Michoacán: Morelia and beyond

We just returned from the Michoacán Cuisine and Monarch Butterfly Tour run by Susana Trilling of the Seasons of My Heart Cooking School. I rank the Day of the Dead tour in Oaxaca with Susana, which I went on about five years ago, as one of my all time favorite vacations and I have wanted to do another tour with her since. This was the first year SOMH has offered a trip to Michoacán. There has been some turbulence in parts of the state of Michoacán in recent years (though things are calmer currently) and I thought this would be a good region to see with knowledgeable local guides. After two of Susana’s tours, I highly, highly recommend the Season’s of My Heart excursions. I’ve had two unforgettable, jam-packed, food-filled trips with them. Interestingly, many people who do the tours aren’t that into food (though I’m guessing the majority are) but just find the cultural/historical/art components to be worth it (boggles the mind, I know).

This was my first exposure to the foods of Michoacán (aside from neighborhood taquerias). Several LTHers have written about the cuisine of this region. I am looking forward to seeking out this type of food in Chicago guided by their posts.

ISO places serving food from Michoacán

David Hammond’s Beyond the Burrito article from The Reader

NPR story on foods of Michoacán


Morelia:
Morelia is the gorgeous capital city of Michoacán. The historic center is loaded with Spanish colonial buildings made of pink stone (some of it a little more tan from vehicle emissions). I usually don’t take so many pictures of the architecture but here, I just couldn’t help myself—I especially loved the blue tiled cupola on the cathedral.








San Miguelito:
The welcome dinner for the course was held at Restaurante San Miguelito and hosted by the owner Cynthia Martinez. The restaurant is at least as noteworthy for the décor as for the food. We enjoyed an appetizer platter with aged Cotija cheese, cecina (dried beef) and an orange avocado salsa and the chiles rellenos with shrimp. The restaurant is a series of themed rooms crammed with Mexican art and antiques. We really liked the Rincon de las Solteronas (meeting place of the old maids) where single people can pray to the 700+ upside-down statues of San Antonio, write out their requests in a log book and complete a ritual which will (theoretically) help them find mates.

Rincon de las Solteronas, San Miguelito





Inmaculada:
Susana took us to a church with a ‘food court’ of sorts in the basement. We heard many different stories about how the place got started. The story I liked the best is as follows: an energetic young priest joined Immaculada when it was a tiny church in the “Zona Roja” (red light district) of Morelia. The priest started bartering with congregants (e.g. ‘if you can’t stop drinking for a week, you owe me one full day of labor’) and with his ‘winnings’ began to rebuild the church. One of his projects was an outdoor food market held outside the church. This was so successful, they were able to build a huge, modern church with a space for the food market in the basement. Apparently the food is prepped during the day in a central kitchen and people come finish the cooking at night when the market opens around 7 pm. You buy tickets at the counter and then exchange them for food and drink.


Some of my favorites items included:

Pambazos: a type of Mexican sandwich bread (made with lard) stuffed with meat and onions and dipped in guajillo chile sauce, then fried in oil and stuffed with refried beans, lettuce, cilantro, onion, salsa, crema and sprinkled with cheese.




Buñuelos (fried dough, pictured mojados or ‘wet’ with syrup) with fried quesadillas in the background.




We also enjoyed the enchiladas and various aquas frescas. This was a cool place with great food (esp. the pambazo) not to be missed if you are in Morelia.


LU at the Hotel Casino:
Chef Lucero Sotero from Restaurante LU is a friend of Susana Trilling’s. She sat down with us during our incredible meal and explained the origins and components of each meal at the restaurant. The restaurant is across from the Zocalo/cathedral and we sat underneath the portales to enjoy the weather and people-watching. We sampled the Michoacán and Cotija cheese menus. The food was terrific and the presentation very inventive. She paired the courses with a tamarind margarita (made with some type of local sugar cane liquor—can’t remember the name) and some surprisingly good Mexican wines (the Casa Madera shiraz, in particular, was great). At the start of the meal, we enjoyed both bread and tamalitos de harina (little tamales with wheat flour dough)



View from the restaurant at night


Tamarind margarita:


Pre-Hispanic plate: Churipo (a Purépecha beef and chile soup) topped with a masa crust, corrunda (Michoacán cone-shaped tamal—“a tamal, only better”), tzirita, taco sudado (an incredible tamal-like creation with mushroom huitlacoche, zucchini flower and Jamaica—I could have eaten 10 of these).



