The Cinco de Mayo menu has only two choices: good or bad. If you have read the other posts on this site about what is all about cinco de mayo, you’d know that Cinco de Mayo is an American event, or a Mexican American event, and certainly not a Mexican Fiesta. There is not such thing as a Cinco de Mayo menu in the Mexican 5 de Mayo celebration, commemorating the victory at the 1862’s Battle of Puebla against the french army.
So, let’s face it, you can either do a cheap tequila and fake tacos (named burritos) celebration, or you can impress your guests with a real and good quality Mexican cinco de mayo menu.
What a Cinco de Mayo menu should be
The victory of May 5th 1862 took place at Puebla. A beautiful colonial city one hundred miles east of Mexico City. Puebla de los Angeles, its official name, is now a two-sided city. While it is home to the most modern and largest factory of VW cars in the world, and has very modern shopping malls catering to over 2 million inhabitants, it is without doubt one of the most beautiful and well preserved colonial cities in the Americas. Puebla’s historic downtown is full of seventeen’s and eighteen’s century buildings so well kept that can easily transport you to the Spanish Empire that ruled the Americas (from San Francisco California to the Patagonia) and gave birth to Mexico.
Because of its rich and mixed culture, originally indigenous, then mixed with Spanish culture, and lately with the French, the Comida Poblana, food from Puebla, is considered the finest Mexican food. If you really want to have an authentic Cinco de Mayo menu, you should include the following dishes:
- Mole poblano: the most iconic dish of the comida poblano. No Cinco de Mayo menu should avoid it, otherwise, is not a cinco de mayo. Sor Andrea de la Asuncion used over one hundred ingredients made of seeds and chocolate. Every poblano family has its own combination of chiles and chocolate, and other spices. No mole tastes like other, but all of them are delicious to give complexity to chicken, beef or pork,
- Chiles en nogada: the iconic comida poblana, made out of filled poblano peper, a green and styled pepper, with a mild spicy level.
- Camote Poblano (sweet potatoes), it is the on the top Cinco de Mayo desserts. They are conserved in honey water or orange water in big cristal flasks. Check the Santa Clara Dulce de Camote, the best brand made at the convent.
- Enfrijoladas, the famous fried black beans and smashed with tortilla chips. A true Mexican would say that nothing is better for a hang out breakfast than spicy enfrijoladas. As a funny (or sad) fact, Mexican population grew so fast in the period 1950-1990 that frijoles, or black beans, the main staple of Mexican food, now needs to imported from the US or Argentina, as Mexicans eat more enfrijoladas than they can produce.
- Enchiladas con salsa de Pepian: made of delicious pepian sauce, derived from squash seeds (known as pepitas in Mexican), and lately made our of nuts seeds. It is also part of the Oaxacan and Yucatecan food. Made of chicken or pork ground meet on tortillas. It goes all the way south to Guatemala, Honduras and the Mayan region as a prehispanic food linked to the Mayan culture.
- Cemitas poblanas: it is a large sesame bread usually eaten for breakfast, but also used as traditional bread for a big hot and spicy sandwich (again made of pork or chicken ground meat, cooked in a chile sauce with tomato or cheese). This cinco de mayo food was so importante , that it was used as currency. The orginal Poblanos (population from Puebla) had to pay their taxes in terms of Cemita units according to their wealth and activity.
- Tortitas de Santa Clara: created and still made by the secluded nuns of Santa Clara convent, this a delicious cinco de mayo dessert. The tortitas de Santa Clara convent are made with flour, eggs, fat and sugar, and topped with squash seeds, the famous Mexican pepitas, since the 1600’s.
- Pasita liquor: after such a Cinco the Mayo menu, you’ll need a digestive liquor. Nothing better than a licor de pasita. Made of grapes brought by the Spaniards, many years later Mr Emilio Contreras started making it at his cantina, established 1916. It has secret ingredients, never revealed. The Cantina La Pasita still exists at the historic downtown Pueble, pay it a visit and enjoy a pasita liquor.
- Chalupas poblanas: the chalupas poblanas are fried corn tortillas filled with a chicken of beef guisado, a stew cooked slowly with different chiles, onions and garlic. It is claimed that Francisca Hernández created the chalupas poblanas en 1846. The truth is that Francisca Hernandez worked for the restaurant La Chiquita in Puebla, where you can still go and ask safely for a round of chalupas poblanas, now run by the sixth generation of owners, who have kept the menu intact.
Other Cinco de Mayo Menus
We have already discussed what a real Cinco de Mayo should be, attached its Puebla origin. However, if want to celebrate a true Mexican food celebration, you can go and explore the wide choices of mexican cuisine.
Mexican food has a very diverse offer of menus. It is a country coming from old civilizations that cooked like the native americans in the North, like the meat/beef based Mexican food of Nuevo Leon, going through the aztec and olmeca mexican food in the center based on corn, to the Mayan food in the south and Central America boasting the spiciest chiles and game meat, to tropical fruits.