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Gastronomy
Desserts
If foods had aristocratic titles, those with the noblest lineage in Oaxacan cuisine would be, without a doubt, desserts. Recipes for biscuits, buns, confections, jellies, cakes were closely kept before, jealously preserved in ancient manuscripts in the shelter of abbeys and convents.
Speaking of desserts, there is a curious observation that makes us reflect on the idea that a reciprocal influence exists among the contemporary artistic phenomenon of a period of time.
It is known that in the 17th century, the architectural style of churches and convents, appearing in large numbers in New Spain, was very excessively decorated, corresponding to the period’s architecture. The portals displayed the sumptuousness of highly ornamental columns, spires and frescos, but the most magnificence was seen in the altars and altarpieces of carved wood covered with gold leaf. Hundreds of egg whites were needed in order to apply the thin gold lamina, and of course, an equal number of yolks were left over.
These leftovers had to have arrived to convent kitchens, where the nuns in charge of them used all their ingenuity to be able to turn them into delicious desserts.
So, we can affirm that Mexican Baroque is not exclusive to architecture of those times, but because of the necessary connection between the different artistic forms in the same period, desserts of that time were Baroque, as well. So, it does not surprise us to find multitudes of recipes recommending the use of one or two hundred egg yolks for the preparation of sweet dishes.
Recipe books of the Oaxacan convents were the chests that kept this culinary heraldry, and from there, passed down and enriched by passing from one hand to another, they arrived to our own, making us marvel at the beauty of the calligraphy, or the ingenuity of their expressions: you will knead the dough until it is as soft as the tip of the ear, let it cook the length of time it takes you to say the Lord’s Creed, you will put spices and other nice things in it.
To try to make a classification, the desserts would have to be separated in two initial groups: those made with sugar and those made with unrefined sugar. The first are the oldest and the only ones appearing in the first culinary constancy. Their importance was such, that when going over conventional gastronomic texts, desserts occupy first place insofar as their number of ingredients and richness.
During the entire last century and the first years of this one, the dessert that stood out most in Oaxacan confection was one by the name of antes. This is a dessert that is not frequently made these days, in spite of the fact that its preparation has been simplified through the years. This, surely, because Oaxaca, like the rest of the country, has felt the influence of other kitchens, that improperly imitated can combine our culinary physiognomy.
Antes are a dessert having many variations. They are usually made of indistinctly named marquesotes and mamones (cakes made of eggs and rice flour), though there actually is a marked difference between them. These were soaked in a cinnamon syrup and citrus blossom water and placed in layers alternating with mammee, milk curd, chickpeas and sapodilla. Variations may include wine, eggs, flavouring and others.
The immediate foregoer of ante is the manjar real (royal titbit), with various recipes for it frequently appearing in the same book. It coincides with the ante in the syrup, marquesotes, almonds and cinnamon, though it calls for, as a general rule, ground chicken breasts, ingredients, which only got lost if it was for Friday. Similar desserts are papin, plato royal, manjar blanco and pastel nevado, which contain all spices.
The manjar real could seem, at first, a difficult recipe for present day tastes as a result of the rarity of including meat in a frankly sweet dish. Nevertheless, the idea that during Lent, an excellent time for desserts, daily fasting had to be compensated for by including some healthier and more nutritious ingredients. This gave way to abuse, as related in a social chronicle from Madrid, dated March 20th of 1599, in which they mention that King Felipe III attended a supper in the home of the Count of Benavente and His Highness and the ladies were served a large selection having, more than anything else, a mixture of sugar in meat dishes, which is not strange in this day and age, and people frequently ask for sugar to be grated over many salty dishes - remember that sugar was not granulated, but in chunks in those days. Even in contemporary Oaxacan cuisine, it is customary to season picadillo (ground meat dish) or chiles rellenos (stuffed chillies) with additional sugar, in spite of the sweetness of the raisins and banana. Sugar is often sprinkled over mole negro (black mole) as well, even though it is already sweetened by its chocolate content.
At the present time, we eat the simple capirotada, which is a lowly descendent of regal ancestors. Marquesotes were replaced by cold bolillos (white bread rolls), the syrup substituted by honey, the almonds by peanuts, and chopped onion and tomatoes in place of the chicken, but preserving the cooking procedure. In the old days, it was made in an oven or a covered pot with embers both over and under it. At the present time, they are made without baking, preparing them directly on the plate on which they are going to be served.