Tostadas: Patita (pig foot), chile peron (also known as chile canario or manzana) and Jamaica accompanied by a salad of lettuce, orange and blackberry.




Cotija salad with mushrooms, pumpkin seeds and candied jamaica: Cotija is a hard Mexican cow’s milk cheese. Traditionally, the cheese is aged only briefly (6 months or so) but more recently, they have been aging the cheese longer in cavas. We visited the cotija region (more on that later) to learn about how the Cotija is aged. The “cotija” we get in Chicago is nothing like the cheese we ate in Michoacán (which was like a slightly sharper, tangy version of parmesan).




Chile en Nogada with macademia sauce and an enchilada roja.



Lamb with Morisqueta (the Mexican version of risotto—rice with cheese and crema). Probably my favorite dish of the night (well, up there with the taco).




Ate de queso: Guava and cheese ice cream with guava paste and whey gelatin. This was delicious though I could have done without the gelatin.




Overall, a fabulous meal. And Lucero was a very engaging, warm host. I had to exercise a lot of self-control not to sneak back there and order some more lamb chops


Fonda Marceva:
This is an excellent restaurant serving regional fare from Michoacán in the historic center. We ordered the buffet (actually a variety of dishes covering most of the menu served family-style. They brought out so many dishes, I basically lost track of what I was eating. But the food was fabulous and spicy! Some highlights (and new to me dishes) included uchepos (fresh corn tamales—similar to Ecuadorian humitas but a little drier), toqueres (essentially Johnny cakes) with cheese and cream, appoareadillo (dried beef with bits of egg in a chile sauce), beef adobado, pork in a green chile pipian sauce and longanisa (sausage) in a tomato/chile salsa.

Full plate at Marceva


Uchepo:


Beef adobado


Apporeadillo


Longanisa




Gaspacho:
Prior to our meal at Marceva, we enjoyed a snack of fruit gaspacho featuring mango, oranges, cucumber, onions, chile and lime. We saw gaspacho stands mainly in Morelia and Patzcuaro, though I’m sure it’s found around other locations as well.





I'll post on other aspect of the trip a little later...

edited for spelling, grammar

During the tour, one day was devoted to a class in traditional pre-Hispanic Purépecha (one of the main indigenous groups of Michoacán) cooking held at the Colegio Culinario. The owner and instructors at the cooking school were incredible hosts and fed us with a terrific chilaquile breakfast prior to our marathon cooking class.
The instructor for the class, Benedicta Aleja Vardas, has won the Encuentra Cocineros Tradicionales de Michoacán (a traditional cooking competition for the state of Michoacán) for all seven years of the contest’s existence (some years winning both 1st and 2nd place). This year, she was given a lifetime achievement award so someone else could have a chance. This was an incredible class. Benedicta and her daughter Graciela traveled 2 ½ hours from their village with all their cooking implements including a wood-burning stove, metate, her ceramic comal dusted with calcium oxide(which helped her win her first cooking prize) trivets made of corn leaves, cazuelas, etc. This was not ‘fast-food’ by any means—everything was ground/pounded on the metate, mixed by hand and almost everything was cooked over the wood stove (a couple things were cooked on the cooking school’s gas stove for lack of ‘burners’ on the wood stove).
Colegio Culinario


Excellent chilaquiles at the Colegio


Cooking class prep


Wood burning stove with comal and metate



The dishes we sampled included:
Mole de Queso (made with ancho negro chiles fresh cotija cheese)

Toasting the chiles



Atapacua de pipian (Atapacua is the Purépecha word for a type of stew/thick soup in this case thickened with pumpkin seeds). This dish also featured guajillo chiles, onion, cilantro and cabbage. You know it's done when you can stand a spoon up in the dish without it falling over.





