Clemole Toluqueño

This recipe is drawn from 'La Cocina en el Bolsillo No. 2', published in 1890 in Mexico City by Antonio Vanegas Arroyo. The booklet is part of a popular numbered series intended for everyday home cooks looking for inspiration and new preparations. The recipes capture the vibrant, multicultural culinary world of late nineteenth-century Mexico, blending Spanish, indigenous, and Creole influences. In this era, printed cookbooks were often small, portable, and affordable, meant to fit literally in one’s pocket. They provide an invaluable window into both the domestic economy and the aspirations of a newly urbanizing middle class. Clemole Tolqueño, featured here, is typical of celebratory stews from central Mexico, using a rich combination of meats, chiles, seeds, and nuts.

Traditional home cooks in 1890s Mexico would have used heavy clay cazuelas for stewing and earthenware comales or iron griddles for toasting seeds and chiles. Grinding would be done using a metate (stone grinding slab) or a molcajete (mortar and pestle). Lard rendered at home was the primary frying fat. A sharp kitchen knife and wooden spatulas would have rounded out the essential toolkit. Cooking was performed on a wood- or charcoal-fired hearth or simple stove, with careful attention to the heat so as not to burn the delicate chiles or seeds. Serving would be straight from the cazuela to the family table, with fresh tortillas always nearby.