Cinco flores de Mayo, mamey y maguey
May 5, 2015
Cinco de Mayo is not the anniversary of Mexico’s independence (September 16) nor revolution (November 20). On May 5, 1862, Mexicans enjoyed an unexpected victory in a battle against France in Pubela, and it is said that when news spread to California there were huge, patriotic celebrations by Mexicans (the state had just been integrated into the US 15 years previously). People shot off guns, sang songs, and gave impromptu speeches. Henceforth Cinco de Mayo has been widely celebrated in California and elsewhere in the US, but hardly so in Mexico.
Jon & I have been tongue-in-guacamole-coated-cheek observing Cinco de Mayo for the past few years while living in Pittsburgh, PA by throwing a Mexican themed party with tequila, tortillas, and music. This year, there are no plans for a big fiesta, but I am personally celebrating a Oaxacan seasonal event: the blooming of my favorite flower, plumeria. Here, they’re known as flor de mayo, and trees have been planted all over the city, gifting their pristine five-petaled fragrant flowers that smell like lemon sugar cookies. I had known plumerias before from visits to Hawaii, where they are strung into leis and worn on special occasions like homecomings and graduations. Little did I know, though, that they are actually endemic to Oaxaca.
Mexico, and especially Oaxaca, is home to a particularly distinct biodiversity of botany. One that’s rapidly gaining international popularity is the agave, or maguey. Agave is both a genus and a family name, and maguey is a name used to refer to a number of species that are agave agave. Certain magueys are used for Oaxaca’s favorite liquid libation: mezcal.
I’ve recently discovered the answer to every American’s Cinco de Mayo question of 2015: Is tequila mezcal? YES! Tequila is a kind of mezcal that comes from Tequila, in the state of Jalisco, made from a certain kind of maguey called blue agave. It’s like how Champagne is a kind of sparkling white wine that comes from a certain region in France, or how Cheddar is a kind of cheese from somewhere in England. However, be warned: though it’s mandated that if the liquor is called “tequila” it must be from there, it only needs to contain 51% blue agave in order to meet regulations, which means there’s a lot of room for a lot of other stuff to give you a lot of hangover. So, seek out tequilas with “100% blue agave” on the label and you’ll be golden.
So then what is mezcal? Mezcal is a distilled liquor made from cooked, openly fermented maguey mash. The reason you see so much tequila in the States and hardly any “mezcales” is simply that the state of Jalisco has done a lot to market tequila. Mezcal production, for the most part, is still done in very small batches on family farms. It’s incredibly labor and time intensive, and only a few fabricas (producers/distillers) have gotten big enough to be able to export.
Depending on the variety, the maguey plant takes anywhere from 3 to 30 years to get to the maturity where it produces enough sugars to make mezcal. Because of this, only a few varieties are cultivated (mostly espadin) while the majority of varieties are silvestre, or wild, and have to be gathered in the mountains. This is no small feat, as the mountains here are rugged and the plants colossal; I’ve seen magueys 10 feet wide and 15 feet tall chilling on the side of the highway. The plant is harvested as it shoots out its dinosaur-like blossom, indicating it’s ready to reproduce and die.
The leaves are removed and what is left looks like a piña and is called, well, piña. These piñas are roasted in a pit oven, much like the local barbacoa goat specialties in the Oaxacan valley, the Caribbean (think Cuban roasted pork) or even Hawaii (luau pig roast). This is where mezcal gets its smoky flavor from. The piñas are extracted and mashed by a burro with a wheel (or by hand with a mortar and pestal), and the mash is then fermented openly, strained, and distilled a few times.
Just like wine, because there are so many varieties of the plant, cultivators (including proliferate mother earth) and fabricas, there is a huge abundance of different mezcals with unique flavors. There’s such a variety that I really don’t miss whiskey, gin, wine, or anything else that I might have had a taste for from time to time back in the US.
(Click here to hear more about mezcal from Erika Beras at Monocle Magazine)
Another native flower that deserves mentioning and has long been associated with images of Mexico is the cactus flower. Here’s it’s called tuna, which is alarming for every American tourist the first time you see it on an ice cream menu. Not only do people consume the flower, but the leaves – or “pads” as I’m told they’re more accurately called – of some are eatable as well, and appear as a very common taco topping. These nopales are crazy delicious when prepared well, with the texture somewhat like squash and a natural light lemony tartness. These are one of the vegetables that are often sold by an abula sitting on the street corner, 10 pesos a bag, as she sits busy de-spining more for sale.
Versatile nopales are literally host to another important Oaxacan natural resource: cochineal. These are little stationary bugs that live on nopales and have a brilliant red color when smashed. They have been used as a prized natural dye for centuries in this region for all sorts of textiles. In fact, cochineal dye was what ultimately made the British redcoats red. The bug dye was also what caused quite a stir around Starbucks when it was exposed that it was used to color strawberry frappuccinos. Being quite expensive, I don’t think it’s colored any drinks I’ve enjoyed so far in Oaxaca, but I am kind of still wondering what makes my agua de limón so electric green. Maybe nopales?
There actually is an agua de nopal as well. When it comes to drinking, agua (water) isn’t just agua here. Ordering a drink with “agua” can be pretty ambiguous; you always need something to qualify your water. Just water is agua pura, and just saying “agua” could actual be interpreted as meaning a request for an agua de sabor (flavored water), or as I knew it in California, agua fresca. There are aguas of any possible sweet flavor, or sometimes spicy flavor as well. I’ve seen everything from orange to oat, and this also goes for ice cream, or nieve.
Similar to agua, nieve (snow) doesn’t mean just nieve. Actually, most people I’ve met haven’t ever seen real snow falling, and instead their first association with the word nieve is the frozen treat. I would say it’s more like Italian ice (good Italian ice, like from the Jersey Shore, not that frozen flavored rock packaged at Costco) than ice cream, and most of the time doesn’t even have any dairy in it. It’s the perfect refreshment on a hot day (which is almost every day here). They even will serve the nieve in your agua, and you can mix and match the flavors as you please. One of my favorite flavors comes from a fruit called mamey.
Mamey is a variety of zapote, a Nahuatl (Aztec) name for the type of fruit that gave its name to the Zapotec indigenous people of the Oaxaca region. There are many varieties of zapote fruits, some species actually not closely related, despite their catch-all name. Mamey is by far my favorite, with a rich, creamy coral-orange (kind like the 2012 Pantone color of the year) flesh that tastes like nature’s flan. The fresh fruit is actually better than the flavored nieve, in my opinion. It also pairs very nicely with a glass of mezcal.
As I could have foreseen, Cinco de Mayo has actually taken on a new meaning since living in Mexico. Actually, el tres de mayo turns out to be el dia de los alañiles, or Construction Workers’ Day. (In Mexico, there’s a day for nearly every line of work.) I celebrated with the others from the Eco Constructores project in Gudalupe Etla with barbacoa, beer and mezcal. They had been surprised to learn that Cinco de Mayo was a thing in the US. Maybe we’re all just trying to find some reason to be festive: construction workers, traditions, and flowers. Looking all around us, reasons to celebrate abound.