Knee deep in chiles: learning to cook in Oaxaca proves a very colorful experience.

Residents of Oaxaca City say that those who taste the fried chapulines, or grasshoppers, which are dished out on many street corners, will return one day. But it's the chocolate that will bring me back to Oaxaca.

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In my first morning in this colonial city in southeastern Mexico. I stepped out of my hotel on Mina Street and was greeted with the intoxicating aroma of roasted cacao beans mixed with cinnamon, sugar and almonds spilling out of nearby shops dedicated to making the region's famous chocolate. I followed my nose to the closest one. Did I want a sample? Yes, please.

Oaxaca is also known for its tamales, for the quesillo cheese that looks like a ball of string, and for seven varieties of mole (elaborate sauces with chiles and, sometimes, chocolate). In this city, the cuisine is unlike that in the rest of the country because Oaxacans have preserved the unique culinary traditions of many of the state's indigenous groups, notably the Zapotecs.

PREDATING CORTES

Oaxaca's chocolate, as well as other traditional foods such as squash blossoms and chilies, date to pre-Hispanic times. Oaxacans mixed these foods with ingredients brought by Spaniards--such as raisins, cinnamon, almonds and thyme--to create their own cuisine. And it was indigenous people in Oaxaca who invented the molcajete y tejalote (mortar and pestle).

Oaxaca City, the capital of the state of Oaxaca, has many restaurants that specialize in local cuisine. But one of the best ways to experience its culinary delights is to take a day-long cooking class with one of several excellent local chefs.

I chose chef Pilar Cabrera's La Casa de los Sabores, a school located at Las Bugambilias 2, the bed-and-breakfast she owns a few blocks from her restaurant, La Olla. The class had just four students. Our first adventure of the day: a trip to a local market, only a few blocks from the bed and breakfast but off the tourist path. As we wandered through the stalls of fresh vegetables, breads and cheeses, familiar foods turned out to be a foreign language Pilar translated.

Eggs aren't just for omelets and cakes, she explained: they are also a remedy for seeing what's ailing a sick baby. Oaxacans rub the egg over the baby's skin, and when they crack the egg, the bubbles that emerge in the egg white reveal the problem.

"I'm not sure if it's true, but people in Oaxaca say it works," she said.

SNIFFING A CHILE

The art of exploring a Mexican market took on a different meaning with a Oaxacan culinary expert as a guide. There were knee-high sacks overflowing with a dozen different kinds of dried chilies, and Pilar showed us how to distinguish a deep red pasilla chili by having us rub our fingers over the wrinkled surface and inhale the smoky scent.

I imagine I would have gotten some dirty looks if I massaged and sniffed my way through the fresh vegetable section of a grocery store, but the gray-haired women hawking vegetables must have been used to Pilar's students because they didn't even raise an eyebrow.

Pilar steered us around the poultry section where plucked birds lay on counters ("I never buy those--they don't use refrigerators," she said) and toward the stand serving champurrado, a hot, corn-based beverage flavored with chocolate. The woman at the stand briskly mixed the drink in a clay pitcher using a long, wooden molinillo, the same tool used to whip Oaxacan chocolate drinks into a foamy mixture for the past five centuries.

By the end of the market trip, our plastic tote bags were filled with dough for making tortillas, epazote (goosefoot, a pungent herb used to flavor black beans and other foods), several varieties of chiles (pasilla, mulato, chilhuacle and serrano), tomatillos, carrots, peas and blackberries.

ROPED INTO THE KITCHEN

Back at Pilar's kitchen, the four students divided into pairs and began chopping, blending and sauteing according to the chef's directions. For me, what started as a cooking class became a lesson in the changing face of Oaxacan culinary tradition.

Cabrera, the chef-owner at La Olla restaurant, is a native Oaxacan, who learned to cook as a child out of necessity. Her mother, a nurse, worked long hours, so the cooking was the responsibility of the older of her six children. Pilar's oldest sister made her a deal--she'd do dishes if Pilar cooked. She agreed.

Pilar learned Oaxacan cooking traditions from her grandmother, who showed her how to make dishes such as mole negro, a complex sauce requiring 20 ingredients.

Pilar left Oaxaca for Mexico City to attend college and for a brief career at McCormick, the multinational spice company. But she followed her heart back home to Oaxaca and opened a restaurant and a bed and breakfast with her husband, Luis. For the past six years, she's offered cooking classes, and last August moved the school into a new, outdoor kitchen at her bed-and-breakfast.

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As I mashed chilies and tomatillos in the molcajete for our salsa, Pilar talked about trying to modernize her restaurant. In her grandmother's day, she said, there was no such thing as a recipe, or measuring. Cooks would just add a little sugar or salt as needed. But in her restaurant kitchen, Pilar wants things to be consistent. She's introduced standard recipes at La Olla, and it has caused a near-riot among her staff.

