Mexico: Mole and Maquiladoras
Mexico: Mole and Maquiladoras
Mexico has never fit neatly into anyone’s box. Not the Spanish crown’s. Not Napoleon’s. Not Wall Street’s or Washington’s. Its history is not a smooth march to being an economic powerhouse of modernity, but a long series of ruptures, empires rising and collapsing, revolutions starting in the fields and ending in the streets, workers laying down their tools, students refusing to be silenced, and Indigenous farmers carving out their own futures in the jungle.
Even Mexico’s birth was improvised. When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, the colonies didn’t know who to obey, so they turned on each other. Elites seized power. A radical priest, Miguel Hidalgo, raised a peasant army in the name of the people. Over the next decade, the struggle for independence became a scramble for power, shifting alliances, fragile governments, and coups on top of coups. By the time Mexico officially declared independence in 1821, no one had planned for the country that emerged.
It wouldn’t be the last time Mexico was born from chaos. The 19th and 20th centuries saw it bounce from empire to republic to dictatorship and back again, invaded by foreign powers, carved up by elites, and held together by nothing more than resistance and grit. Even in the modern era, the violence hasn’t disappeared, it’s just changed uniforms. Cartels, corrupt police, paramilitaries, and foreign investors often take turns wielding the stick. But through it all, the people have found ways to survive, and to resist.
But more than any constitution or flag, it has been food that has kept the idea of Mexico alive. Mexican food is known and enjoyed all over the world, but in Mexico, it has evolved from necessity. It’s the quiet companion in resistance meetings to the loud partner in booming public squares.
This post is about five such dishes. Five meals that didn’t just feed people—they fortified them.
We begin with Mole Poblano Enchiladas, a dish as layered as the resistance it represents, born in Puebla, where working-class militias beat back a European empire. Then Huevos Rancheros, a rustic breakfast made for ranch hands that became a symbol of agrarian revolt during the Mexican Revolution. We look at Tortas al Pastor, a dish gifted by Lebanese immigrants and embraced by students marching through Mexico City in 1968, demanding democracy and getting bullets in return. Then comes Birria Tacos, once slow-stewed in Jalisco, now wrapped in tortillas and carried into the border factories, where workers, tired of exploitation, organized. And finally, Elotes, slathered in chili, lime, and history, still sold in the rebel zones of Chiapas, where Zapatistas fight for Indigenous autonomy and the right to grow Mexican corn without corporate control.
So fire up the comal, as these dishes are best served hot.
Enchiladas de Mole Poblano: Cinco de Mole
Mole sauce is something uniquely Mexican. Its roots stretch back to the Aztecs, who ground cacao and chiles into dark, smoky blends used in ritual and royal kitchens alike. Spanish colonizers brought sesame seeds, almonds, raisins, cinnamon, and Old World spices, and what emerged from the collision was something new: a savory, bittersweet sauce thick with history, heavy with meaning. It takes hours to make. Sometimes days. It’s a communal pot of flavor, with chocolate folded in at the end not to sweeten, but to deepen the flavor. Enchiladas, wrapping soaked tortillas around cuts of meat, served as the perfect vessel for this sauce. It’s a process, just like the country that created it. It was in the state of Puebla that the dish took on its most iconic form, and in Puebla, Mexico would face an early test of both its identity as a country and the spirit of its working people.
The early decades of independent Mexico were a whirlwind of coups, crises, and contradictions. Presidents rose and fell like stage curtains. Power seesawed between liberals and conservatives, not just political ideologies, but competing visions of the country’s soul. Liberals, mostly mestizo and reform-minded, wanted a decentralized republic modeled loosely on the United States: less Church, more land reform, and a weakened central authority. Conservatives, made up of creole elites and loyalists to the old order, wanted a return to monarchy. For them, the Church was sacred, the caste system a natural source of stability, and Europe, especially Spain and France, a model to emulate, not escape. This divide exploded into the Reform War (1857–1861), as conservatives tried to crush a new liberal constitution. When the dust settled, the liberals had won. And for the first time in post-colonial Latin America, an Indigenous man, Benito Juárez, stood as the democratically elected president of a fractured nation.
