The Star That Comes in the Afternoon

Quetzalcoátl's gift of chocolate has been referred to a couple of times this week. To end our theme of Mexico and chocolate, it is worth getting the full story. Pause now and get yourself a brimming, frothy, hot chocolate. Savour the taste, then sit back and enjoy. It is story-line.


Quetzalcoátl came to Earth in the afternoon. He had been seen before, of course, up in the sky, represented by the star that we now call Venus. But this was the first time that He had deigned to step on the ground and walk amongst humanity. The people stopped and stared. It was obvious that He was a God. No mere man looked like that!

Some Gods, when they come to Earth, do so disguised as carpenter's sons or travellers on the road. The point is that they blend in (give or take a penetrating stare and an aura of other). Not so Quetzalcoátl. He was a God, so He came as a God, with all the trappings of Godliness and symbolical items of office clutched in His Godly hands. It was all a bit disconcerting for a sunny afternoon; but, on the bright side, at least He hadn't arrived in His aspect of the man-devouring feathered serpent.


Imagine that same scene now. A bona fide God turning up in a shopping mall, or appearing in a flash of light, in the middle of a games stadium. Human beings aren't good with coming face to face with deity. They tend to either prostrate themselves or else attack, as a mob, and crucify their God. The ancient Toltecs were not much different to us. Self-preservation took over and they took the prostrating themselves option.

Moreover, they had that horrible moment, when they realised that their icons to other Gods were on full view. A few minutes smashing up clay pots and statues and the place was downright God-free. Obviously give or take the huge, live one, standing in the middle of their town. But, while this might have been good for Quetzalcoátl and good manners on the part of the people, there were other beings who were not at all impressed. The other Gods for a start.


Sometimes it's good politics to side with the flavour of the month, even if He was a usurper responsible for yourself being side-lined. One by one, the other Gods and Goddesses lined up to welcome Quetzalcoátl and to acknowledge Him as their leader. In response, Quetzalcoátl told them to teach the people nice things, like how to grow corn successfully and how to measure the march of the constellations.

The Toltec people immediately made plans for a huge temple to be built in Quetzalcoátl's honor. It would be their biggest architectural endeavour to date and it would tower over every other building in their town. It would have five sides to represent the five-pointed star, that was Quetzalcoátl in the sky. Atlantes warrior statues guarded its frontage and summit. (The remains of it survive to this day, at Tula de Allende, Hidalgo, in Mexico, where it is, unsurprisingly, called the Temple of Quetzalcoátl.)


Even now, the other Gods and Goddesses were merely seething, but then Quetzalcoátl went a step too far. To celebrate His temple, He asked for a cup of chocolate. The human population were nonplussed. They had never heard of this wonder. But the deities most certainly had. Chocolate was the drink of the Gods. It came from the beans of the cacao tree, which only grew in the Garden of Life. No human had access to them. "Oh!" said Quetzalcoátl, "We'll soon fix that!" And off he went to collect the beans and a few trees.

The deities present exchanged shocked glances. He was really going to allow mere mortals to taste the sacred drink?!

Quetzalcoátl did more than that. He taught the people how to cultivate the trees and process the beans, so that they could produce a plentiful supply of chocolate. It was an amazing coup for the people. It was war for the Gods.

They were organized by Tezcatlipoca, the God of Darkness and Night. He had his allies in the Tzitzimimeh, the all-female, humanity-devouring star dwellers. His ire had already infected them and they were just looking for an excuse to attack Quetzalcoátl. Tezcatlipoca came to Earth, in the guise of a spider, and entered Toltec country. There he altered his form again, blending in as a travelling merchant. He quickly found Quetzalcoátl and enquired after his health.

"I'm a bit down actually." Quetzalcoátl informed him. "I think that the other Gods and Goddesses are plotting against me."

"Surely not!" The God of Darkness and Night replied. "But I have just the person to cheer you up."

Thus Tezcatlipoca introduced Quetzalcoátl to Mayahuel and... well, that story has already been told: Mezcal.


Quetzalcoátl returned to the stars after that, allowing the other Gods and Goddesses to regain their former prominence in the hearts of the people. But Quetzalcoátl would always be special for the Mexicans. He left behind him chocolate, tequilia, corn and knowledge of the night skies. It's a gift that we're still very much enjoying.

Chocolate: Quetzalcoátl's Gift to Mexico and the World

With the approach to Easter, many people are out there buying up chocolate eggs or chocolate bunnies. Beyond the religious aspect, Easter means chocolate in homes throughout the world. But have you ever wondered where it came from? The clue is that it was once considered a gift from the god, Quetzalcoátl, and only the Atzec ruling classes and priests were allowed to consume it. It was not a candy for mere mortals. Yes, chocolate comes from Mexico.


