What to eat on the fifth of May
Puebla is one of Mexico’s great food cities, and its dishes are the natural menu for the day. Here is what to cook, what to order and what to skip.
The food of Puebla
Mexican cuisine is on UNESCO’s list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity (inscribed 2010), recognised as a living tradition built around maize, beans and chile.
Mole poblano
A deep red-brown sauce of dried chiles, nuts, seeds, spices and a little chocolate, served over turkey or chicken. Puebla is its best-known home, and it is a dish for special occasions, usually made in large batches.
Cemitas
A sesame-seeded roll filled with meat, avocado, onion, cheese and chipotle, and often the herb papalo. It takes its name from the roll.
Tinga poblana
Shredded chicken or pork in a smoky chipotle and tomato sauce, piled on tostadas. It is the easiest of these to cook for a crowd: get the recipe.
Chalupas, chiles en nogada and convent sweets
Chalupas are small fried tortillas with salsa, shredded meat and onion. Chiles en nogada, poblano chiles stuffed with a fruity meat filling under a walnut sauce, are a late-summer dish, not a fifth-of-May one. The sweet camote and other candies of Puebla have convent origins.
Sources: UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (inscribed 2010); National Geographic History
A fiesta table
A good party menu has something to dip, something to pile, something to share and something to drink.
- Dip: guacamole and salsa roja asada, with warm tortilla chips.
- Pile: tinga on tostadas, with crema, avocado and queso fresco.
- Sides: Mexican red rice, poblano strips in cream and esquites, corn in a cup.
- Drinks: horchata and hibiscus cooler, for everyone, in big jugs.
All of the dishes above scale up on their recipe pages, and the fiesta planner turns a guest count into quantities.
Tex-Mex and the Mexican table
The yellow-cheese nachos, hard-shell tacos and giant burritos of many US Cinco de Mayo menus belong to Tex-Mex and Mexican-American cooking, which are traditions in their own right. Enjoy them, but a table that also has a regional dish or two, such as tinga or esquites, is closer to what people eat in Mexico.
Whatever you serve, buy from Mexican-owned restaurants, markets and makers where you can.