Puebla: the birthplace of Mexican gastronomy

The city that invented Mexico's most famous dishes

If Mexico is one of the countries with the most acclaimed gastronomy in the world, Puebla is its culinary capital. This colonial city, founded in 1531 and set between volcanoes at 2,150 metres above sea level, has given the world some of the most emblematic dishes of Mexican cooking: mole poblano, chiles en nogada, cemitas, camotes, pipián verde, chalupas and molotes.

The reason for this gastronomic wealth is historical: Puebla was home to the most important convents of New Spain, where the nuns - with access to both European and indigenous ingredients - experimented for centuries, creating recipes that fused the two worlds. The result is a baroque, elaborate, festive cuisine where more is more and every dish tells a story.

As a poblano living in the UK, I can say that Puebla is not only where I was born - it is where I learned that food can be art, history and love all at the same time.

Mole poblano: the dish that defines Mexico

Mole poblano is, without question, the most iconic dish in Mexican cooking. Its creation is attributed (with more legend than history) to the nuns of the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, who supposedly created it to impress the viceroy. Whether the story is true or not, mole poblano is a masterpiece of complexity: more than 25 ingredients, including multiple dried chillies, chocolate, spices, nuts, bread, tortilla and hours of slow cooking.

The result is a dark, glossy, thick sauce with a flavour you cannot describe in a single word - it is sweet, spicy, bitter, smoky, spiced and earthy all at once. It is served over pieces of turkey or chicken, sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds and accompanied by red rice and tortillas.

In Puebla, mole is not everyday food - it is celebration food. It is prepared for weddings, christenings, quinceañeras, patron-saint festivals and the Day of the Dead. Every family has its recipe and guards it like treasure.

To recreate it in the UK, see our guide to making mole from scratch with adapted ingredients.

Chiles en nogada: the patriotic dish

Chiles en nogada are probably the most beautiful dish in world gastronomy. A poblano chilli stuffed with a minced-meat picadillo with fruit (apple, pear, peach, plantain), bathed in a walnut sauce (white, creamy, fragrant) and decorated with red pomegranate seeds and green parsley. The three colours of the Mexican flag.

They are made exclusively in season - August and September - when fresh walnuts and pomegranate are available. In Puebla, the arrival of the chiles en nogada season is a cultural event comparable to the artichoke season in Rome.

Legend has it that they were created by the Augustinian nuns of the Convent of Santa Mónica in Puebla to celebrate Mexico's independence in 1821, offering them to General Agustín de Iturbide. Whether or not it is true, they are the most patriotic dish that exists.

In the UK: August-September is also walnut, pomegranate and pear season in the UK, so it is perfectly possible to make them here. The poblano chilli is replaced with a large green Romano (Italian) pepper, roasted and peeled. The walnut sauce is made with shelled walnuts, fresh goat's cheese, a little milk and cinnamon. It is a dish that is worth the effort.

Cemitas poblanas: the most complex sandwich in the world

Cemitas are Puebla sandwiches made with a special sesame-coated bread - denser and with more crumb than a burger bun, with a slightly sweet flavour. The classic filling has milanesa (breaded escalope), Oaxaca cheese, avocado, pápalo (an intense aromatic herb found only in Puebla), onion, chipotle and optionally rajas.

What makes the cemita special is the pápalo: a herb tasting of concentrated coriander with notes of rocket that brings an explosive freshness, cutting through the richness of the milanesa and the cheese. In the UK, substitute it with a generous mix of rocket and coriander.

Cemitas are sold at the Mercado del Carmen in Puebla and at cemiterías (specialist stalls) all over the city. They are the most popular lunch among poblanos.

Chalupas: the Puebla street snack

Chalupas are small oval tortillas fried in lard, topped with green or red salsa, onion and shredded meat. They are the most representative street snack of Puebla - they are bought from specialist stalls where the women fry them in enormous copper cazuelas.

The chalupa dough is different from a normal tortilla - it is denser and is pinched to create a tiny rim. They are fried in plenty of lard until they are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

Pipián verde: the pumpkin-seed sauce

Pipián verde is the lighter, fresher counterpart to mole poblano. It is a sauce made with toasted pumpkin seeds, tomatillo (green tomato), green chillies, coriander and hoja santa. It is served over chicken and is a midweek dish - less elaborate than mole but equally delicious.

Pipián is pre-Hispanic - it was prepared before the arrival of the Spanish with the same basic ingredients. It is one of the oldest dishes still cooked without significant changes.

Mole de caderas: the feast of the slaughter

Every October-November, in the Puebla Mixteca (the mountainous region of southern Puebla), the matanza is celebrated: the season in which the goats that have grazed freely all year are slaughtered. The hips and the backbone of the goat are used to prepare mole de caderas (or huasmole), an ancestral stew with dried costeño chillies, white beans, green beans and regional herbs.

It is such a seasonal dish that the restaurants of Puebla offer it for only 6 weeks a year, and people queue to eat it. It is austere, powerful and deeply connected to the land.

The sweets of Puebla

Puebla is also the capital of Mexican confectionery:

• Camotes: Sweets of sweet potato cooked with sugar, in the shape of cylinders wrapped in waxed paper. In strawberry, orange, pineapple, lemon and guava.
• Tortitas de Santa Clara: Round biscuits topped with a layer of caramelised pumpkin seed. Crisp, sweet and nutty.
• Borrachitos: Flour sweets filled with liqueur.
• Muéganos: Balls of fried dough joined together with piloncillo caramel. They are bought in strings.

Many of these sweets can be found in the Mexican shops of British cities, imported directly from Puebla.

Puebla drinks

Pasita

A raisin liqueur originating in Puebla, served in a little clay cup with a raisin and a cube of fresh cheese. The combination of sweet liqueur + raisin + salty cheese is addictive. There is a cantina in Puebla - La Pasita - that has been serving it for over 100 years.

Elopozole

A drink of fresh maize blended with cinnamon and sugar, served hot. It is comforting on the cold nights of a city at 2,150 metres above sea level.

Puebla in the UK: where to find Puebla flavour

The poblano community in the UK is not as large as the Mexican community in general, but there are poblano restaurants and cooks in British cities who keep the tradition alive. Look for restaurants that offer artisanal mole poblano - not all moles are the same, and a poblano mole made by a real poblano really shows.

To cook poblano food at home, the essential thing is to have access to dried chillies (ancho, mulato, pasilla) and pumpkin seeds. Everything can be found in Mexican shops in the UK. And if you want to explore more Puebla recipes, visit our collection where you will find versions adapted to be made with ingredients available here.

“Puebla is not just the birthplace of mole. It is the birthplace of the idea that cooking can be art, science and ceremony all at once. Every poblano dish tells a 500-year-old story.”