In the southern highlands of Mexico lies the vibrant state of Oaxaca,
home to some of the country's best preserved regional cooking.
The Oaxacan kitchen owes much to its Zapotec Indian roots.
Even today, many of the dishes reflect the
merging of indigenous ingredients and methods
with the colonial Spanish ideas.
In the capital city, Oaxaca, the sprawling Abastos Market
could keep a visitor busy for days.
There you'll find the native women in their food stalls
that are packed to the rafters with dried beans, fresh pork,
and all the other essentials of Oaxacan cuisine.
Chef and Mexican food authority, Rick Bayless,
knows the markets highlights.
Where to find the best clay cookware,
how to use the produce merchants wild greens,
and how to choose the proper chilis for each mole.
Oaxaca, after all, is The Land of Seven Moles,
so-named for the various types that Oaxacans claim as their own.
From the Red Mole — colored with ancho chilies,
to the Green Mole — tinted with pumpkin seeds,
to the inky dark Mole Negro, or Black Mole,
with its exotic flavor-base of toasted chiles seeds and nuts.
Join us as we tour a chocolate shop in Oaxaca,
where customers can have their own blend of cacao beans, sugar,
cinnamon and almonds ground to order.
In the Oaxacan countryside, women still make the Queso Fresco and Queso de Hebra....
...(what we know as string cheese) by hand.
Susanna Trilling at her Seasons of My Heart Cooking School
outside of Oaxaca,
shows us the fascinating process of taking the warm fresh milky curds
and kneading them in hot water until they're pliable enough to braid.
Oaxacan women have also perfected the art of the tamale.
Their banana leaf wrapped tamales filled with chicken and Mole Negro
are simply not to be missed.
No trip to Oaxaca would be complete without barbacoa.
Somehow the Pit Master knows when it's time to unseal the pit
and pull out the steaming barbecued goat.
Let the feasting begin!
[traditional Mexican acoustic music]
[Rick Bayless] The thing about going into a Mexican market is that sense of abundance.
I mean there's just massive quantities of stuff.
And it's not just any old stuff. It's ripe stuff.
It's like the ingredients that are to be used that day.
So full of aromas
and they're just absolutely beautiful to look at.
This is wild mustard greens and then there's....
"Berros" they call them here. That's watercress.
This is a local green that I think is in the amaranth family,
that they call Mora.
Up here is the wild purslane.
You can make some amazing meals out of this stuff.
Cilantro.
The herb, Epazote — just look at that.
Now that will scent a pot of beans in a beautiful way.
And since today is the first day of Lent....
Look at that. That's Romeritos.
Wow, what a beautiful pile of that. They stew those with Mole.
And they eat it when they don't eat meat during Lent.
Gorgeous stuff.
These are the little mandarins
(the tangerines, if you will) that they have here.
They never turned completely orange-colored.
These are beautiful....
[speaking Spanish]
This is a type of Manila mango that they love here, right?
Ah, si, si, si.
They've got the Manila mangos back up there next to those beautiful bananas
and peaches and apples.
Man they smell good.
It's just beginning to be the season for all of the mangos.
Look at this beautiful sandía — the watermelon.
The field ripened pineapple, boy, that's a vision of Mexico.
And then down here in this little basket, they may not look like very much,
but this is the local peach
and when you smell it, man, it's like the....
the essence of peach flavor.
Okay, those chilies I promised you are just around the corner.
One time when I was living in Oaxaca,
I came out here and I bought chilies — dried chilies,
to see how many different varieties that I could come up with and I came up with 27 different varieties.
Now some people might think that that's kind of crazy because....
chilies are chilies. I mean — it's hot, it makes your food spicy,
but that's not the way they use chilies here, they....
They use them for flavor.
Now this one here, this arbol....
Well, it's really hot and it'll make a wonderful hot table salsa of it.
Something like this ancho up here.
Why this thing is just amazing.
It's sweet, it's full, it's complex, it's like a symphony in your mouth.
Look over here.
These are local chilies that.... Something you only find here in Oaxaca.
They're called Chilhuacle Chiles and they're used to make that famous Black Mole.
The king of all Moles.
Other kinds of chilhuacles that go to red color....
There's even a yellow one.
And when they make the amarillo,
the yellow Mole — they use some of these chilies in there.
Look how beautiful these are.
Now, this is a quality we rarely see in the United States.
These are guajillo chilies, they have a bright flavor.
They're wonderful in sauces, as a base of a soup — to flavor that.
But the quality of them, they're very soft....
They're not brittle.
They've got great color to them
and that means they're going to have the absolute best flavor.
Now, in a stall like this that sells all these different kinds of chilies,
you'll also find other kinds of dried ingredients,
especially the kinds of ingredients that go into a Mole.
There'll be things like.... Well, here's cumin,
some pumpkin seeds for making the Green Moles,
the native allspice, black pepper, cloves, anise....
But one thing you just got to see here is cinnamon.
Now this is true cinnamon.
It's not like the little hard swizzle stick cinnamon that we have in the United States.
That's cassia — this is the true stuff. Really flowery and it's really soft.
Then you put that into your hot chocolate or grind it up as one of the sweet spices in a Mole
and you have something that is just absolutely delicious.
It's a completely new experience,
as is going to a Mexican market.