BY THE TIME OF COLUMBUS, there were at least 150 plants domesticated in the New World. It's hard to conceive of a world without corn, beans, squash, tomatoes, chilis, peppers, potatoes, peanuts, pineapples, avocados, papaya, not to mention chocolate, tobacco, chewing gum, rubber and cochineal. These are just some of the wonders that Europeans found in America and which changed their world.
Finally acknowledged as one of the great cuisines of the world, Méxican cooking must also rank as one of the oldest. By 2000 B.C., the Meso America societies were primarily agricultural, but 5,000 years earlier, the hunter-gatherers had began cultivating the crops which remain the staples of the Méxican diet today.
Nothing represents the soul of Méxican cooking more than the tortilla. As old as México itself, the tortilla is versatile enough to define most facets of the cuisine.
Used fresh, stale, or dried to a crisp, the essential tortilla begins as corn kernels briefly cooked in a solution of slaked lime and water, then left to soak until they are soft enough to be ground to a smooth dough, or masa.
The tortilla is formed by hand, press or machine and cooked on a hot, ungreased griddle, comal, until slightly speckled with brown, but still soft and pliable. At this point, it is eaten as a bread, or used as an edible spoon.
Wrapped around small pieces of meat, vegetables, or cheese, it becomes a taco in its simplest form. Slightly stale, cut into triangles and fried crisp, it becomes a scoop - totópo or tostadita - for guacamole or fried beans.
Stale and dried, cut into pieces and lightly fried, tossed into a sauce and garnished lavishly, it becomes chilaquiles - literally, pieces of broken up old sombrero. Or, use like pasta in a casserole; as the basis for a dry soup (sopa seca) or a pudding (budín).
Whole tortillas can be fried flat and covered with a paste of fried beans, topped with meat and salad to become an edible plate - a tostada.
Even when the tortilla is dried out to a crisp, it can be ground to a rough textured meal and moistened to form a dough for little round, fat cakes - gordas, sopes or chalupas, or savory balls - bollitos - to drop into soup. Then, to take the tortilla at every stage, the raw corn dough can be used alone, or mixed with cheese, potatoes or chiles, and transformed to produce any of the antojitos (little fancies or snacks) such as quesadillas or empanadas.
Oaxaca is justly renowned for its antojitos. You will see these snacks almost everywhere. They are almost invariably made of masa (corn dough) stuffed or topped with cheese, beans, salsas, meat, potatoes, etc. Unlike the greasy antojitos of other parts of México, a majority of those made in Oaxaca are cooked on an ungreased griddle, a comal, not fried.
The most traditionally Oaxaqueñan, and one of the most popular, of these delicious snacks, is called a tlayuda this is a giant tortilla prepared like a Méxican pizza, others are sopes, chalupas, picadas, molotes, tostadas and empanadas.
Tacos are also popular here. but most taquerías (taco shops) have a variety of tacos with fanciful names such as alambre wire, sincronizadas synchronized, gringas, mula terca (stubborn mule), among others.
Most taquerías also serve pozole, a hearty pork or sometimes chicken based soup with tender hominy corn and other vegetables. It's served fairly bland with a plate of seasonings that you add according to your taste: onions, oregano, lime, chili, chili powder.
SIDEBAR: HOW CORNY CAN YOU GET?
atole - a sweetish corn gruel
chalupas or huaraches, oval-shaped tortilla dough topped with cheese
and sauce
champurrado - chocolate-flavored atole
chilaquiles - pieces of day-old tortilla, fried and tossed in a rich
sauce and garnished with various toppings.
elote - ear of corn
enchilada - sauteed tortillas filled and drenched in chili sauce. Carne
enchilada is meat
enpanada - turnover, corn dough stuffed with sweet or savory filling and fried or baked
flautas - torillas, tightly rolled around a meat filling, then fried.
gordas - fat, round and stuffed tortilla dough
molotes - corn dough stuffed with potato and chorizo deep-fried and topped
with beans, cheese and salsa
pozole - rich, satisfying soup made from either pork or chicken and hominy corn.
quesadilla - tortilla filled with cheese, and sometimes other ingredients, and melted on the
comal
sincronizadas - 2 flour tortillas stuffed with cheese and ham
sopes - small gorda, with pinched edge, various toppings plus lettuce, cheese
and cream
tacos al pastor - tacos filled with meat carved from grilled slices of
tender beef or pork, often garnished with pineapple
tamales - corn dough stuffed and steamed in banana or corn leaves
tlayudas - large corn tortilla cooked on a charcoal grill to a chewy
texture and topped with beans, tasajo, pork, cheese and sauce
tostada - crunchy tortilla with choice of toppings
totopo or tostadita - tostada cut into sections