The manjar real could be the historical connection with which we link the relationship between Felipe IV’s royal book and our present recipes for desserts, passing through that of Juan Altivaras, from the Rosa Book Store in Paris, as well as the numerous little books of nuns in the Oaxacan convents we have already mentioned. In effect, there is a dessert of Felipe IV called bollo de vacio that we feel could be the takeoff point. This recipe contains syrup, cinnamon and almonds with which a thick paste is made and alternated with layers of puff pastry and baked in the oven.
Later, as manjar real, white chicken meat is incorporated to compensate for the prolonged fasting during Lent. Leave it as something of both creeds - the royal cook advises us - and remove it rapidly with a cloth and put it on a plate, because if you are not careful, the syrup sticks and you can’t get it out without it falling to pieces.
In spite of the differences between the postre real and the contemporary antes, as we have already said, the puff pastry is substituted with marquesote, and the varieties increase in their spice content and filling. A remote relationship to the first, more than to the others can be seen, explaining these differences if you consider that between the bollo de vacio of 1623 and the almond ante of 1982, three and a half important centuries have gone by.
Ounces, pounds, almudes (ancient land and grain measure), cuartillas (measure of capacity of 13.87 litres), tlaco or half tlaco (ancient Spanish coin) were units with which sugar, anise, almonds, cinnamon, citron blossom water, flour, lard or milk were measured, to concrete the magic formulas that would later turn them into cajetas de rosa, buñuelos de jeringa, alfajores, huevos, moles, leche frita, jiricaya, jamoncillos and molletes, in an endless, cloying, syrupy relationship.
From among the delicacies that have been lost, the absence of rose sherbet must be lamented. This was a typical French-like dessert describing the romanticism of the start of the century very well. This consisted in an almond sherbet to which colouring was added and essence of rose imported from France. It was served in crystal glasses sprinkled with rose petals.
Speaking of flowers, the gentleness of Oaxacans must admirably mentioned when, they decorate arches, carts, and baskets with multicoloured blossoms. Or when they shape stars and doves from white flowers. When they string together the purple versions, to convert them into welcome garlands. Or when they give out red posies signifying a bride’s virtue. When cemeteries soak the yellow ones with tears, while God never Dies is heard. But this gentleness goes beyond that. Oaxacan people eat flowers. Rose petals in sherbet, bean blossoms in mole, squash blossoms in turnovers, cocoa flowers in tejate, cacalosuchil flowers in atole, carnations in conserves and gardenias in horchata. Only people with imagination and poetic feeling are capable of eating this way.
The second group of desserts to which we have referred are the sweets in which unrefined sugar is used. These are the cheapest and most popular sweets. Some writers, who have taken the care to point out agricultural products from the colonial period, insist upon mentioning the important sugar cane production in the regions of the Valley, Cuicatlan and Tehuantepec. It would not be risky to suppose that unrefined sugar was already being used in the preparation of popular sweets, but surely, because of its humble origin, it was not considered worthy of mention in the period’s gastronomic manuscripts. Unrefined sugar did not start to figure until the start of the 19th century, with the incorporation of vernacular ingredients to the kitchen of affluent classes. The aforementioned Gage, upon pondering the riches of the Valley of Oaxaca, mentions that there are haciendas where sugar cane is cultivated, and when an abundance of good fruits is added to that, the city of Oaxaca is famous for making the best sweets and confections of all America.
Unrefined sugar gave place to many variations, such as twisted charamuscas, condumbios, palanquetas, trompada, pepitorias and many others that our grandparents used to delight in when they were children. Syrup made of unrefined sugar has also been a perfect accompaniment for pumpkin, chilacayote, haw fruit, chickpeas, and serrana apples.
Some Oaxacan desserts are made especially for certain occasions, for example, Corpus turnovers that are eaten during this religious celebration, the tamala pumpkin for Day of the Dead, and the doughnuts made for the Night of Radishes. A custom exists of improvising stands for eating the doughnuts sprinkled or covered in unrefined and coloured sugar, on simple clay plates. When one finishes eating, he breaks the plate. It seems that this custom comes from the past century when there were a lot of cholera epidemics and the municipal authorities took the measure to prevent spreading the disease.
