Despite being the smallest state in Mexico, Tlaxcala has a rich gastronomy - a product of its great history - ideal to delight even the most demanding palate. Enjoy it!
Prehistoric men, nomadic by definition, fed on wild vegetables that they gathered and prey from hunting and fishing. Later agriculture tied the men to their places of origin and with this the fires of ephemeral camps were left behind; Then began one of the cultural manifestations that differentiates men from animals and even defines the characteristic profile of one people compared to another: the kitchen.
Although the first news of agricultural crops in Mesoamerica dates back to 6000 BC, it is not until the Preclassic period that the vestiges that refer to the first steps of cooking can be identified. In Tlaxcala, as part of the Central Highlands, the Preclassic is located between 1800 BC. and 100 A.D., and it is during this period that the pottery, that is to say, the clay sculpted with the hands and fired with firewood that becomes junk Y Utensils to cook and store food. Already in the formidable wall paintings of Cacaxtla you can see, among other motifs, corn plants and foods of aquatic origin, such as fish, snails and turtles.
The Tlaxcala people were a people of untamed warriors, and along with their warlike attributes they also showed elegance in speaking the Nahuatl language, a delicacy that in another aspect reached the scope of the kitchen. The brave Tlaxcalans faced the Mexica empire, for which they were geographically isolated; this deprived them of various foods imported from other provinces, such as sea salt and cocoa from the southeast. This blockade forced the Tlaxcalans to develop their imagination even more and thus they learned to take advantage of all local food resources.
The Tlaxcala cuisine It is, like the other Mexican cuisines, a mestizo gastronomy, albeit with a large indigenous dose, but culinary miscegenation could not occur without prior racial miscegenation. The first step was taken by the rulers of Tlaxcala when they arranged for several Indian maidens from the aristocracy of their town, daughters of their own families, to be handed over to be the wives of the conquerors, and thus received the seed and surname of the conquerors. In the homes of those first foreigners and their Tlaxcala spouses, the first fruits of both mestizaciones sprouted: children and stews of a new breed.
The Convent of the Asunción in Tlaxcala It is considered to be one of the first in the American continent and it is very likely that there and in other religious enclosures the miscegenation of Spanish and native cuisines has also developed.
Tlaxcala's colonial history, on the other hand, was plagued by periodic famines and earthquakes. The famines suffered in 1610, 1691, 1697 and others at the end of the 18th century were terrible. The epidemic of 1694 decimated the Tlaxcalans and the flood caused by the Zahuapan River in 1701 was fatal to agriculture. Still without recovering, in 1711 they suffered an earthquake that affected the main viceregal buildings of the city, but the indomitable people never bowed. Its territory was declared a free and sovereign state in 1856.
Tlaxcala is the entity smaller of the Mexican Republic, but it is also the most densely populated. Most of the state is eroded plains cut by ravines and only a few forested areas stand out to the north. In this region of the country the first domesticated food plants were, among others, the pumpkin, the avocado and of course the corn, whose millennial great-great-grandfather, the teozintle, has been archaeologically located in Tehuacan; these foods were added to some wild species of bean, chili Y amaranth. The territorial and ecological limitations of the state have always been a great challenge for its population; For this reason, the Tlaxcalans learned to eat countless species of local flora and fauna.
The universe of indigenous Tlaxcala foods constitutes a long list, generally expressed in nahuatl or in mexicanisms: it ranges from the tlatlapas, the xocoyoles and the nopalachitles, to the huaxmole, the texmole and the chilatole; from the techalote, the tlaxcales and the ixtecocotl, to the teschinole, the amaneguas and the chilpoposo; passing of course through the well-known escamoles, the tlatloyos, the huauzontles and the huitlacoche. This review would be inconclusive if we did not mention the insects that delight the sense of taste: the xahuis or mesquite worms, the worms and weevils of the nopal, the honey ants and the lagoon worms. It would be impossible for this publication to understand such a gastronomic universe; what readers will find is an excellent cross-section.
Tlaxcala cuisine is sharply divided into two regions: the north, whose axis is the maguey (that is: barbecue that is covered with its leaves, mixiotes that are wrapped with the cuticle of the leaves themselves, mead and pulque, chinicuiles or red root worms and meocuiles or white worms of the leaves, the flowers of the maguey or hualumbo and the quiote or stem). In the region south tamales, moles and vegetables prevail.
As in most of Mexico, in Tlaxcala food can be everyday, festive or ritual: the first does not detract from its simplicity; the festive attends social issues that revolve around the cycle of life - baptisms, weddings and funerals - and the ritual is closely linked to the patron saint celebrations of the towns.
Time and place of popular high-quality feasts are these ephemeris, ritual feasts of our town: the third Monday in May by the Virgin of Ocotlán, patron saint of Tlaxcala; on August 15 for the Assumption of the Virgin, in Huamantla, with flowery multicolored rugs; on September 29 by San Miguel Arcángel, in San Miguel del Milagro; and of course the Days of the dead, with their offerings that must first feed the deceased relatives and then their relatives, who enjoying life and the dishes await their turn.
Wheat bread has a prominent place in the festivities and in the region of the maguey pulque seats are used for artisanal baking. Likewise, moles, in their many versions, have a ubiquitous role in festivities of all kinds.
In this magazine readers will find that seed of unsuspected nutritional qualities that is amaranth and that the same appears in the sweet of joy and in the shrimp pancakes, as in an exotic atole. The huitlacoche will be tasted here with your eyes in a cream, in tlatloyos with beans and in mole with pork loin. And other moles will be found, such as colorado and mole de olla al epazote. The astonishing world of tamales here is represented with those of green dough and navel. There is no shortage of dairy products, such as panela cheese from Tlaxco and a cottage cheese with epazote. In addition to appetizers and dishes so native to Tlaxcala such as tlatlapas and mallow soup, the cultural miscegenation of this town will be appreciated through an omelette and mushroom crepes, reminiscent of French, or two Italian desserts –gasnates and meringues– and one more that synthesizes the Mesoamerican with the Arab: pine nut tamales. They could not miss the mutton mixiotes, the barbecue with its drunken sauce (because of the pulque it contains) and the cured pulque.
And the same as the Huamantleca "carpets" that form mosaics with flowers and sawdust of all the colors of the rainbow, so ephemeral, dazzling and wonderful is the gastronomic art of Tlaxcala.