Victory did not bring peace. The war had left Mexico’s economy in ruins. Foreign debt piled high. The U.S., Juárez’s ideological ally, was busy unraveling into its own civil war. And with no time to rebuild, Juárez issued a moratorium on foreign debt payments. Britain and Spain agreed to negotiate with Mexico. France, under the monarchy of Napoleon III, did not. It launched an invasion. Its goal: install a European monarch, Maximilian of Austria, as emperor of Mexico. A second Mexican empire, under French protection. A puppet crown for a divided land. Puebla, home of Mole, was where the first stand against the French invaders occurred. It was May 5th, 1862, or in Spanish, Cinco de Mayo.
Mexico’s standing army had been gutted by the Reform War. To mount a defense, they turned to the people: peasants, farmers, urban workers, Indigenous communities. The French forces were professional, trained in Algeria and Indochina. Mexican conservatives aligned with the French, hoping they could restore their vision of order with imperial backing. As both forces took up quarters in the city and just outside, a smell of sweet chocolate, pungent cinnamon, and spicy ancho and pasilla filled the air, as the Mexican forces pulled together resources to make mole in their camps.
The Mexicans expected the worst, but remained resilient. The French attempted to intimidate the civilians with loud bugle cries and performative drills with bayonets. But something strange happened. The French, with all their advanced weaponry against aging Mexican farmers’ muskets, could not get up Puebla’s steep hills. Every advance they made up the hill was repelled. Eventually, the French had to retreat, and the General of the battle, Porfirio Díaz, became a national hero. The victory was just what the Mexicans needed, with the first Cinco de Mayo being celebrated with large pots of communal mole in the streets. While the French did come back and briefly establish the Second Mexican Empire in 1863, the delay proved crucial, as the U.S. Civil War was soon to end, and the Monroe Doctrine of U.S. enforcement of non-European intervention in the Western Hemisphere was inevitable. The French left, and their puppet monarchy collapsed without their support. Cinco de Mayo is still celebrated in Puebla as a day of pride. In the U.S., it’s become a day of drink specials, plastic sombreros, and surface-level nods to Mexican identity. But the real legacy of that battle lives in mole, dark, complex, communal, and in the people who stirred it over open flames while preparing to defend their land.
Mole may be complicated to make, but it is truly unique and rewarding.
Mole Poblano Enchiladas
Mole poblano is a rich, complex sauce with chocolate and chiles, used here to coat chicken enchiladas.
Ingredients (Serves 4–6):
For the Mole Poblano (simplified version):
2 dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
2 dried pasilla chiles, stemmed and seeded
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup almonds
1/4 cup raisins
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 white onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves
1 (14.5 oz) can crushed tomatoes
2 oz Mexican chocolate (or dark chocolate with 1 tsp sugar)
2 cups chicken broth
Salt to taste
For the Enchiladas:
12 corn tortillas
2 cups shredded cooked chicken (rotisserie works)
1 cup shredded queso fresco or Monterey Jack
1/4 cup chopped white onion
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Vegetable oil for frying
Instructions:
Prepare the Mole: Toast chiles in a dry skillet for 1–2 minutes. Soak in 1 cup hot water for 15 minutes. In the same skillet, toast sesame seeds and almonds until golden (2–3 minutes). Blend chiles, soaking liquid, sesame seeds, almonds, raisins, cinnamon, cumin, cloves, onion, garlic, and tomatoes until smooth.
Cook the Mole: In a saucepan, heat 1 tbsp oil over medium heat. Add mole paste and cook for 5 minutes, stirring. Add chicken broth and chocolate, stirring until chocolate melts. Simmer 15–20 minutes until thickened. Season with salt.
Prepare Tortillas: Heat 1/4 inch oil in a skillet. Lightly fry tortillas (20 seconds per side) until pliable. Drain on paper towels.
Assemble Enchiladas: Dip a tortilla in mole sauce, place on a plate, add shredded chicken, and roll up. Repeat for all tortillas. Spoon extra mole over the top and sprinkle with queso fresco, onion, and cilantro.
Serve: Serve warm with rice or beans.
Tips: Mole freezes well; make extra and store for later use.
