“Ancestral indigenous people knew two things,” Frank adds. We dive into the science, the romance, the flavors, and the recipes.Īlong with their vibrant color and flavor, chiles have always brought a lot to the table. Read More: New Mexico chile fuels a global love affair. You can’t grow a New Mexico chile in Texas,” says Santa Fe–based Kiowa chef Lois Ellen Frank, author of the James Beard Award–winning Foods of the Southwest Indian Nations (Ten Speed Press). Like France does for its wine grapes and cheeses, “We pass legislation protecting our chiles.

You’ll tuck into some of this: stacked red chile enchiladas, green chile stew, chiles rellenos, pinto beans, chicos, carne adovada, a basket of sopaipillas or horno bread, and natillas (custard topped with cinnamon) or biscochitos for dessert.Ĭhile, of course, is the most essential-even sacred-ingredient in New Mexican cuisine. You also won’t be eating crispy-shelled tacos filled with refried beans and topped with shredded Velveeta and sour cream, followed by fried ice cream. That’s why when you walk into a classic New Mexican restaurant, or are lucky enough to sit down at a traditional New Mexican home-cooked dinner, you won’t be served a Oaxacan tamale filled with chicken mole and wrapped in a banana leaf. Read More: New Mexico's oldest cuisine goes modern-while staying authentic. Chile became a dominant feature in this period of isolation.” “There was little influence back and forth between what is now New Mexico and Mexico in the 17th and 18th centuries. A wagon train would come up every two or three years and bring nice things for the rich folks in the area, but not for the general population. “It’s really important to understand that New Mexican food, as similar as it is to Mexican in some respects, grew up independently,” says Bill Jamison, co-author with our culinary editor Cheryl Alters Jamison of Tasting New Mexico: Recipes Celebrating 100 Years of Distinctive Home Cooking (Museum of New Mexico Press). Yes, we share staples-chiles, posole, tortillas, and beans, for instance-but our only-in-New-Mexico spin is a centuries-old distillation of Native foraging and cultivation, Spanish colonial imports, and a long period of geographic isolation, before the railways began offloading edibles from elsewhere. The confusion is understandable to a point. NOTHING BURNS OUR BURRITOS like hearing people-including otherwise knowledgeable foodies-refer to New Mexico’s cuisine as “Tex-Mex” or “Mexican.”

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