Ejutla figures are made of sugar for the Day of the Dead. They have a honey with wine inside them and are made in the shape of lyres, shoes, hats, hearts, etc., and decorated with leaves and flowers, making them even more of a delicacy.
At the present time, the most popular sweets are sold on some street corners, in the markets and portals of the main square. They are the survivors of that old confection nobility whose weapons were carefully kept in convent kitchens and Oaxacan homes during hundreds of years. Svelte collapsible trays hold the fragile merchandise. Our folkloric painters have moulded the gaznates’ cylindrical contours, the pink and white delicateness of turrones (nougats), the coin-shape of nenguanos. Cocadas, tortitas, carlitos, empanadas de Corpus, roscas, mamones, casquitos and egg tortillas are cared for by the incessant movement of the feather duster in the hands of the merchant, shooing away the wasps.
Candied fruits are also commonly consumed. Orange, pineapple, pumpkin, yams, limes stuffed with coconut, sweet potato jam with pineapple, rice pudding, mostachones (small sugar buns made with almonds, sugar and spice), meringues, lechecillas, gollorias, and tamarind balls.
Tomato sweets, alegrias, and nicoatole, our corn mousse, are also big favourites.
There are desserts having their own personality in the interior of the State. The canario tamales from Huajuapan are outstanding. They are delicate, made with rice flour, butter and egg yolks, filled with a consistent lechecilla. The shatos, jamoncillos and ticutas from Juxtlahuaca are exquisite as well. Shatos are triangular cookies made with corn dough and unrefined sugar. Jamoncillos are sweets made of pumpkin seed and ticutas are a very old dessert consisting in a cookies in the shape of a four-leaf clover, filled with coconut paste and cinnamon and sprinkled with sugar, tinted a magenta colour. It is made with commercial tint these days, but it used to be tinted with cochineal dye.
A regional speciality is the small refresquitos, or oven fruit. They are small bread shapes made of wheat flour in the form of stars, leaves, worms, round, ducks or flowers, and can only be savoured on very special occasions, like baptisms and solemn meals.
Sherbets deserve a special comment. Their tradition goes back to a time when ice was not to be found and sleet had to be brought from the Sierra or San Felipe and stored in deep wells in order to keep it for some time. Ana Garcia de Cruz, retired ice-cream vendor, as she calls herself. We are the fourth generation of ice-cream vendors. My grandmother used to tell us that she would go out to sell her ice cream in the Town Square,. On Sundays, they would set up their wares at the exit of the San Juan de Dios Church, where there were some laurel trees and she would put her containers underneath them. Later, they settled to one side of the current Constitution Plaza, but there were salesmen walking around and selling the ice cream to the people walking in the square. During the Revolution, ice-cream sales were interrupted because of the lack of sleet sellers. Years later, the La Mascota is established, the first ice plant in the Llano district. At the beginning of the century, canutos nevados are created, and which are different from a simple sherbet. These were tin cylinders, which were filled with special sherbet, covered tightly, and place in the icebox with ice and rock salt until they congealed. They were also made in the shape of pears, small cheeses or pyramids to make the occasion even more special. They were served invariably at parties or baptisms, accompanied by carlitos, nenguanitos, turrones or roscas (ring-shaped pastry roll).
With each turn of the churn, incessantly, the ice-cream ingredients congeal. Fruits, jiotillas, and lime rind for the water version; eggs, milk with cinnamon, boiled milk, nuts and vanilla, for the milk version. Everything slowly starts to disintegrate, losing its own substance and turning it, shivering, into the king of desserts.
Remembering the ice-cream men is the same as thinking about a mob of noisy boys leaving school, willing to take part in a flip of a coin, taking a chance on eating prickly pear ice-cream. a frozen watermelon bar, or a snowy canuto (ice-cream stick). Tourists as well, who have reminiscence for the seas in their eyes, and the sounds of other lands on their tongues, have enjoyed the paradise-like fronds of the Alameda square laurel trees before, and now take pleasure in the coolness of the quarrystone wall that surrounds the Soledad atrium, while they enjoy the competition of the ice-cream, gelatto or sherbet.
It is not a mere coincidence that the ice-creams are now situated next to the School of Fine Arts, since the Oaxacan ice-cream vendors continue their schooling in the fine art of making ice-cream from their vantage point in the Socrates Garden.
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