Huevos Rancheros: Breakfast at the Barricades
Huevos Rancheros, or “ranchers’ eggs” in Spanish, is a common breakfast item at Mexican restaurants worldwide. It emerged during the colonial period as a peasant dish for Mestizos and Indigenous farmers. Consisting of fried eggs brought with colonial chickens, and a red salsa made of common ingredients found on farms and in Indigenous diets, topped on top of the corn tortilla, the backbone of the Aztec diet. It truly became “Ranchers’ Eggs,” the breakfast of the Mexican countryside. Different regions had different variations, some adding refried beans, some adding avocado, some adding crumbled queso fresco. But the association with the peasantry remained no matter what part of the country you were in. Of course, in the early 1900s, this dish became associated not just with the peasantry, but the revolution the peasantry was about to undertake.
In 1876, Porfirio Díaz, once a liberal war hero who had helped defend Puebla during the French invasion, had grown disillusioned with Benito Juárez, accusing him of violating Mexico’s ideals by seeking a fourth presidential term. After losing an election in which no candidate won a majority, Díaz launched a failed coup and fled into exile. But the seeds of ambition had been planted. When Juárez died, his successor Sebastián Lerdo tried to calm the waters by pardoning Díaz, and then made the same mistake: he tried to run again. Díaz returned with another coup. This one succeeded.
Thus began the Porfiriato, a 30-year military dictatorship masked in the language of order and progress. Díaz brought modernization: railroads, telegraphs, electricity, foreign investment, and industrial growth. But it all came at a price. The land reforms championed by earlier liberals were rolled back. Vast tracts of farmland were swallowed by elites and foreign companies. By the time Díaz announced his upcoming retirement in 1910, 97% of arable land in Mexico was owned by just 1% of the population.
Rancheros who once worked their own land now labored in debt to plantation owners or hacendados, living as little more than sharecroppers. Each morning, they sat by cooking fires, eating their humble huevos rancheros, eggs from their own chickens, if they were lucky, while the harvests they tended filled trains bound for Europe and the U.S. In the eyes of the elite, they were disposable. In their own eyes, they were done being silent.
Then, in 1908, Díaz gave an interview to U.S. journalist James Creelman, saying he would not run for reelection in 1910. He claimed the Mexican people were now “ready for democracy,” and that he would step aside to allow a peaceful transition of power. Reformers, dissidents, and working people across Mexico dared to hope. Political clubs formed. Newspapers flourished. Candidates emerged, the most prominent being Francisco I. Madero, a northern landowner who called for free elections and an end to Díaz’s dictatorship. Madero, though moderate in many ways, posed a real threat to the Porfirian order.
He ran again. He jailed Madero. He claimed victory in an election so fraudulent it could only have been written in pencil and erased with gold. Díaz, now 80 years old, declared himself the winner by a landslide. Madero pulled some strings with the state governor and was allowed the right to move around the city on horseback. He was able to escape, and was smuggled across the border to the U.S. From the U.S., Madero issued the Plan of San Luis Potosí, a defiant call to arms: the election was illegitimate, the Díaz regime must fall, and November 20th, 1910, would be the spark of revolution.
The first to answer the call weren’t elites or generals. They were farmers, laborers, and peasants, people with more calluses than coins. Two of the most important leaders rose from opposite ends of the country. From the North, Francisco “Pancho” Villa, a Robin Hood-esque bandito from Chihuahua, had long raided Porfirian haciendas in the northern borderlands in defense of the poor. In the South, Emiliano Zapata, a peasant organizer from Morelos who had spent a decade demanding land reform, and now rallied the rural south into armed resistance. Both were skeptical of the moderate Madero, but were heartened by his commitment to land reform and the potential ouster of the Díaz dictatorship. While Madero waited in Texas for his moment, the peasant armies of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, as well as northern revolutionary Pascual Orozco, did the work of revolution, huevos rancheros cooking over fires burning in campsites, while the fires of revolution burned in their hearts.
Spontaneous uprisings erupted everywhere. Villa struck strategic northern cities like Juárez. Zapata held the south. Orozco controlled key mountain routes. Díaz’s government collapsed. He negotiated a peaceful exit in exchange for safe passage and boarded a ship into exile. As he departed, he warned: “Madero has unleashed a tiger. Let us see if he can control it.”
