Puebla Mexico Bedding Down hotelcartesiano | Page 4
in my grandfather's Talavera-lined kitchen. I still
have the secret family recipe, but it never tastes
as good as it does in Puebla, where it remains a
sacred favorite.
Hankering to taste again the city's most famous
culinary dish, mole poblano, and its festive,
seasonal summertime splurge, chiles en nogada,
I take a seat at El Mural de los Poblanos, one of
Puebla's most renowned dining spots. At a small
table beneath the restaurant's namesake mural, a
massive stretch of Diego Rivera-like wall art, I gaze
up to see the history of Puebla unfold. Historical
scenes and figures, such as Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza,
look down at me as I sip a beer - a drink the staff
encourages all diners to help themselves to from
a large, ice-filled bathtub by the door. It makes
wa_tting for a table at this buzzy spot a breeze .
.Mole, legendarily invented when nuns wanted to
surprise a visiting cardinal with a feast, doesn't
have an exact recipe, with chefs closely guarding
the way they make it Nevertheless, this mix of
various, unexpected ingredients, which range from
chocolate and raisins to chilies, nuts, and stale
bread, always emerges tasting sweet, smoky, and
piquant simultaneously. Traditionally, Poblanos
serve it atop chicken or turkey, crowned with
scattered sesame seeds. Mine
arrives at my table with turkey.
After a moment with the mole,
I turn my attention to my other
plate - chiles en nogada, a fal poblano pepper
stuffed with spicy ground beef and blanketed with a
creamy walnut sauce. The taste? It's like poetry.
allure comes'from
the pre-Spanish heritage that encircles
'O(Ql'�'Q)UI it. Various villages, designated by the
Mexican federal tourism board as pueblos
mdgicos (magic towns), manifest the culture
of Mesoamerican people. As a child, I visited
Cholula, a short drive from downtown Puebla,
to see its Great Pyramid, an adventure that
_?.wakened a lifelong love for history, mystery,
and archaeology. In my memories, I was the
only person at the pyramid. On this visit, I'm in
the company of many visitors. In turn, we enter
the 3,500-year-old structure's bowels, wandering
with guides through undulating tunnels once
used by ancient people. Eventually, I pop out
on a wide lawn, near an amphitheater, part of
the 25-acre empire, where ingenious acoustics
and mind-boggling artifacts - such as a stone
slab for sacrifice - bring the past to life. The
pyramid is just as moving as I remember it. Later
in the day, I visit Santa Maria Tonantzintla, one
of Cholula's most ornamented churches, just a
stone's throw from the magnificent pyramid. Here,
PART OF PUEBLA'S
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FALL 201B
SIGHTS
AND BITES:
Clockwise
from near
right. peruse
San Francisco
Church, the
International
Museum of
the Baroque.
and Santa
Maria
Tonantzintla
Below. try
the chiles en
nogada at El
Mural de los
Poblanos,
the history comes together
for me. Amid all the expected
adornments, this little chapel
reveals the secret resistance
of indigenous workers,
who crafted the interiors
with cherubs in their own
image and incorporated
local symbols into the
embellishment - including
a Virgin Mary who bears a
crafty resemblance to a local
goddess. The passion of it,
and the palpable soulfulness
of the region, brings me
unexpectedly to tears.
Some say that the Puebla
suburb of Angel6polis is
just the opposite of ancient
Cholula. Modern, trendy,
luxurious, dotted with
skyscrapers, universities,
malls, and upscale
developments, it contrasts
sharply with Puebla's historic
center. Fitting right in to that
urbanscape, the 2-year-old
International Museum of
the Baroque is housed in a
startlingly contemporary
building. I reserve an entire
afternoon to peruse it - and
that's not enough.
A feast for the senses,
the museum draws me in
at the door with baroque
background music, tunes that
have a Pied Piper effect a�
they lead me from chamber
to chamber. A blurb on the
wall says that baroque (the
abundantly extravagant, even
edgy, style that defines Puebla's
historical architecture) was
meant to inspire awe. I've felt
and seen that around the city.
But in this canny, hands-on
museum, I discover baroque
was so much more. A clever
labyrinth of themed rooms
reveals how baroque infiltrated
more than architecture - it
showed up in music, design,
science, art, literature, fashion,
and beyond. Baroque was
Rubens, Shakespeare, Vivaldi,
gilt buildings, hoop skirts,
and medicine's strides via
anatomy, too.
Within a somewhat
whimsical structure conceived
to make one reflect (it has
pools of water for metaphor
and walls that look like folded
origami paper), I follow a
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