Mesoamerica 2019 - Day Fifteen, Xochimilco

This is from our second to the last day of our trip. We signed up for a Culinary Backstreets tour of the Mexico City area of Xochimilco. This is the fourth one we have taken with this company and they have all been of the highest quality and great values.

This area is one of the only areas in greater Mexico City to have retained major components of its pre-hispanic conquest city planning. That is because it was the garden of the Tenochtitlan and if fact dates back even before the Mexicas became powerful in this area. It is noted for a unique system of agriculture based upon creating islands within a lake shore line marsh area that are used for a very productive and sustainable form of agriculture. Thus the Spanish, who needed to feed themselves and their conquest, left the area alone. While Mexico City has grown around it, it became a UNESCO heritage site and at least for the moment has been able to retain some of that character. Now a lot of the canals are used for entertainment but there is a growing return to the agricultural roots.

Welcome to the canals of Xochimico

A cacaphony of color

When we arrived it was very quiet and tranquil

By the time we left it was hopping with noise and activity

Our guide, Ricardo

His main business is reviving agriculture in the Xochimilco by providing a direct marketing service from growers to families. It is a passion for him

The other couple with us S and A from NYC

He works for Nature Conservancy and had come in part because of Ricardo's work so the conversation about the opportunities and the challenges was very interesting

This is our boat

Ricardo's wife made our first tasting of the day

Our driver moved our boat via polling

One thing I was impressed with in Mexico is just how hard people here are willing to work

The vast majority of boat rentals in Xochimilco are for some kind of entertainment

There are family get togethers, young people partying, etc.

But you don't have to go very far in to get away from that and into the agricultural area

This boat is used to transport small tractors

They are only used to till the soil

The rest of the work is done by hand

The core of the agricultural system is the Chinampa

It is an artificial island created by putting some trees or nowadays some wooden polls around an area

Plants are allowed to grow creating a root structure

Then mud is dredged from the canals and put on the root structure

On this plants are raised

Example of a small Chinampa

The key to the system is the continued dredging of the canals to restore the soil and the use of natural fertilizer from animals and compost

New seedlings are raised in the freshly dredged mud

Then they are transplanted into fields to mature

This area can produce seven harvests in a year!

A healthy system encourages wildlife

But this is a food tour so let's eat

First course

Tamales

Honestly

The best tamales I've ever had bar none

The masa was so smooth and silky unlike anything I've had back home with a sweet taste to it

The meat filling was savory but not overpowering

No sauce or salsa was required

On to the Mercado Xochitl for serious eats

Mexico has a tradition of sweet corn preparation covering the corn with mayonnaise, dry cheese and chile powder

The indigenous woman who ran this little stand used an old strain of blue corn

You could also get it as a soup cooked with epizote, an herb which I tried

Next stop

Tacos Barbacoa

Barbacoa is lamb that is slow roasted in a pit

Our Barbacoa expert making her tacos

And with our guide

We have been in a lot of markets around the world but I have say this was one of the most colorful, noisy, musical, busy, high energy markets that we have ever visited

I admired this butcher's technique cutting each thin piece by hand

Chicharron and head cheese

A guy selling offal and making fun of our president using the tongue of a cow

Quick shot of a local church as we moved between buildings

Local farmers from the Chinampa selling their produce

A vendor taking time up to love up her daughter

People based on our very casual observation seemed to have a real bond with their children

A guy cutting mushrooms up at a rapid pace, with a very sharp knife by hand

We'd only have fingers if I was doing that

Like we've seen so often in Mexico displays are done with such a sense of color and style

Huitlacoche

The corn fungus revered like truffles here

Next eats are a double taco with chorizo and either adobo pork and salted beef

The later is a cured meat and is eaten raw like a Kentucky ham or Prosciutto

Here is the variety of condiments you can add

From right to left 

Limon, red sauce, green sauce, beans, nopales (cactus leaf), pico de gallo, onion/chile salad

The meats from right to left above are

Salted beef, adobo pork, chorizo

My taco with nopales, pico de gallo and beans

Onward into the market!

Tortilla making machine

The queen of mole

Mole is serious business

Guy who sells dried chile and hibiscus flowers for infusions

Vendor of fresh fruit waters a very common drink in Mexico

I tried one made from fermented grapefruit

It was actually very good

Reminded me of tamarind

Next stop is quesadillas made from blue corn tortillas

This gal was a force!

She worked fast and precisely

I had one with the huitlacoche and cheese

Menudo is a soup made with tripe and very famous in Mexican cuisine

How much do people like it?

There were about a dozen of this right in a row all looking the same to me

Last eats were a form of thicker tortilla filled with beans and potatoes made by hand

The producer

As you can see they are topped with cheese and nopales

As is always the case after one of these tours there was no thought of dinner that night

But let us end our visit to Xochimilco with something completely different
The Mariachi Spectacular
As we were coming back in, a floating mariachi band went by. So S and I decided to splurge and hired the to serenade our wives
(apologies for doing this in a number of small videos. Blogger only lets you upload videos of 30 seconds. I've been told there is a way to set up a YouTube account and make a link but I haven't figured out how to do that yet)