A Maya chief refuses chocolate to a commoner
Chocolate is a Spanish rendering of the Atzec word xocolātl, meaning sour (xococ) drink (ātl). An alternative theory is that the word was Mayan. Here it would come from hot (chokol) drink (ātl). As either interpretation highlights, chocolate was always used as a beverage in Mexico. It was only after the Spanish took it into Europe, that it became more commonly seen as a solid block.

The legend goes that, in 1519, Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conquistador, was granted an audience with the Atzec Emperor Moctezuma. This took place in Tenochtitlán, which is the modern day, Mexico City. Cortés and his men entered to find Moctezuma sipping xocolātl from a cup. As honored guests, the group were all served xocolātl. It was reported that the drink had 'a very exciting nature'. Forget the gold! They had just discovered chocolate! Thus Mexico's secret was out and its Fate was sealed.


Chocolate literally does grow on trees in Mexico. At least the cacao beans do, which are then ground up and treated to create chocolate. Cacao trees have been cultivated since around 1400 BCE. The Olmec appear to be the first to have created their sacred bitter drink from its ground beans. The Maya were next, with archealogical evidence showing that they were drinking chocolate from about 400 CE. Cups have been found, with a chocolate residue, dating from this period. Digs, at their historical settlement sites, have shown cacao trees being grown in their backyards.

The Atzec people saw chocolate as a divine drink. It was a gift from the feathered-serpent god, Quetzalcoátl, who had fetched the cacao beans from the Garden of Life.

As such a holy thing, chocolate was initially reserved only for the most ceremonial occasions. It was ritually prepared and drunk only within sacred areas.

Over the years, this was relaxed so that the higher echelons of society could imbibe it. However, it never lost its association with deity; so much so that, it was later at the center of a Christian scandal. The Catholic Church was brought into Mexico by the Spanish. It eventually become strong enough to start to eradicate the items and practices of the religions it had usurped. One bone of contention was that converts would bring chocolate drinks into Mass. The congregation were using it to honor the Catholic God, not Quetzalcoátl, but it made no odds. It was deemed as breaking the fast, in a Pagan way, and so the Church hierarchy banned chocolate outright.


Cacao tree with pods full of beans
This did not go down well. As each Catholic priest prohibited chocolate, then the congregation would up and leave, moving onto more lenient institutions. It was a battle of wills that eventually resulted in the Bishop of Chiapas threatening excommunication to anyone drinking chocolate. (He was killed, shortly afterwards, after he drank a cup of poisoned chocolate. It was handed to him by the same group of noble women, who he had just banned from drinking the very same.)

Finally, in 1662, Pope Alexander VII had to personally intervene. He ruled, "Liquidum non frangit jejunum!" (For those with rusty Latin, that basically says that liquids do not constitute breaking the fast.) In short, the Mexicans could drink all of the hot chocolate that they wished and still be regarded as fasting. The church's chocolate ban was lifted!

Of course, now the Catholic Church is firmly on the side of chocolate. In Mexico City's Metropolitan Cathedral, there is a 16th century sculpture of Jesus Christ. It is called El Señor del Cacao (The Lord of Cacao).


El Señor del Cacao
The error has now been firmly corrected. It was not Quetzalcoátl who gave chocolate to the world, via Mexico; it was Christ Himself.

Chocolate became popular, on a global scale, after a group of Mexican nuns thought to add vanilla and sugar to the chocolate mix. Overnight, it stopped being a sour drink and started becoming very sweet instead.

It is also a major ingredient in the Mexican national dish: Mole Poblano; as well as a stable of drinks, such as champurrado, and dips, to be used with churros.

Chocolate is still widely produced in Mexico, with cacao plantations stretching for miles. The World Cocoa Foundation estimates that 50 million jobs, internationally, rely upon cacao trees and the chocolate industry. Forget Willy Wonka. The real chocolate factories are scattered all over Mexico. Nestlé, Hersheys and Barry Callebaut are amongst the companies that create their confectionery here, before exporting them into shops near you. Chocolate is also created, straight from the tree, in many Mexican homes.

Mezcal

Ask anyone to name a Mexican alcoholic drink and the answer will come back, "¡Tequila!" Ask for a second and the response is most likely to be, "¡Mezcal!"


The two tipples have many similarities, not least that they are both exported around the world, as Mexico's contribution to drinks cabinets globally. (The Prague Post, in the Czech Republic, is currently featuring a Mezcal based cocktail recipe: 'From the Bartender: Mezcalihna'.) The USA and Japan remain the biggest buyers of Mezcal from Mexico.

Tequila and Mezcal are also both distilled from the agave plant. In fact, the name Mezcal is derived from the Nahuatl words, 'Melt' and 'Ixcalli', which translate as 'oven-cooked agave'. In this way, tequila is a form of Mezcal too, though it tends to be considered separately. This is where the drinks start to diverge. Tequila is made from blue agave and it is twice fermented. Mezcal is made from maguey agave and it is only fermented once.