Atapacua de queso (also made with guajillo chiles and cotija cheese, in this case thickened with dried corn ground on the metate). This dish featured a component called tzirita that was really interesting to me. To make the tzirita, Benedicta toasted the chile seeds on the comal, then added a little water and ground them on the metate with cilantro, onion and raw tomatillos. Grinding on the metate, I have found, is not so easy. Unless I spend a lot more time at the gym pumping iron, I will attempting to replicate these dishes with the aid of my Cuisinart. The tzirita was delicious on it’s own and really enhanced the flavor and texture of the atapacua.




Guisado de huaras con bistec (Chayote root stew with beef). I’m not sure where to find huaras (chayote root) in Chicago but this dish was amazing (hard to rank but probably my second favorite).






Quelites (lambs quarters). Benedicta listed this as her favorite dish that she makes and I’d have to name it as my favorite, too. She sautéed sliced onions, added briefly boiled quelites, then added a mix of ground roasted tomatillos, tomatoes, toasted chiles as well a chopped cooked tomato. This dish was amazing—who would have thought a green vegetable could taste this good.





As a grand finale, she made hand-made (and I mean hand-made) tortillas with blue, red and white corn. We had incredible tortillas throughout Michoacan, generally made from Nixtamal (freshly ground dried corn) rather than from reconstituted masa harina. But these were the best. Benedicta removed the corn from the cobs and ground the corn on the metate herself the morning of the class, then hand pounded/flattened the tortillas (no press). This was a lot tougher than it looked



Guess which tortilla I made…



Full plate:

Pátzcuaro:



Pátzcuaro is a charming city about an hour from Morelia. Many cities in Michoacán end in the suffix –cuaro, the Purépecha word for ‘place of’ (I learned this trip that –acan means ‘place of’ in Nahuatl and –tepec in Zapotec). No idea what Patz means.
Susana arranged a tour with Cristina Potters, an American ex-pat based in Morelia.
We had terrific corundas filled with cheese, topped with chile peron salsa and crema. I loved the gorditas de nata (cream gorditas) which tasted kind of like a creamy biscuit.

Corundas in Pátzcuaro:





Tamales de harina (whole wheat tamales). These tasted like a bran muffin. Not my favorite but they look pretty.






Market shots:



Gorditas de nata (small, stacked English muffin-like things in back)



Cheeses



"Red potatoes"--we were offered a sample of these potatoes which can be eaten raw. Starchy, crunchy, not bad--more of a vehicle for lime and chile.



Is there such a thing as too many pig head pictures?

Erongarícuaro

Alma Cervantes, a culinary investigator (at least I believe that’s how her title translates) who teaches at the Colegio Culinario took us on a one-day excursion to Erongarícuaro, not far from Pátzcuaro. Alma is from Sinaloa but now works in Morelia. She has written a book on the culinary traditions of Michoacan and it was great to get to her pick her brain about the food of the region. We stopped for breakfast at some of the stands in the zocalo.






This quesadilla was one of the best things I tried on the trip. It was handmade with fresh masa and filled with a spicy chicken tinga.



Quesadilla prep (the one in progress with hotdogs wasn’t ours).



Then we had a cooking class with Calletana Nembo Rangel. She was one of twelve Mexicans (and the only woman) who went to Colombia to learn how to set up a biodigestion apparatus that converts pig poop into biofuel. She teaches all over Mexico on how to construct the apparatus. An Illinois agricultural group tried to arrange for her to come here to teach this but she was denied a visa. She uses the biogas to power her stove and water heater. She is an absolutely lovely woman with a great sense of humor and we had a great time in her kitchen and later in her courtyard enjoying the fruits of the cooking class.

Pigs



Biodigestor apparatus



Kitchen (note the black hose going to the kitchen stove—it comes from the biodigestor)





Here’s a Youtube video with more shots of the biodigestor and real jazzy music


Wood-burning stove in Calletana’s kitchen.





Calletana showed us how to make corundas


1 lb of lard plus a couple spoons of baking soda (you just know they’re gonna be good).



With several pounds Nixtamal (freshly ground maize) added



Masa spread over the metate, topped with frijoles



Forming the corundas with corn leaves (not husks): Calletana showed us how to make 3-point and 5-point (pyramidal) corundas. I’m not sure how many points mine had—it was a challenge to keep the filling in the leaves.