"People are very resistant," she said.

Our cooking class had the casual feel of cooking dinner with a group of friends--except that everything had been pre-measured and put into brightly-colored baskets. Pilar gently directed us and worked alongside. Because she was feeding us instructions, we didn't look at recipes, but we did get to keep a recipe booklet for future reference.

Although Pilar speaks fluent English, she encouraged the group--all Americans--to practice our Spanish. When someone didn't understand an instruction, she found another way to say it.

The mole negro was one of the most complicated dishes I had ever seen, even though much of the work had been done in advance. I decided I wouldn't be ambitious enough to make it again, but that at least I learned to appreciate its complex flavoring.

But several times since that class, I have cooked Pilar's chiles rellenos, smoky red pasilla chilies stuffed with a shredded chicken filling. In class, she showed us that the secret to the light, fluffy egg coating is to whip the egg whites until they're stiff before folding in the yolks.

Although Pilar remains loyal to Oaxaca's culinary traditions, she is part of a group of local chefs who have added some modern twists to the local classics. As we poured a tomato-based sauce over our chiles rellenos, she pointed out that in her grandmother's generation, stuffed chilies were never served with a sauce.

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FORGET THE HOT DOGS

Another chef who offers a modern version of Oaxacan classics is Iliana de la Vega of the El Naranjo restaurant. She serves lighter versions of the traditional seven moles, omitting the ever-present lard. Her personal variations could explain why the day I went to her restaurant there didn't appear to be a Oaxacan in the dining room--every patron was a foreign tourist.

Pilar gave her take on the scenario: "People in Oaxaca don't want to try another mole," she said. In fact, many local restaurants are resorting to adding foreign dishes to attract Oaxacan clientele. Pilar vowed not to do that. "I will never put burgers or hot dogs on my menu," she said.

Pilar Cabrera and Iliana de la Vega both offer regular cooking classes, as does Susana Trilling, Oaxaca's most internationally well-known chef. Trilling, who is also an author and television host, doesn't have a restaurant, but she holds cooking classes--ranging from a day to a week--in a large kitchen at her ranch outside Oaxaca City.

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Oaxaca City is easily accessible from Mexico City by car, bus (6.5 hours) or plane (one hour). There are numerous bed and breakfasts and hotels. Aside from its culinary delights, Oaxaca has a splendid cathedral, several excellent galeries and museums and vivid local crafts. But visitors often find the best part of Oaxaca to be the food.

At La Casa de los Sabores, a few hours after our cooking class began, we ate the lunch we had prepared: mole negro with chicken-stuffed pasilla chilies, fresh tortillas, morita salsa, arroz a la mexicana, hibiscus juice and, for dessert, cheesecake. We also sampled Oaxaca's mezcal, a cousin of tequila.

The feast was missing at least one Oaxacan snack: chapulines. But I'll have to save eating fried grasshoppers for my next trip. The saying goes, those who eat chapulines will return to Oaxaca, but I'll be back soon anyway.

All the Colors of the Mole Rainbow

The seven basic varieties of Oaxacan moles:

Amarillo        Orange-yellow sauce made with chilis and cumin
Chichilo        Deep, smoky sauce with chilcostle chiles
Colorado/Rojo   Deep red sauce with chilis and nuts
Colaradito      Orange-red sauce with ancho chilis and sesame seeds
Manchamanteles  Sweet sauce made with pineapple and plantains
Negro           Oaxaca's most famous and complicated mole variety with
                at least 20 ingredients, including chocolate and chilis
Verde           Green sauce, with chiles and herbs

RELATED ARTICLE: Cooking Schools in Oaxaca

La Casa de los Sabores

Classes: usually offered Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays

Price: US$45-$60 for a day-long class

Address: Libres 205, Col. Centro, Oaxaca City

Tel: [phone]

www.lasbugambilias.com

Chef/director: Pilar Cabreras

EI Naranjo

Classes: usually offered Tuesdays and Thursdays

Price: US$60 for a day-long class

Address: Valerio Trujano 203, Col. Centro, Oaxaca City

Tel: [phone]

www.elnaranjo.com.mx

Chef/director: Iliana de la Vega

Seasons of My Heart

Classes: day classes, weekend classes, week-long classes and culinary tours

Cost: US$75 for a day-long class; prices vary for other classes

Address: Rancho Aurora, AP #42 Admon. 3 (just outside the city)

Tel: [phone]

www.seasonsofmyheart.com

Chef/director: Susana Trilling

Oaxaca's annual Food of the Gods Festival

Oct. 2-9 (ongoing registration)

Events: Cooking classes, food tastings, market tours, culinary seminars, traditional chocolate-making demonstration and more

www.food-of-the-gods-festival.com

Corrie MacLaggan is a Mexico City-based freelance writer.

Photos by Margaret Myers