Northern-Style Chorizo (Mexican Fresh Sausage Mixture)
Some of my earliest ranch memories are of the butchering/cooking sessions that followed every time we slaughtered a hog. This was always cause for celebration because all the women of the ranch congregated in our kitchen to help, laugh, and gossip, and everyone got...
Grill-Smoked Meat (Carne de chango)
Carne de chango or carne de mono literally means “monkey meat.” Some say that at one time this famous smoked specialty of the Catemaco area was made from local monkeys. That’s as may be –- the only monkeys now left in the region are a colony of Asian macaques imported...
Marinated Pork Strips (Cecina enchilada)
In Spanish and Mexican cooking, cecina can refer to many jerky-like or salt-cured meats. In Oaxaca it usually means long, thin pork strips almost like ribbons of meat, allowed to air-dry for a few hours before being pan-broiled. Sometimes cecina is seasoned just with...
Slow-cooked Pork Yucatán-style (Cochinita pibil)
My fondest memory of this dish comes from a course on Regional Mexican Food at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone when they invited Silvio Campos, an indigenous Mayan that stood at most 4′ 9″. He prepared this in a specially dug pit and served...
The many lives of Zarela Martínez
Culinary legend Zarela Martínez introduced finely tuned, highly researched regional Mexican cuisine to a national stage, and has continued to blaze trails for more than three decades.