CULINARY THUMBNAIL

Here are the most notable characteristics of this state's cuisine:

1. mostly arid highland grassland and desert but in the east reaching into tropical lowlands, so much ranchland, irrigated crops, and tropical produce
2. in eastern lowlands, many specialties from the Huastec Indians

TRADITIONAL DISHES TO LOOK FOR

Enchiladas Potosinas; image courtesy of Elsa Garey

• Picadillo -- beef or pig in chili sauce cooked with carrots, string beans, potatoes and peas
• Cecina de Res (in lowland eastern part) -- beef prepared with bell pepper, juice of bitter orange, garlic, salt and pepper
• Gorditas -- there's an amazing variety of them in SLP, including:
  • Bocoles -- cooked biscuit-like items made from cornmeal and lard, and later stuffed with macerated meat, potato, cactus slivers, beans, pig meat, eggs, etc.
  • Chinas -- uncooked biscuit-like cornmeal packets stuffed with mole, cheese, etc. and then baked in a wood-burning oven
• Chiles Rellenos de Queso -- chili peppers with a cheese filling

SWEETS

• Queso de Tuna -- candied fruit of the pricklypear cactus
• Pemoles -- bread items made of corn, egg white, lard, sugar and cinnamon, cooked on a comal
• Dulces de leche de cabra -- sweets made from goat milk

CHEESE

• Queso Guaje -- cheese fermented in a gourd

ALCOHOLIC DRINKS

• Pulque -- mildly intoxicating drink made by fermenting the sap, or aguamiel, of the maguey agave
• Colonche -- fermented macerated cactus fruit and sugar

Information on this page based on material presented in Gastronomía: Atlas cultural de México, 1988, an extensive and well illustrated work by various authors, published by the Secretaría del Educación Pública, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City.