Milking a Maguey Plant
The maguey agave plant is huge. It can stand up to 2m (6.6ft) tall, with thick, spreading leaves reaching out another 4m (13ft). When it is in flower, the petals stretch a further 8m (26ft). With such a towering structure, even the younger plants can dwarf a human being. It's an impressive sight and it has attracted its legends and folklore too.

Maguey is often referred to as the Divine Plant; in great part because it was born from the remains of the Goddess Mayahuel. The story comes to us from the Atzec people, who honored her as one of their most important deities. There are carvings of Her in the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City). She is associated with truth, fertility, nourishment, inner journeys and, of course, the agave plant.

Mayahuel lived in the sky, with her Tzitzimitl grandmother. The all female, warrior Tzitzimimeh were seen as stars, particularly those only apparent around the sun, during a solar eclipse. This was also when they were most dangerous.

Ordinarily, the Tzitzimimeh were the protectoresses of women; but they also created all mankind. Particles of stardust reached the Earth and formed themselves into humanity. (Interestingly enough, it is now scientific fact that life on Earth is possible because of the elements forged in the stars.)

However, when there was a solar eclipse, the Tzitzimimeh could descend to Earth and devour human beings.

Mayahuel grew up amongst them, but She, Herself, was not Tzitzimitl. Yet, from Her home in the starry paradise of Tamoanchan, She could watch all that happened below and all who lived there. She could also see the Gods and Goddesses. In particular, She spotted the feathered serpent God, Quetzalcoatl. Mayahuel fell in love. At the very next solar eclipse, as the doors of Tamoanchan opened to emit the Tzitzimimeh on their deadly pillage, Mayahuel rushed out too.

The lovers met and ran away together, determined to live out all eternity in each other's arms. But no-one had asked the permission of the Tzitzimimeh and they saw everything. The couple transformed themselves into trees, side by side, to escape notice. It was too late. They had been seen. The star deities swooped down and tore Mayahuel limb from limb.

Quetzalcoatl tearfully took her remains and buried them in the ground. Immediately something began to push back through the soil. It was the first, mighty maguey plant, with a glorious flower reaching back towards the skies. Mayahuel lived again, anchored into the ground from Her roots, and filled with the divine love of Quetzalcoatl.


Mayahuel by Ehecatzin
Mayahuel is a dark goddess now. She saw all from the stars and She is the beloved of a God. She can see inside our very souls and give us visions to access our spiritual journeys. It is said that She grew 400 breasts to nourish rabbits with Her milk. The first drink made from the sap of the maguey was pulque. It was the ritual draft used in Atzec ceremonies, inducing wild hallucinations and the ecstatic dance.

This same milk is now distilled to create Mezcal. Despite common misconception, it does not contain mescaline nor any other hallucinogenic substance. It's produced in an entirely different way to pulque.

While on the subject of misconceptions about Mezcal, let's deal with the worm. For a start, it's not a worm. It's the lavae form of a moth. Hypopta agavis is the correct name for this moth, which lives, feeds and breeds in the manguey plant. This is usually at the distress of farmers, as the presense of the moth means that there is an infestation and the crop is ruined.


A worm in the Mezcal!!11!!!!1!!
During the 1940s, some bright spark in Oaxaca apparently had the gift of the gab. Who knows how the lavae got into the Mezcal? Perhaps it fell in during the bottling process. Perhaps someone tried to sabotege the sale. Perhaps it was someone's idea of a joke. Maybe it was even a warning. However it happened, the lavae was in this batch of Mezcal, which was already of lower quality than normal, because of the infestation. Yet he managed to sell it. Bravo the salesman!

Except now no-one can sell Oaxaca Mezcal without a lavae in it, because the urban myth is that the 'worm' adds to the flavour and proves that it's fit to drink. The distillers have to collect tubs of the insects, from infested farms, in order to drop a lavae into bottles of their own high-grade Mezcal. It has long since become one of the most successful marketing ploys ever. It doesn't add to the flavour. It doesn't do anyting. It's killed, scrubbed, sanitized, sterilized and dropped into alcohol. There it stays, mostly for the shock value and people daring each other to eat it.

The Oaxava Annual International Mescal Fair takes place in July. This year's arrangements haven't been made public yet, but they will be announced on official website. It regularly attracts over 50,000 visitors; and it is an excellent place to be introduced to the country's finest Mezcal. ¡Salud!

A Taste of Mexico: Mole Poblano!

Salsa might be the food most commonly associated with Mexico, so it's only fitting that one of its variants is the national dish. Mole Poblano was literally a meal fit for a king (or, at least, his representative in Mexico) and legends abound as to its origin.