Madero returned, won the presidency, and immediately tried to pivot to the center. He distanced himself from his more radical allies. The army, still filled with old Porfiristas, was sent to suppress Zapatistas in the south. Disillusioned, Zapata returned to war. In person, Madero tried to meet with Zapata, and say the issue of land reform had to be studied. Zapata told Madero that if land reform had to “be studied,” then Madero had no intention of delivering it.
Meanwhile, Villa met with Madero and delivered a blunt prophecy:
“You, sir, have destroyed the revolution… This bunch of dandies have made a fool of you, and it will cost us our necks—yours included.”
He was right.
Madero’s allies turned against him. Felix Díaz, nephew of the former dictator, launched a rebellion. In 1913, during the Ten Tragic Days, Madero and his vice president were assassinated. The man who took power, Victoriano Huerta, was a former general in Madero’s army, backed by Germany, blessed by the U.S.
But in death, Madero did what he couldn’t in life: He united the revolution.
In the wake of Madero’s death, the revolutionaries who once distrusted each other now shared a common enemy: Victoriano Huerta. Villa in the north, Zapata in the south, and Constitutionalists under Venustiano Carranza and Álvaro Obregón in the center, formed a tenuous alliance to bring him down. And they did. In 1914, Huerta fled the country, his regime collapsing under the weight of mass armed resistance, international pressure, and his own brutality.
But the victory brought no peace, only new fractures.
Carranza declared himself head of the new government. Zapata refused to recognize him, demanding that land reform come first. Villa, who had once been allied with Carranza, broke with him too. What followed was a second civil war: Revolutionaries now fighting revolutionaries. Cities changed hands. Railroads were sabotaged. The countryside bled. Obregón, a military genius with modern tactics, dealt Villa a crushing blow at the Battle of Celaya, using trench warfare, barbed wire, and machine guns. Villa’s cavalry was never the same.
Zapata returned to the mountains and fought a guerrilla war. His soldiers, many Indigenous, many landless, continued to rise before dawn, fry eggs in iron pans, and eat Huevos Rancheros before marching into battle. The dish never left the revolution; it was in the camps, the haciendas, the barricades, and the victory marches.
In 1917, Carranza pushed through a new Constitution. It was progressive on paper, promising land redistribution, labor rights, and education. But promises didn’t plow fields or return stolen land. Zapata, refusing to accept empty gestures, kept fighting. In 1919, he was assassinated in an ambush arranged by Carranza’s forces. Villa would soon retire under a fragile truce, until he too was gunned down in 1923.
After the Revolution ended, the rural forces of the south would continue to fight, spurred on by the Catholic Church, looking to regain prominence, but feeling genuinely let down by the promises of revolution. This “Cristero War” led to the feeling of the remaining revolutionaries to create a political party that could balance the different factions. The Institutional Revolutionary Party was the answer, and while not a one-party state, Mexico began to resemble one. The PRI became the dominant force for decades. In many ways, the revolution had come full circle, replacing one technocracy with another.
Still, the seeds had been planted. The Constitution of 1917 remains in place. Land reform would slowly, painfully, roll out over decades. And the revolution became part of Mexico’s identity: messy, tragic, and unfinished. But from that soil grew something enduring. Not just governments or policies, but pride. In being mestizo. In being campesino. In being the people who would not be erased. Huevos Rancheros is an example of that pride, with every cracked egg a reminder of the struggles taken to survive.
Huevos rancheros are easy to make, but you won’t find a more fresh or filling breakfast.
Huevos Rancheros
Huevos Rancheros is a classic Mexican breakfast with fried eggs, salsa, and tortillas, often served with beans.
Ingredients (Serves 4):
For the Salsa:
4 Roma tomatoes
1 jalapeño, stemmed (seed for less heat)
1/4 white onion
2 garlic cloves
2 tsp lime juice
1/4 cup cilantro
Salt to taste
For the Dish:
8 corn tortillas
8 large eggs
1 cup refried beans (canned or homemade)
1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco or feta
1 avocado, sliced
Vegetable oil for frying
Optional: hot sauces
Instructions:
Make the Salsa: Char tomatoes, jalapeño, onion, and garlic on a comal or skillet over medium-high heat until blackened (8–10 minutes). Blend with cilantro and salt until slightly chunky. Set aside.
Prepare Tortillas: Heat 1/4 inch oil in a skillet over medium heat. Lightly fry tortillas (30 seconds per side) until crisp but pliable. Drain on paper towels.
