In Mexican families, recipes are heirlooms being passed down from one generation to the next—and a great molé recipe is among the most treasured of gifts. In my family, my aunt is in possession of that coveted molé recipe and all I have is the bitter truth that she will likely never share it with me. That bitterness…
Mexicans love a good fiesta and we also sure love to eat—fortunately, the two are never mutually exclusive. Día De Los Muertos (Day Of The Dead) is one such food-filled Mexican holiday that has gone through its fair of changes; what was previously a celebration held at the beginning of summer is now a three-day affair…
I’ve eaten my fair share of deliciousness in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood, arguably home to the city’s best Mexican restaurants. The most satisfying meals have revolved around carnitas: pork cooked in roiling pots of lard, shredded, and plopped onto discs of just-made tortillas. When the line at my favorite…
There’s a Mexican restaurant that served a single taco for $26. If this was a taqueria on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, c’est la vie and whatevs my man, but in fact this taco is was sold in Mexico City, a place where tacos don’t cost $2.60 USD, much less $26.
As I read the ingredients to my Norwegian mother-in-law, Inger, I sensed apprehension. I prefaced the call with a brief synopsis of the story I was working on, about tacopaj, a popular Scandinavian dish that’s like tacos crossbred with quiche. It’s all the rage in Sweden and Norway, I informed her. Ground beef, taco…
Elotes is the Mexican street snack that celebrates the height of sweet corn season. Whole ears of freshly steamed or grilled corn are slathered with mayonnaise, rolled in cotija cheese, sprinkled with spicy chili powder, and served with a wedge of lime. It’s a beautiful balance of sweet crunchy corn, creamy mayo,…
It wasn’t the most authentic of settings, but my maiden voyage to the land of Mexican elotes took place via a Chicago White Sox game. Two thoughts stuck: “These greedy bastards are charging $6 for a small tray of corn?!” More consequentially: “Boy, sweet corn with mayo + butter + cheese + lime + chili is mighty…
Regional Mexican cuisine is, thankfully, beginning to break free of its overgeneralized reputation. A new set of ambitious, young chefs are calling attention to the regional variations within Mexican cooking, while the hard work of some pioneering U.S. restaurants are finally convincing diners that Mexican food isn’t…
It wasn’t until this last decade that our nation achieved widespread queso familiarity. Before that, queso—for people outside of Texas—was a nebulous concept. Most knew it as the Spanish word for cheese, but few understood it as a stand-alone dish.
Welcome to Gateways To Drinkery, where The Takeout offers an entry-level course on our favorite libations, and some suggestions on where to start drinking them.
Welcome to Gateways To Drinkery, where The Takeout offers an entry-level course on our favorite libations, and some suggestions on where to start drinking them.
Welcome to Gateways To Drinkery, where The Takeout offers an entry-level course on our favorite libations, and some suggestions on where to start drinking them.
Armida Sanchez stood patiently over the stove as a pan full of vegetable oil came to a gleam. I’d just returned from morning fishing with her husband, Rolando, on the icy lagoon outside the salt mining town of Guerrero Negro halfway down the Baja Peninsula’s Pacific Coast. While we were gone, Armida had sliced and…