Mole Poblano
Before anyone starts panicking here, mole has nothing to do with a small, sightless mammal, which lives underground. It is pronounced 'mo-lay' and it is actually the sauce that is, traditionally, poured over turkey. However, it does have one strange ingredient - chocolate!

Mole Poblano is a rich and very tasty dish, which utilizes at least twenty components. These include turkey, tomatoes, chocolate and chillies, within a spicy mixture of black pepper, cinnamon, pepper, cloves, anise and garlic. It is known as 'fusion food', because of these ingredients, as they range from home-grown produce to those exported from Europe. How they came to be mixed together is the stuff of legends.


Mole Poblano, with some of its ingredients
The most pervasive story involves those celebrated nuns of the Convent of Santa Monica, in Puebla (aka Santa Rosa). These were the devout ladies who later became famous again, when it was learned that they had continued to exist, in subterranean tunnels, after their existence had become illegal. (The Underground Nuns.) A century before that, the nuns were not only accepted by the State, but there chosen for a visit by the Spanish Viceroy. A good meal was clearly required.

The Convent's kitchen had turkey to use, along with the trimmings, so all that was really needed was the salsa to accompany it. The available foods and spices were laid out, and then someone added chocolate.

There are those that say that it was a divinely inspired nun, who just knew that it would work; others say that it was a mischevious novice, who sneaked into the kitchen and sprinkled in cocoa as a prank; yet another version tells of a window left open and a freak wind blowing across the table, knocking the chocolate into the mix (God did it?); while a fourth story was that a team of nuns worked tirelessly for days, experimenting with all that they had, in order to make an impression with a unique sauce.

There was a fifth telling, but that has been largely discredited by historians. That one said that a folk-memory of an Atzec dish had been carried into the Convent by a nun. They just had to reproduce it. This one is seen as unlikely, as chocolate was sacred to the Aztec. It would have been like a Christian using Communion wafers like nachos. It would have been just short of heresy.


A street vendor serving from a vat of Mole Poblano
Puebla may take the credit for the invention of Mole Poblano, but these days it can be found all over Mexico. The idea of chocolate and turkey together may sound bizarre, however the proof of the sauce is in the tasting. Mole Poblano always passes first time.

A recipe for Mole Poblano may be found here.

A Taste of Mexico: Salsa!

You have never tasted salsa, until you've entered Mexico. Just saying. In some countries, the salsa is the dressing. It's something that's plonked on top, that you can take or leave. Not so in Mexico. In Mexico, meals get formed around the salsa. It's never the same twice. It evolves. It's personal. For many cooks, their most prized knowledge is the salsa recipe that got passed down from grandmother. If this is your first time in Mexico, then you must eat salsa. (If it's your second, you won't need telling.)


On a recent trip abroad, I visited a theater complex. Among the snacks on offer were nachos, with hot cheese sauce, jalapeño peppers and salsa. It arrived and I stared in askance at the little, plastic pot of red stuff. "What's this?" "That's your salsa. Enjoy your day." That wasn't salsa. That was a few chopped tomatoes, shoved through a blender, with a spring of coriander. If that is your experience of salsa, then you are in for a serious treat in Mexico.

Admittedly, Mexican salsa does often use tomato (or green tomatillos) as its base. Coriander (or Chinese parsley) does have its place too. But there's more! Even the most basic salsa will have garlic, onions and a choice out of literally thousands of chiles, ranging from the mild to the blow your socks off strong. It never stops there. What gets added next can often be a jealously guarded secret; or it can be up to individual tastes. Chocolate in the mole; carrots; sesame seeds; paprika; nuts; any number of spices; sweetcorn; olives; peppers; fruits (mango is popular); lime juice; you name it and someone in Mexico will have experimented with it.

Making salsa is an art. Some of the fast food restaurants will use a blender for speed, but in the homes, and in the quality establishments, salsa is made in a molcajete.


The molcajete is used just like a pestle and mortar, though it is made out of basalt. It was used as a cooking utensil, in Mexico, way before the coming of the Spanish. The ancient Maya used one. Its very name comes from the Nahuatl language. The Atzec had something similar, though their's was made from ceramic. The point being that when a item has been used for over a thousand years, with no sign of being given up any time soon, you know that there's a reason. And that reason is the taste of the salsa coming out of it.

Each of the ingredients are added in separately and pounded into submission by the cook. The subtle flavors depend upon when they were added, and in which quantities, and how long they were allowed to influence the dish. You just don't get that in a blender.


Salsa, in Spanish, means 'sauce'. Most of these are served cold, though some recipes do call for cooked salsa. It can be eaten on its own, or as a dip with tortilla chips, or as a spread (think tacos).

The actual recipes can differ from restaurant to restaurant, and certainly from home to home. But there are regional variations too. The salsa served in Monterrey may be nothing like that presented in Guerraro.

For more information about salsas, plus some recipes, visit: Mexican Salsas by Luis Dumois.