Cook Eggs: In the same skillet, fry eggs sunny-side up or to desired doneness (2–3 minutes). Season with salt.
Assemble: Spread refried beans on each tortilla. Top with a fried egg, spoon salsa over the egg, and sprinkle with queso fresco. Add avocado slices.
Serve: Serve immediately with hot sauce on the side, if desired.
Tips: Warm the refried beans before spreading to make assembly easier.
Tortas al Pastor: Sandwiches of the Streets
Like much of the “New World,” Mexico became a refuge in the early 20th century for people fleeing imperial collapse, economic upheaval, and global war. One of the largest and most influential waves came from the crumbling Ottoman Empire; thousands of Lebanese families, many of them Christian, crossed the Atlantic and brought with them more than just their dialects and devotion. They brought their food. One dish in particular would leave a permanent mark on Mexico’s culinary identity: shawarma.
In the bustling heart of Mexico City, enterprising Lebanese-Mexican immigrants began adapting the vertical spit-roasting technique used back home, but modified it with what was available. Instead of lamb, they used pork, a staple protein in Mexico. The meat was marinated in a local blend of achiote, vinegar, garlic, and smoky dried chiles. To balance the rich fattiness of pork, vendors added slivers of grilled pineapple; its acidic sweetness cutting through the savory. What emerged was tacos al pastor, literally “shepherd-style tacos,” a dish that retained the Levantine rotisserie and infused it with unmistakable Mexican sabor. Served in warm corn tortillas, it became a working-class favorite.
But tacos weren’t always enough. As cities grew and workers commuted longer hours to factory floors, job sites, and university campuses, they needed something more portable, more filling. The solution came in the form of the torta, Mexico’s beloved sandwich. Vendors began layering al pastor pork onto soft bolillo or telera rolls, often toasted on a griddle, then stuffed with refried beans, shredded lettuce, avocado, salsa, and a swipe of mayonnaise. These were not the food of luxury, they were cheap, fast, nourishing, and sold curbside outside construction zones and metro stations. Tortas al pastor became the working man’s meal, a midday break in the chaos of the city.
But in 1968, the chaos was not just economic. It was political.
By the mid-20th century, Mexico was deep in the throes of the “Mexican Miracle,” a period of unprecedented economic growth that lasted from the 1940s into the 1970s. Fueled by industrialization, foreign investment, and centralized government control, Mexico’s GDP surged. Skyscrapers and highways rose across urban centers, and the state painted itself as a beacon of modernity among developing nations. But this so-called miracle had cracks.
Much of the wealth was hoarded by elites. While foreign corporations flourished and a new middle class emerged, the majority of Mexicans, especially workers and students, saw few real gains. Wages stagnated. Rural communities suffered displacement. Labor unions were infiltrated and co-opted by the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), the dominant political force since the post-revolution era.
Dissent was managed through censorship, patronage, and brute force. The state, though born from revolution, increasingly resembled the Porfirian dictatorship it once claimed to overthrow. The government promised democracy but delivered autocracy, promised growth but offered only control. By the 1960s, students, especially those in Mexico City, had had enough.
In July of 1968, a scuffle between rival students from two vocational schools in the capital led to a violent police crackdown. Government forces entered the school and beat students indiscriminately. This wasn’t new, but it was now impossible to ignore. Students across the country, already politicized by global movements in Paris, Prague, and Berkeley, saw in Mexico the same patterns of oppression. The National Strike Council (CNH) was formed, composed of students from UNAM and the National Polytechnic Institute. Their demands were simple: the release of political prisoners, an end to police repression, democratic reform, and educational autonomy.
But the PRI, preparing to host the 1968 Summer Olympics, had no intention of allowing the world to see a country in unrest. Instead of meeting the students with dialogue, they responded with force. Rallies were broken up with tear gas, mass arrests, and rubber bullets. Tanks patrolled the avenues.
Still, the students marched. Thousands filled the Zócalo, Mexico City’s central plaza. They printed underground newspapers. They coordinated teach-ins. And between the long meetings, the marches, the confrontations with police, they ate.
And what they ate, more often than not, was tortas al pastor.
