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 Entertainment | May 2005 
In Oaxaca, Every Day Is A Fiesta
 Melanie Lefkowitz - NewsDay.com
Something about Tlamanalli made me say, "This is the best restaurant I've ever been in," before I even tasted the food.
Maybe it was the spacious open-roofed design, centered on a flight of talavera-tiled steps; the women in native dress grinding corn and spices on stone matates; or the complimentary glasses of mezcal (a cousin of tequila) that arrived with a dish of limes and what we later learned were ground-up grasshoppers.
Whatever it was, our meal - a light, flavorful squash-blossom soup, chicken draped in a delicious yellow mole, the still-warm tortillas in a colorfully woven basket - did not disappoint.
Tlamanalli gave us the sense of striking off the beaten path and discovering something special. Who would have thought we'd find such delicious and upscale fare in Teotitlan del Valle, a hot and dusty town an hour east of the bustling Mexican city of Oaxaca? But after lunch, as we walked around the room - part restaurant, part crafts gallery - we spotted a wall of framed articles from gourmet magazines naming it among the best restaurants in the world. One photo showed employees posed with Jimmy Carter.
The way a well-trod destination could still feel undiscovered was part of the magic of Oaxaca, which is flanked by mountain ranges and a rugged stretch of Pacific coast. Its relative isolation from the rest of Mexico has helped it develop a distinct cuisine and culture, which have been drawing travelers from around the world for decades. Lately, Oaxacan cooking, most famous for its seven types of mole (mo-LAY), the subtle and delicious sauces prepared with dozens of ingredients, is making inroads in New York. After trying prepared mole that we bought from a bodega on our corner and in new restaurants like Lucy Mexican Barbecuez in Manhattan, my boyfriend, Anthony, and I traveled to the source. We sampled our first in-country mole soon after arriving in Oaxaca last month. We secured one of the balcony tables at La Casa de la Abuela (Grandmother's House), overlooking the evening life of the zocalo, or city square. Below, musicians serenaded, vendors hawked handicrafts and women sold treats from baskets balanced on their heads.
We ordered chicken with mole poblano, the black mole prepared with chiles, sesame seeds and chocolate, and an almendrado, or almond-based sauce. As we savored our meals, we watched the sunset brighten the façade of the grand Oaxaca Cathedral across the square. Afterward, we joined the locals, tourists, students, backpackers and chain-smoking expats at one of the many sidewalk cafes that line the zocalo, and continued to soak in the festive atmosphere as we sipped our beers.
The following day, we ventured beyond the tourist-friendly zocalo to the city markets. As soon as we stepped inside the Mercado 20 de Noviembre, aggressive vendors pressured us to choose their lunch counters, and their calls trailed us down the dim, crowded aisles. Women roamed the tables selling chapulines - fried grasshoppers, a local delicacy. More than one person told us that those who try chapulines always return to Oaxaca, but we couldn't bring ourselves to do it.
For lunch, we ordered tlayudas, crisp tortillas topped with lettuce, tomatoes, cilantro, Oaxacan string cheese and what we later learned was lard. We loved the cheese, similar in texture to but more flavorful than mozzarella.
We fled to relative indulgence into a chocolate shop across the street. Oaxacans love their chocolate, which they mostly consume as a hot drink. We tried samples of the solid kind made with cinnamon, vanilla and milk. It tasted wonderful, with a chewier, more crumbly texture than I was used to. As we watched workers make batches, a manager explained the process - rather than buy standard chocolate, many Oaxacans special order their favorite recipes, with various proportions of chocolate, sugar and spices.
The impromptu chocolate lesson made us more excited about the Oaxacan cooking class we had signed up for via e-mail, one of two taught weekly by Iliana de la Vega, owner of the popular Restaurante El Naranjo. The six-hour class, in a stained-glass windowed kitchen off the courtyard dining room, took us and eight others through several recipes, including a salsa prepared with smoky chile pasilla that's native to Oaxaca, an airy vanilla flan and a deep-red mole coloradito.
While we cooked, de la Vega discussed the history of Oaxacan food, which began with native people cooking tomatoes and corn on a flat cooking stone, and broadening their ingredients and style with the arrival of the Spanish. She excused herself briefly to greet the Chicago chef Rick Bayless, who had brought a group from the Culinary Institute of America for lunch. After a guided tour of the market, we joined the other cooking students at a table under the orange tree the restaurant is named for, dining extravagantly on the four courses we had helped prepare.
That Sunday, we headed out of the city to the massive market at Tlacolula, a larger, more varied and more festive version of those in Oaxaca. Thanks to our cooking class, we recognized some varieties of chiles, stacked six feet high. Vendors sold everything from plastic-wrapped balls of string cheese to ground spices to live turkeys, baking miserably in the hot sun.
We were surprised to find at least five or six restaurants in the rural mountain community of Cuajimoloyas, where a population of about 1,000 raises goats and donkeys, and cooks over firewood stoves. At one sunny and impeccably clean cafe, breakfast began with painted ceramic bowls of cafe la olla, a light cinnamon-spiced coffee, and sweet, crumbly local bread. Beans and eggs, scrambled with tomatoes and spices, were served with a basket of warm tortillas. It was hearty fare, and we were grateful for it during the 10-mile hike that lay ahead.
Later, emerging from the mountains by car, our final stop was also our reward for that long hike: the beach. The small coastal town of Mazunte was five grueling hours to the south, down a curving cliff road that made us so carsick we wondered if we would ever eat again. But relief - and the ocean - were in sight. We spent the next three days transformed from adventurers to beach bums, trading culinary excitement for wonderfully consistent fare eaten at thatch-roofed cafes with our feet in the sand. Crepes and cappuccino for breakfast, fresh fish and rice for dinner. It wasn't elaborate, but it was delicious. |
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