ZACATECAS
CULINARY THUMBNAIL
Here is the most notable characteristic of this state's cuisine:
- semiarid highlands averaging over 7,000 feet elevation, 2200 m, also lots of ranches producing meat
TRADITIONAL DISHES TO LOOK FOR
Enchiladas zacatecanas, with an enchilada being a tortilla folded over some kind of filling and covered with spiky sauce; traditional Zacatecan enchiladas are wrapped around pork or cheese; Copyright-free image made in a restaurant in Zacatecas, used courtesy of "ProtoplasmaKid," and made available through Wikimedia Commons.- Caldo or Cocido -- these are general terms for stews, but in Zacatecas the traditional recipe consists of three kinds of meat (beef, pig and chicken), string beans, garbanzos, small squash, sweetcorn, a bit of rice, onion, garlic and saffron. Upon serving, the vegetables are separated from the stew, and then the dishes are eaten with a great deal of chili sauce
- Gorditas -- biscuit-like packages of cooked cornmeal, lard and salt, stuffed with beanpaste and chili
- Condoches --gorditas made with sweetcorn mixed with cinnamon, milk, sugar and vanilla, cooked atop corn leaves
- Birria -- small chunks of goat or sheep, or both, smothered in chili sauce, garlic, salt, thyme, cumin, black pepper and cinnamon
- Menudo -- cow rumen stewed with chilies
SWEETS
- Capirotada -- white bread fried with slices of bread alternating with cheese, peanuts, potato, nuts and preserved biznaga cactus, all bathed in honey or unrefined brown sugar
- Queso de Tuna -- candy made from prickly pear cactus, sometimes prepared with nuts
- Camote -- the word camote means sweet potato; when a sweet is being referred to, it's a candied sweet- potato cut into bars and wrapped in paper
- Biznaga -- candied cactus of the genus Mammillaria
- Gordita de Cuajada or Gordita de Horno -- a gordita filled with goat-milk cheese that is ground with corn, milk, sugar and cinnamon
ALCOHOLIC DRINKS
- Pulque -- mildly intoxicating drink made by fermenting the sap, or aguamiel, of the maguey agave
- Mezcal -- distilled from pulque
- 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.