Cheap, compact, and filling, these sandwiches became the fuel of the student movement. Vendors followed protests. Classmates shared bites before storming the gates. You could eat one while planning strategy, or hand one to a stranger hiding from tear gas. The same sidewalks that once hosted lunch breaks for factory workers now became meeting points for revolution. The torta became a symbol—not of ideology, but of resilience. Of solidarity. Of life in the streets.
Then came October 2nd.
With the Olympics just days away, the government saw only one solution: silence the students.
That evening, over 10,000 people gathered in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, a historic site symbolizing Mexico’s Indigenous, colonial, and modern past. Students spoke from balconies. Families listened. Vendors sold snacks, drinks, and tortas.
Just after 6 PM, gunfire rang out. At first, no one knew where it came from. Then it became clear: government snipers had opened fire from surrounding buildings, deliberately provoking chaos. Soldiers surged into the plaza. What followed was a massacre.
Hundreds were killed. Some shot as they fled. Others were dragged from apartments and executed. Thousands were arrested. Parents searched hospitals and morgues for weeks, hoping for answers. The government insisted it had been provoked. State media blamed communists. No one was ever held accountable. For decades, even mentioning the Tlatelolco Massacre could get you blacklisted, or worse.
But the memory endured. In whispered stories. In poems. In murals. And in tortas, still sold on the same corners where the students once stood. Though the movement was crushed, its spirit lived on. Many student leaders went underground or into exile. Others became labor organizers, teachers, or activists in border towns like Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, where a new chapter in Mexico’s working-class struggle was unfolding.
Making al pastor on the spit is worth it! I used a similar method to the one I used in the Lebanon blog post for shawarma.
Ingredients (Serves 4):
For the Al Pastor:
1.5 lbs pork shoulder, very thinly sliced
2 dried guajillo chiles, stemmed and seeded
1 dried ancho chile, stemmed and seeded
1/4 cup pineapple juice
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 garlic cloves
1 tsp dried oregano (Mexican preferred)
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground achiote (or paprika)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup fresh pineapple, sliced into rounds or half-rings (for layering on the spit)
For the Torta:
4 bolillo or telera rolls, split and lightly toasted
1/2 cup refried beans
1 avocado, sliced
1/4 cup thin-sliced white onion
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco
Mayonnaise or crema, for spreading
Optional: pickled jalapeños
Optional Roasted Pineapple Salsa Verde (Makes ~1.5 cups):
1/2 cup pineapple (grilled or roasted)
4 tomatillos, husked and roasted
1–2 serrano or jalapeño chiles, roasted
1/4 cup cilantro
1/4 cup diced white onion
1 garlic clove, roasted
Juice of 1 lime
Salt to taste
Instructions:
Make the Marinade: Toast guajillo and ancho chiles in a dry skillet until fragrant (1–2 minutes). Soak in hot water for 15 minutes until softened. Blend soaked chiles with their water, pineapple juice, vinegar, garlic, oregano, cumin, achiote, cloves, salt, and pepper until smooth.
Marinate the Pork: Pour the marinade over the thin pork slices and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
Build the Vertical Skewer: Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). On a foil-lined baking sheet or roasting pan, secure a vertical skewer or upright spit (a kebab stand or skewer anchored into a potato or onion works). Alternate stacking the marinated pork slices and pineapple slices until all meat is used, finishing with a pineapple slice on top to self-baste as it roasts. Roast for 1 to 1.5 hours, rotating the pan occasionally for even browning, until outer edges are crispy and internal temperature reaches 145°F (63°C). Let rest 10 minutes. Shave meat off the skewer with a sharp knife.
Assemble the Torta: Spread refried beans on the bottom half of the toasted bolillo roll. Spread mayo or crema on the top half. Pile on shaved pork and pineapple, followed by avocado, onions, cilantro, queso fresco, and pickled jalapeños if using.
Serve: Serve warm with a side of roasted pineapple salsa verde or tortilla chips.
Optional Roasted Pineapple Salsa Verde Instructions:
Roast ingredients until lightly charred.
Blend to a chunky salsa consistency.
Adjust salt and lime juice. Chill or serve fresh.