She also showed us how to make churipo, a Purépecha beef soup with chiles.

Really fantastic posts and amazing looking food. Very inspiring, although I doubt I'll be crushing my own dried corn anytime soon. I've tried dishes with a stew mixture topped with masa crust before and loved it . . . something I'll need to try one of these days. Thanks for sharing.

Wonderful photos! Looks like an amazing trip!

You made a grey, dreary day a whole lot brighter, wonderful post, really informative. How's the charcuterie?

Thanks all! I have a few more towns to post on (but first I'm making myself get some work done )

mbh wrote:How's the charcuterie?

Just took the first jowl down--looks great. I'll post on the guanciale thread after I cook with it.

thaiobsessed wrote:Thanks all! I have a few more towns to post on (but first I'm making myself get some work done )

Amazing series of posts, quite remarkable.

Great post. You mentioned chayote and asked where you might find it in Chicago. It's pretty common in Mexican grocery stores, but is also used in Cuban, Puerto Rican and other Latin American cooking. If all else fails (which shouldn't be the case) they always used to have it both fresh and frozen at La Unica.

JeffB wrote:You mentioned chayote and asked where you might find it in Chicago. It's pretty common in Mexican grocery stores, but is also used in Cuban, Puerto Rican and other Latin American cooking

I've seen chayote (I'm not a big fan--the texture is a little watery for me) around town but not huaras, the chayote root. Have you seen the root fresh/frozen?

edited to add that I'm not sure if the word 'huaras' is spelled correctly or a less commonly used (?Purepecha) word for chayote root. A google search reveals the word Ichintal for chayote root.

thaiobsessed wrote:

JeffB wrote:You mentioned chayote and asked where you might find it in Chicago. It's pretty common in Mexican grocery stores, but is also used in Cuban, Puerto Rican and other Latin American cooking

I've seen chayote (I'm not a big fan--the texture is a little watery for me) around town but not huaras, the chayote root. Have you seen the root fresh/frozen?

Sorry, I meant the root. But now that you mention it, I can only say with some certainty that I've seen the root at Caribbean spots, including La Unica. My in laws use it in the classic Cuban soup ajiaco, which is like what's called sancocho in other Caribbean countries. Call first; I haven't been for a while.

One of our overnight excursions from Morelia was to the northeast part of the state of Michoacan, around Zamora. .
On the way, we had fabulous carnitas at Carnitas Aeropuerto. The carnitas were fabulous and I got this cool apron. I did not eat the esophagus but the ribs and shoulder were delicious.









The state of Michoacan is known for it’s sweets and we stopped at L’Esperanza, one of the famed sweet shops of Zamora. I generally find this stuff a little too sweet but I really enjoyed some of the coconut-based treats (especially their version of coconut-stuffed lime). Zamora is famous for a desert called Chongos—milk with rennet added which is cooked slowly with cinnamon and sugar. I have to say, neither of the two versions of this dessert did anything for me (even the homemade version I tried the day after we were at L’Esperanza).







Chongos


Zamorra cathedral


Cotija cheese is a raw cow milk cheese produced in the Jalmich region of Michoacán (Cotija is the name of the regions largest town). The cheese I’ve had labeled “cotija” in the U.S. is nothing like what I tried in Michoacan. The state has created ‘region of origin’ (sort of equivalent to DOC classifications) for many products including cotija cheese and cotija producers have started aging the cheese in cavas for longer periods. I really enjoyed the aged cotija cheese—nothing subtle about it, it’s got a wonderful sharpness. Esteban Barragan, one of our guides for this region, is a professor of rural sociology and comes from a long line of cotija cheese makers. He promotes the region of origin label for cotija and he took us on a tour of the cheees cavas. Their cheese won 1st place at an Italian cheese show in 2006.





Local cheese marker Jose Luis and his wife Helida welcomed us into their home for some of the best meals of the trip. For cena, we had a chicken in creams sauce made from fresh cream from their cows and a delicious homemade requeson (ricotta) dish made with sautéed onions and peppers. The following day, Helida made incredible chilaquiles and a nopales and egg dish for breakfast. To make the chilaquiles, she sautéed some onions in oil and added fresh tortillas cut into squares until golden. Then she blended together tomatoes, garlic, fresh onion, a bay leaf and crema in a blender and added the mix to the chilaquiles (sometimes she adds chipotles but she left them out that day)—topped with some fresh cotija, they were fabulous.



