One of my favorite days of the pandemic 2020 was spent visiting the artisan villages east of Oaxaca.

I started in Teotlán del Valle, an enchanting village 31km east of Oaxaca, in the heart of the Tlacolula Valley and against the foothills of the Sierra Juárez mountains. The village is renown for its textiles, especially rugs, which are woven with local sheep wool and on traditional hand-operated looms. Dyed with local natural dyes, the rugs combine historical Zapotec designs and their creators’ imagination. I visited the traditional workshop of the artist Porfirio Guiterez. While Porfirio was in the US hustling his magnificent hand-woven and hand-painted rugs, his sister Juana and her husband were working hard. After reading Porfirio’s biography I wondered if he ever actually made rugs or he was just a master marketeer. Later I found out that this workshop (and Porfirio’s sister) have been featured in the National Geographic as well as in numerous books on traditional weaving and natural dyes. Here are some images from the taller:

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My next stop was at a candle workshop: bee-wax candles are dyed with natural pigments, anointed with natural essential oils then sculpted into incredibly beautiful and intricately decorated candles.

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The Preciosa Sangre de Cristo Church is the main church of Teotitlán del Valle. The Spanish started building the cathedral in 1581 and only managed to finish it in 1758. Sadly, they decided that the church has to be placed on the site of a local Zapotec temple which they had destroyed shortly upon arriving. You can still see many decorative relief pieces of the old temple in the foundation and in the courtyard.

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From Teotitlán, I drove to the town of Tlacolula to visit the local market. Mid pandemic, the market was still going strong.

The market is largely organized by offering and sells everything you’d expect from a traditional Mexican market: fruits, vegetables, baked goods, meats, chicharron, textiles, and crafts. And, because you’re in Oaxaca, edible crickets.

At the market, you’ll see villagers dressed in colorful indigenous clothing—bright headscarves, skirts, and these days, masks. The overall experience is chaotic in the best way and a real treat for the senses.

When in Tlacolula, you have to try barbacoa – a stewed meat dish traditionally eaten on Sundays (it was Tuesday but I had to try it).

We ate at Barbacoa Juanita, a stall that has been in the market for over 80 years, passed down in the same family generation after generation — four so far!

Barbacoa Juanita specializes in borrego and chivo (lamb and goat) barbacoa. The goat is cooked until tender in a deep red broth, seasoned with chilis, garlic, onion, and a vaguely cinnamon-like seasoning (maybe hojas de aguacate, avocado leaves, which is said to taste like a mix of anise and licorice). It is served with consomé—the broth drippings of the goat that I, a former vegan, have dreamt about at night. The lamb is more simple, relying on the flavors of the tender meat without the fancy fixins.

At Tlacolula, vendors sell chicharrón in massive, tasty sheets. The piece we purchased was from the head of the pig, and included ear, nose, and cheek. So of course, I had to sample it. Yum!

Nieves, a water-based ice cream, is a favorite dessert of Oaxacans. While I don’t do well with sweets, I had a tiny spoon of tuna nieves — not the kind of tuna you think! Tuna is a cactus pear in these parts. If you like sorbet, you’ll like nieves.

And because I could not resist, I also had a little shot glass of tejate: an Oaxacan drink from pre-Hispanic times made from cornflower and cacao. It is served with sugar syrup and tastes like lightly sweet, watered-down chocolate milk.

Now here is a crazy thing: Oaxacans drive all the way to Tlacolula for pan de cazuela or casserole bread. Baked in a wood oven with chocolate y pasas or chocolate and raisins, I was told that it tastes like a sweet wheat bread with a hint of cinnamon. I was too full with barbacoa, chicharrón, nieves and tejate to attempt even a tiny bite. Also it seemed that you had to buy about 20 or more of them, or at least that is what the Oaxacans were doing…

Oh but wait, there is more food to be savored: you’ll find an entire area dedicated to carne asada vendors. Pick your favorite meats from the selection along with chilis and cactus, and more, and they will grill everything on the spot for you.

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My last stop that day was Palenque Mal de Amor. This mezcalería is located in the mezcal world capital: Santiago Matatlán. I must admit that until I took the tour of the palenque, I had no idea how mezcal was made. I saw some 40 different kinds of agave and learned that agave plants fruit very differently from each other, that some take up to 30 years to grow a piña and that after fruiting, they all die. Many kinds of mezcal are named after the specific agave they are made from. The ripe fruit is baked in an earth oven – it is buried under hot coals for up to a week. When it is unearthed, it is the most tasty fruit known to our planet. You can say it tastes like roasted sweet corn and tropical fruit but that’s totally underselling it. The baked agave piña is then hacked into pieces small enough to be crushed by tahona, a big stone wheel pulled in a circle by an ox, bull or burro. From there, the mashed agave pulp gets shoveled into open-air barrels to ferment. Once the fermentation is complete, it is double distilled in either clay or metal stills, and finally left to age in either glass vats or in oak barrels. To give mezcal a specific taste, the distilling can be done over a pig roast, a chicken roast, roasted corn, dried or fresh fruit… Similarly, the barrels are picked with an aroma in mind. Unlike most whiskies and brandies, which are diluted with water after distillation to a uniform 40% alcohol by volume, the best handmade mezcals are bottled at full strength to preserve the integrity of the agave flavor.

I sampled some 8 different mescal varieties before finally settling on a cuishe/tobalá mix. And promptly got a headache the size of the aforementioned ox…

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