CULINARY THUMBNAIL

Here are two characteristics of this state's cuisine:

1. in arid highlands "classic Spanish" cuisine predominates
2. in rugged mountains diverse Indian cultures affect local cuisines

TRADITIONAL DISHES TO LOOK FOR

Quesadilla de flor de calabaza con quesillo; a quesadilla is a tortilla folded over cheese and other fillings; flores de calabaza are squash flowers, whose use as food dates back to pre-Hispanic indigenous culture; in Mexico, quesillo is a kind of string cheese similar to mozzarella, usually sold in balls and sometimes called queso Oaxaca or Oaxacan cheese. Copyright-free image made in a restaurant in Tlaxcala, used courtesy of "Pequeño mar," and made available through Wikimedia Commons.

• Molotes -- small cornmeal-and-cheese-based "biscuits" with a variety of stuffings, such as pig brains, macerated meat, potatoes with pork sausage, squash flowers, or corn-smut fungus
• Hualumbo -- flowers of the Maguey agave cooked with tomato, onion, garlic and green chili
• Gusanos de Maguey -- large insect larvae (grubs) infesting Maguey agaves these are of two kinds:
  • Chinicuiles -- available only in September and early October; eaten after being soaked in hot sauce or fried with onion and green chili, wrapped in hot tortillas
  • Meocuiles -- available in May, eaten in tacos or fried

SWEETS

• Alegría: sweet of ancient lineage made from amaranth seeds toasted until they pop; sold as wafers stacked in plastic bags
• Pepitoria -- a crisp candy based on brown-sugar syrup and/or refined sugar, toasted corn, and seeds especially of squash and sesame
• Muégano -- the word used in Puebla for for nuégado, or nougat, a candy made with almonds or other nuts stirred into a sugar paste
• Buñuelo -- a sweet bun

TRADITIONAL ALCOHOLIC DRINKS

• Pulque -- mildly intoxicating drink made by fermenting the sap, or aguamiel, of the maguey agave; in Tlaxcala it also comes in flavors of nut (nuez), pine seeds (piñón), guava (guayaba), celery (apio), green lemon (limón verde) and cacao/chocolate (cacao)

Information on this page based on material presented in Gastronomía: Atlas cultural de México, 1988, an extensive and well illustrated work by various authors, published by the Secretaría del Educación Pública, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City.