Adjacent to Teotihuatlan, the village of San Martín de las Pirámides provides a convenient destination for lunch. Ravenous from so much walking and pyramid climbing, we head for the mercado and some quesadillas. My lunch is cooking in the middle of the comal: quesadillas de flor de calabaza and quesadillas de champiñones (squash blossom and mushroom).
Heaped on the tortillas in the foreground are sesos—brains. Considered a great delicacy by many Mexicans, I've never found them appealing. However, I did sample a quesadilla de panza. The filling is stomach—not tripe mind you—but the actual stomach of some animal. It was quite tasty.
These quesadillas are not made with traditional round flour tortillas. The cook places a blob of masa—cornmeal dough—into this device. As with a pasta machine, she gives a crank a single turn. Rollers press the masa into a thick patty, and a second roller cuts it into an oval shape. It's cool to watch.
She places the masa ovals on her comal and adds cheese along with whatever other ingredients you want: onions, squash blossoms, brains... She ladles copious amounts of oil from the aluminum pot on her left, more in my opinion than is needed to keep the quesadillas from sticking. This is not going to be a low-fat meal.
Her hands move in a blur. She must have served twenty people in as many minutes. Hers is a popular place. Every stool was filled and often customers stood behind in ranks, waiting for their lunches.
Mercado food is a favorite for me. I wish it was even remotely healthy, but it's not. So I only get to eat it on rare occasions. But it tastes sooo good, and dining shoulder to shoulder with an amiable bunch of strangers only adds to the experience.
there it is one more time "the cook book" interspersed with what up north would easily pass for exotic
,colorful on scene fotos
a sure winner, but then,what do iknow?
Posted by: el guapo | 11/25/2009 at 11:21 AM