Puebla, Mexico, is more than the photogenic facades and cobblestone avenues of its colonial past. Amongst the centuries old cathedrals, buildings, and monuments are food traditions that have withstood the test of time and have influenced Mexican cuisine like nothing else.
Today, Pueblan food continues to evolve from a fusion of traditional Pre-Hispanic cuisine and European influenced comfort foods. Award-winning chefs and international powerhouses in global cuisine have poured out of this landlocked state for decades, influencing professional kitchens and menus around the world.
Once you enter the city, it doesn’t take long before you’re confronted with these gastronomic treasures. Fine dining, elote stands, and small family-run restaurants teaming with dedicated local patrons are what you can expect. What’s more, these places are tucked away amongst some of Mexico’s most beautiful architecture.
Mole Poblano, the Dish That Became Legend
Long before Spanish colonizers flooded Latin America with their fanatical desires for gold and power, another military might was dominating Mexico. The Aztecs, with their expanding empire, commanded the trade of goods throughout Central Mexico and beyond. Accompanying this trade was the mixture of food traditions and ingredients used by far-away societies. It was through this sharing of ideas where the term mulli originated. It meant sauce or mixture, but slowly evolved into the word mole.
All moles have a combination of ingredients including ground chiles, seeds, nuts, fruits, and spices that combine into a perfect balance of flavor. Pueblan cooks use chocolate as the main bittering agent. Ultimately, the most important ingredient is patience. Mole can take days to make.
Mole has become synonymous with several cuisines around Central and Southern Mexico. Every region, city, and family has their own recipe, making mole a very expressive dish. Passions run high for it. Mole’s origins lie in an infusion of indigenous ingredients and cooking techniques with the later addition of old Iberian ingredients and cooking styles. These, according to food historian Rachel Laudan in her book Cuisine and Empire, originated in the Moorish traditions of thick sauces in ancient Spain. Another legend tells of a convent where Spanish nuns and their indigenous servants may have taken various ingredients and combined them into a popular sauce.
Regardless of its origins, Mole Poblano emerged as Puebla’s signifying dish and went on to represent the nation’s culinary traditions. Mole Poblano has a rich sweetness to it from the addition of chocolate, along with a balance of toasted chile, nuts, and spices. It’s no wonder the dish came to symbolize harmony between two worlds. Food can be a political symbol after all.
The Goodness of a Pasita
When you take your first shot of the homemade sweet grape spirit known as pasita, you enter another world. Not the ancient Mexico featured in dissertations and influencer blogs, but of the older generations of the working class. Everything from the slender shot glasses known as caballitos to the decorative salty cheese and raisin on a toothpick that adorns its rim speaks to a long forgotten flavor profile of a resilient generation. At La Pasita bar, the original creator, Emilio Contereras Aicardo’s 1960s creation lives on. For a small fee, you can kick back the original and a few other locally made liqueurs while staring at the dusty pictures, knick-knacks, and nostalgia displayed on the bar’s walls.
Chiles en Nogada
Seasonality of Chiles en Nogada is one thing, but searching day and night for a fresh version in the off-season is another. People in Puebla really stay true to traditions and finding this—a Mexican flag resembling battered and fried Poblano chile covered in walnut sauce, cilantro, and pomegranate—in December will be a failure. If you’re in Puebla in September, around their independence day, you will be in luck to try this celebratory dish.
Avenue of Candy
Like every great food culture, Mexico holds sweets to a high standard. Puebla is famous for Camotes de Puebla, a candy made from sweet potatoes and occasionally other fruits and spices. You find camotes de Puebla all over the city. They are sweet and satisfying, with a rich sweet potato flavor that sends you into addiction after every bite.
When you stroll down Avenida 6 Oriente, you travel down a kilometer long northwest to southeast boulevard of candy. Specialty sweets, candies, and street vendors compete for attention until dozens of tourists and local foodies descend into the shops to buy up their products at alarming rates. To come to Puebla and not load up on tamarindo con chile or the brightly colored thin wafers covered in chili powder known as Obleas, is nothing short of a sin.
Tasting Tradition in Puebla
It would take a month to visit all the city’s best restaurants. Then another year to get a good handle on its street food. One restaurant that should be on your list as an introduction is Maiz Criollo. The tiny, unpretentious eatery has a simple menu with traditional Pueblan comfort foods like picaditas, pozole con huitlacoche, and chalupas with chapulines (grasshoppers). They specialize in blue maiz, or blue corn, which is the base for their dishes. Corn is the backbone of Mexican cuisine and Maiz Criollo honors it in every way possible.
Puebla’s Streets and Pulque
Wandering around the city’s cobblestone streets after delighting in everyday feasts, you may come under the food-coma induced spell of the city’s architecture. Colorful facades dimly lit by streetlights. The aged walls cracking, exposing centuries of secrets and political movements. In Puebla, you can almost feel the history within everything.
At the end of a night walking the city’s streets, what better way to honor the past than to sit down at one of the many drinking establishments that serve pulque, the traditional agave alcohol from antiquity that has gained infatuation around the world. At Pulqueria Calavera Coyote, you can wash down your meals with a few glasses, sitting amongst locals discussing politics and sports. From here on out, Puebla’s infectious nightlife will take over.
Mexico’s Heartland
Few can argue that Central Mexico, specifically Puebla and neighboring Cholula, should be everyone’s introduction to the country. Far away from the all-inclusive resorts of Cancun or Cabo San Lucas, the true identity of the country, thrives. Puebla’s history, culture, and gastronomy are a must for anyone wanting to truly experience Mexico.
