My abuela (grandmother) cooked the traditional meal for each Friday in the 40 days preceding Semana Santa (Holy Week). That is the Mexican tradition because that is the Catholic tradition (90 percent of Mexicans are Catholic).

My daughter is now learning to cook, and she too is making the traditional Friday meals. The menu for this occasion has not changed in three generations, but there are differences in cooking these meals between the old days-the days of my abuela-and today.

My abuela used a metate, a flat, rectangular rock, as the surface on which to pound and grind ingredients such as dried chiles, almonds, peanuts and pecans. She also used the molcajete, a round rock bowl, which is close to the modern mortar that is used with a pestle to pulverize spices such as peppercorns, cloves and anise and cumin seeds to make salsas.

My daughter uses an electric blender and grinder when she needs to pulverize something. And, she will grab a bottle of dry seasonings to add spices such as cinnamon and cumin near the end of cooking.

My abuela would fry and grind corn tortillas to thicken her salsas. Some traditional cooks today still use this method for thickening, but my daughter reaches for cornstarch when she needs to thicken her salsas.

My abuela cooked over a charcoal oven, which was a stone-lined, charcoal-filled oven space in the kitchen. She also used wood instead of charcoal sometimes. The heat from the hot charcoal (or wood) would rise up in the oven to heat the food cooking in the cazuela (clay pot) resting on top of the oven. 

My daughter uses a gas stove with burners. She, too, uses a cazuela. Cazuelas are traditional cookware that have remained in continuous use since my abuela's time-perhaps they are the single example of Mexican heritage cooking that is unchanged over the years. There are some dishes that haven't been successfully adapted in recipe form for the young, new Mexican cooks using gas stoves. For example, the special dessert chongos Zamoranos-the sweet, caramel-colored milk and sugar treat with the texture of new bubblegum-was developed with the charcoal oven, and one cooking step calls for leaving the cazuela with the sweet mixture to sit overnight above the hot-but not burning-charcoal. This step cannot be recreated with the household gas stove. Young people, really almost all Mexicans today, buy their ready-made chongos zamoranos in a jar at the grocery store.



Semana Santa Menu

Here is the traditional menu from my abuela for the meals served on all the Fridays during the 40 days that come before Semana Santa. The menu is meatless, because it was during the 40 days before Easter that Jesus was praying and fasting in the desert. 



Soup

The sopa de haba, or fava bean soup, is hearty to satisfy the appetite.



Rice

A rice in any of the different varieties is included in traditional Mexican meals daily. Mexican rice is very tasty because of the very Mexican cooking technique. We serve this dish as a single dish, not as a side dish to soak up juices from the main dish. (We use tortillas to soak up juices.) Rice can be served with a topping of avocado slices or red salsa or banana slices.



Vegetables

The vegetables can be almost any cooked vegetables, but especially traditional are the potato or the very Mexican chayote (pear-shaped green vegetable), or chinchayote or huauzontle. Vegetables can substitute for fish and seafood, which are very expensive this time of year. 



Main dishes

The main dishes can be fish or any other seafood, chiles rellenos (chiles stuffed with vegetables, cheese or tuna fish) or romeritos-a type of wild greens cooked with potatoes, cacti, and vegetables and submerged in mole with dried shrimp fritters.

This year the Semana Santa runs from April 10 through April 16. The final Friday meal is served on Viernes Santo (Good Friday), April 14. On the next day, Sabado de Gloria (Holy Saturday), you can join the faithful who go to the Jardín to explode images of Judas Iscariot. Also on Sabado de Gloria, in the old days before there were concerns about a plentiful water supply, people poured water over one another. 



Broad bean soup

2 cups of dried fava beans 

5 large tomatoes, cubed

2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

1 small bunch of cilantro, finely chopped (about 10 stems)

5 tablespoons olive oil 

3-4 cups chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, ground

Salt to taste



Garnish: oregano, olive oil, fried pasilla chile strips, seeded and deveined Boil dried fava beans in enough water to cover for 45 minutes or until they are soft. Drain beans and reserve the cooking liquid. Heat oil and sauté onion until transparent. Add tomatoes and garlic and sauté briefly. Add cilantro and cook the vegetables until the tomatoes are soft. Add beans, chicken stock and oregano to the vegetable mixture and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. If the mixture becomes too thick add some of the reserved cooking liquid from the beans. The soup should be a bit thick.

To serve: decorate each serving with dried oregano, a teaspoon of olive oil, and strips of fried pasilla chiles. Note: Chiles can be fried beforehand in the olive oil used to cook the vegetables. This will add chile flavor to the oil.



To learn about Maria's cooking classes go to her website www.traditionalmexicancooking.com.mx  or call 152-4376.