Their chihuahua was looking through the window enviously while we ate...


During our trip to this neck of the woods, we stayed in the town of Tinguindin. I really enjoyed their Sunday market. I had a great pre-breakfast of tacos and blackberry atole.

Chicharrones at the Tinguindin market


Chiles peron at the Tinguindin market


Breakfast at the Tinguindin market



Tinguindin bread/bakery





We also went to Tocumbo, home of the La Michoacan paleta (popsicle) stores. Paletas were first sold in Tocumbo in the 1940’s and shortly thereafter, in Mexico city; they are now sold all over the world. The town of Tocumbo has become quite wealthy as a result. The peanut paleta freshly dipped in chocolate, then coconut was excellent.

Paleta statue in Tocumbo


Paleta fountain in Tocumbo


Paleta shop




On the way back to Morelia, we had beer and snacks at Lake Camecuaro, a picnic ground next to a lake with lots of restaurants and snacks (and mariachi bands). Sort of like a non-touristy version of the boats in Xochimilco…

Forgot to add, thanks, JeffB, I'm very happy to know there is a place to find chayote root in Chicago.

I keep meaning to make this last post about our overnight trip to the western part of Michoacan to Angangueo and the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary. Every year, monarch butterflies from the United States migrate to this part of Mexico to spend the winter. The site of millions of monarchs flying around is awe-inspiring (and can't really be captured on video/photos but I sure tried).

On the way, we stopped at really cool roadside restaurant, sort of a tacos guisados buffet. They had a traditional wood-fire Michoacan clay stove with 'burners' to keep the taco fillings warm and a comal to make the tortillas. At the end, you tell them how many tacos you ate and they ring you up.

En route to Angangueo
Wood-fired stove







Here is a video of one of the proprietors making tortillas (with quail eggs):





The El Rosario butterfly sanctuary was amazing, AND, as an added bonus, there was a terrific outdoor restaurant featuring steak and homemade blue corn tortillas.

El Rosario butterfly sanctuary






This was just an incredible trip. It would have been a great trip even if the food was bad (and that's saying somethin'!). But, the food was outstanding.

I really enjoyed the videos of the butterflies! Thanks for adding that on to all of that beautiful food!

This is probably my favorite trip report thread of all time, looks like a delicious blast.

Thanks for the magnificent reporting and photos. I've been in Morelia many times (my mother-in-law and various brother and sister in laws live there). Mrs. Trpt and I are planning to move there as soon as we sell our place. I've had many wonderful dining experiences there, and carnitas are a specialty in Michoacan. I'll definitely use your reporting as a guide and I hope fill it out in more detail.

It has come to pass, we are moving to Morelia on July 22, probably get there by the 27th. I'll miss the diversity of Chicago, but I'll be able to report more intensively on all things Mexican.

Wow! Good wishes to you trpt2345! Looks like you are in for good eating and a beautiful country, keep in touch!

LikestoEatout wrote:Wow! Good wishes to you trpt2345! Looks like you are in for good eating and a beautiful country, keep in touch!

Thanks, I spent a lot of time today on the move and I think I've found the mover, a small outfit out of Laredo with one 17 foot box truck with dual license plates. They'll come here to pick our stuff up, store it in their warehouse in Laredo and then when we get settled deliver it all to our door. For about $2000 less than the next best quote. I'm really getting excited. And I'll be able to keep in touch with a lot here through the internet, it's so different there now from what it was thirty years ago when I started going to Mexico, when the phones didn't work, there was no reliable mail service (well, there still isn't but you can do FedEx) and prime time TV in Mexico City included black and white reruns of Combat and The Untouchables or "Los Intocables". Now it's all internet and cell phones and texting and apps just like everywhere else. And if I can get HBO and Bulls games I'll be really happy. My mother in law is a stellar cook although she's getting older, she still likes it when people eat heartily and I try not to disappoint.