that producers from their communities come to the Central de Abastos in Oaxaca City to sell handicrafts, bread, vegetables and herbs.
“On November 20 at the local market in that area, we found ice creams, horchata, chilacayota waters, tejate, black mole tamales and stuffed chilies. In La Merced market we enjoyed squash blossoms, chepil, squash seeds, and grasshoppers. For breakfast, you can enjoy empanadas made with amarillo or mushrooms with chile de agua that reinforce the flavor of this dish.”
Another region to visit in Oaxaca is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Juchitán is the commercial center where artisans and fishermen with a great variety of shrimp and fish are concentrated. There is also an incredible market with beautiful hand-embroidered huipiles, trajes típicos, and trajes de gancho.
Ofelia Toledo assures that visitors will marvel at the handicrafts, the potters, the clay pieces from Jicaltepec, the comixcales for cooking totopos and zapalote corn (a small cob that resists the winds of the Isthmus). “There are garnachas, mole made from corn, shrimp, mullet roe, magical colors, folklore and a variety of very aromatic flowers including China blossom, coyol and Guiechachi, which in Zapotec means ‘May flower’.”
Originally from Juchitán, Ofelia Toledo always promotes the traditions, culture and cuisine of Oaxaca. She has participated in important demonstrations in Mexico and the United States. “Walking through the markets brings me closer to my origins. The people are concentrated in the Isthmus: Chontal, Mixe, Huave, Zoque and Zapotec. They bring a wide variety of fresh and dry cheeses, curds, corn and cambray tamales, black mole and a pre-Hispanic drink called Bupu that is shared at the mayordomías or masses for the dead.”
For Lucero Soto, Michoacán is an edible map: “Working with producers and doing research to create recipes is fundamental to achieving the goal of sustainability and fair trade. The importance of the markets is incredible. Visitors always want to take a piece of Michoacán with them; of the flavors they are getting to know.”
The monarch butterfly sighting season, which begins with the Day of the Dead celebrations and culminates with the arrival of spring flowers, “Is a journey that leads us to the Zitácuaro Market with its spectacular colors of beans, the corridor of bread with a bolillo roll that I recommend spreading with honey or cream, the pork ham cakes or the green mole tamales with flavors that make the perfect detail to show family and friends the trip we took,” he said.
Tlapujahua is a beautiful town where you can try the Tacos de Cabeza, as well as appreciate the landscape of Cuitzeo.
The San Juan market in Morelia is Lucero Soto’s favorite: “The ash corundas are a delicacy that should be eaten at the market. Freshly cooked, you open the leaf, and you smell the ash, the cream, the cheese. I love the beauty of this space, the warmth of its people, the local and seasonal products such as capulin, quelites, the five varieties of banana, the ladies with their Quesos de Tierra Caliente, chorizo from Huetamo, adobera from Apatzingán and corundas made with chard or carnitas tacos.”
The chef added that the San Francisco market in Pátzcuaro is a journey back in time. On Fridays they barter by exchanging one product for another: “You have to experience a sunrise there. It’s magical because of its mist, its stoves, the Purépecha sound.”
He revealed that the Pátzcuaro market is about to open, selling vegetables, fruit, dried goods, fish and trout, one of his favorite ingredients, as well as corn, hibiscus and chili peppers. “It is important to root ourselves in our traditions, to take care of them, to preserve them and to spread them,” he concluded.
In Mexico City, chef Jorge Córcega invites you to discover the origins of the produce from Milpa Alta, one of the largest areas renowned for its production of nopales, chayote and green chiles as well as the production of clay utensils and the mole de San Pedro Actopan, which celebrates its festival every year. In the past, the farmers would sell half their harvest and use the other half for their daily food.
The Benito Juárez Market in Villa Milpa Alta is a journey through flavors with specialized stalls selling ingredients such as corn kernels and broad beans, as well as sections for dough, tortillas, tamale flour, fruits, vegetables, coal, firewood, snacks such as barbecue, tacos, carnitas, sopes, bread, corn husk tamales, kitchen utensils, traditional braziers, molcajetes, and clay pots and casseroles.
In his recipes, Jorge Córcega integrates endemic and seasonal ingredients like corn, squash, quelites, mushrooms, and prickly pears. Originally from Mexico City, the chef learned to love cooking at home. At the age of 18, he learned to nixtamalize and prepare tortillas from a traditional cook from San Luis Potosí. “In my kitchen, you will find seasonal ingredients: prickly pears in August, capulin in March and October, loquat at the end of the year and chivito, a herb with a cucumber and lemon flavor, in September.”
As crops they harvest peaches, capulin, limes, grapefruit, tejocote, raspberries and herbs such as coriander, epazote, parsley, rosemary, dill and mint.
“The Milpa Route tour begins in the countryside of Santa Ana Tlacotenco where nopales are cut, cleaned and cooked, followed by a San Pedro mole workshop in Actopan, a workshop on nixtamalization and tortillas made with native corn in three colors: red, blue and yellow, as well as a purple-leafed cacahuazintle that is shelled for the production of masa, sopes, ayocote tamale and pinole, along with dishes that are paired with Mexican wine.”
Jorge Córcega explains that the tour of Milpa Alta is an experience based on the richness of Mexican food that recovers the techniques of traditional cuisine and the use of products from the cornfields that surprise local, national and foreign visitors.
Sectur reiterated that Mexico is recognized worldwide for its products, cuisine, ingredients and techniques. In addition, the markets protect producers, cooks, traders and chefs, and in some of these regional spaces, it is possible to live the ancient experience of bartering.
Mexican Press Agency is part of ALMA, which is dedicated to news and information about Mexico and Mexicans in the United States and is a fiscally sponsored project of Social Focus, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Redwood City, California.
