TRAVEL + LEISURE / JANUARY 2017 55
1 Initially, I looked
for rare chilli
varieties here, at the
Central de Abastos
Market in the city of
Oaxaca, and I still get
some of my taviches
there. But to fi nd my
best peppers, I had to
work directly with
farmers. 2 Felix
Antonio Gomez (left)
is one of only six
growers who plant
the chilhuacle—its
name means ‘old
chilli’ in the Nahuatl
language of the
Aztecs—in the
Cuicatlán district of
Oaxaca. He has the
best land and the
best plants, which
usually produce
outstanding chillies.
I’m interested in the
larger ones you get
from the third or
fourth pickings,
which have been left
on the plant longer.
After the chillies are
harvested, Oaxacan
growers often dry
them in the sun, but
at this altitude
there’s heavy dew
that doesn’t allow
them to dry
suffi ciently. So I
bought a US$20,000
dehydrator and
brought it to Oaxaca.
Now we can do 2,000
pounds in 10 days.
I dry them to a precise
water-activity level,
so no mold can grow.
3 Markets like this
one near the Zócalo,
the city’s central
square, are
quintessentially
Oaxacan. One of my
favourite things to
buy in this area is theroasted chapulines in
the Benito Juárez
Market, which are a
popular snack.
I always buy from
Daniela Santiago
Cruz, who has the
freshest ones in
Oaxaca. They’re
typically sold in three
fl avours—garlic, lime,
or chilli pequin—but
for mine, I have her
combine all three
fl avours. We serve
them on our
guacamole, and
people go nuts.4 At his house
in Cuicatlán, Felix’s
wife, Mayra, prepares
dishes like chilli
caldo, a soup made
with meat, calabaza,
and corn that
features fresh
chilhuacles negros.
The freshness of the
chillies is key, as it
provides the soup
with its bright fl avour.
5 These chilhuacles
negros enjoy the
greatest fame,
because they’re used
in mole negro, one of
the most popular
Oaxacan dishes. Red
chilhuacles,
meanwhile, are used
in mole coloradito.
The yellows are lessknown, and really
scarce. They’re made
into mole amarillo,
which I pool beneath
my chillies rellenos.
Mayra learned to
make mole negro
from Felix’s
grandmother, and she
still does it the
traditional way, using
only chilhuacles
instead of the
cheaper stand-ins
most people now rely
on. Even Oaxacan
restaurants that say
they serve mole
negro generally
use only a few
chilhuacles, if any.
6 I always stay at
the Hotel Parador
San Miguel, where
Nancy Galvez is the
chef. I brought her
some of Felix’s fresh
chilhuacles
amarillos. Dried ones
are hard enough to
fi nd, but fresh ones
are nearly impossible
to get because
they’re available onlyduring harvest in the
towns where they’re
grown. 7 This
molino (mill) is one of
the few commercial-
scale machines in
Oaxaca, where the
chillies are ground to
your specifi cations.
Corn, beans,
chocolate, chillies—
there’s a different
molino for each one,
with stones inside
that are hand-cut to
mill a particular food.
There’s no other
kitchen tool that can
approximate it. I
couldn’t fi nd one of
these in the United
States, so I bought
one on one of my
trips, disassembled
it, and fl ew it home as
checked luggage.
The TSA people
thought I was crazy,
but now I use it at
Zocalito to grind
corn and beans for
sopes and tamales.
I’m the only producer
of powdered pasilla
de Oaxaca in the US.34567Photographs by Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock TRAVEL + LEISURE / JANUARY 2017 57