Birria Tacos: Stew of the Border
Birria was never just a meal, it was a method of survival. In the rugged terrain of Jalisco, where the land was rocky and the soil unforgiving, people learned to make do with what they had. When Spanish colonizers introduced goats in the 16th century, an animal often left to graze, multiply, and destroy farmland, Indigenous communities, particularly the Cora and Wixarika, responded the only way they could: by making the goat edible.
They did not tame the goat, they tamed its toughness. Slowly. Through smoke, spice, and time. Chiles like guajillo, ancho, and pasilla were rehydrated and blended with cumin, cloves, oregano, and vinegar, then poured over the meat and left to marinate. Wrapped in maguey leaves and buried in earthen pits, birria was not fast food, it was community food. It emerged not just tender, but transcendent: smoky, rich, spicy, and celebratory. It was served at weddings, christenings, and saints’ days, accompanied by a deep red consommé, a broth of its own making, ladled with reverence.
But as Mexico modernized, and rural families left for cities and border towns, birria migrated. What began in communal feasts was pulled into the grind of urban life. Nowhere did that transformation happen more starkly than in Tijuana, a city forged by border politics, migration, and industrial labor.
Tijuana at the turn of the 20th century was a dusty transit hub, a cocktail of cantinas, smuggling routes, and American vice tourism. But the landscape changed in 1964, when the Bracero Program, a bilateral agreement allowing Mexican men to work temporarily in U.S. agriculture, was abruptly ended. Overnight, hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers were stranded on the border, jobless but unwilling to return south. Many gathered in cities like Tijuana, waiting for opportunities that never came.
Mexico’s response came in 1965: the Border Industrialization Program, designed to attract foreign companies by offering cheap labor, minimal regulations, and easy access to the U.S. market. The result was the birth of the maquiladora, a foreign-owned assembly plant operating in Mexico but producing for export. It was globalization in its rawest form, factories without roots, using Mexican bodies to build American goods.
By the 1970s, Tijuana had transformed. Over 100 maquiladoras stretched across its periphery, producing everything from auto parts to televisions. Entire neighborhoods sprung up overnight, built from cinderblocks and scrap wood, housing the internal migrants, mostly women, who had traded rural poverty for factory wages barely covering rent. These women, known as obreras, faced 70-hour weeks, toxic chemicals, and routine harassment. Many were teenagers. Few had protections.
The state-backed labor unions offered little help. Most were “charro” unions, official in name, but loyal to management and the PRI. Workers who questioned conditions were fired. Those who organized were blacklisted. But resistance simmered. Independent unions, illegal but determined, began to sprout in the cracks. Meetings were held in borrowed homes, back alleys, and borrowed storefronts. Flyers were mimeographed. Strikes were planned. Some succeeded. Most didn’t. But every action carved a space for the next.
And always, somewhere in those spaces, there was birria.
Migrants from Jalisco, cut off from their land but not their recipes, adapted their hometown stew to the chaos of the border. No pits, no time, just braised meat, shredded and spooned into corn tortillas, served hot and fast with a cup of consommé on the side. The birria taco was born not from luxury but from labor: a worker’s lunch that could feed a family or fuel a meeting. It was sustenance in the shadow of the assembly line.
By the 1990s, maquiladoras were no longer an experiment, they were the backbone of border cities. NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) supercharged the model. Factory towns like Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Reynosa became magnets for investment, and pressure cookers for labor unrest (and as we’ll talk about later, some places in the South entered open rebellion).
One flashpoint came in 1997, at the Han Young plant in Tijuana. The factory, producing chassis parts for Hyundai vehicles, employed hundreds of workers in brutal conditions. When employees voted to form an independent union, the first such attempt in Tijuana in years, they were met with fierce retaliation. Management fired organizers, government officials intervened, and international observers were called in. The workers held the line, and after a protracted struggle, won a ruling affirming their right to organize. It was a rare but monumental victory, and it echoed far beyond the city limits.
By then, birria tacos had already evolved again. Street vendors, working late into the night for crowds of shift workers, began adding cheese to the tortillas, then frying them on flat-top grills. The result was quesabirria, crispy, gooey, dunkable, and irresistible. A taco that bled orange oil and defiance. A taco that kept you awake through double shifts and organizing meetings. A taco that remembered the land it came from—and the border it crossed to survive.
Today, birria tacos are a global phenomenon, boosted by Instagram reels, TikTok trends, and hungry diaspora communities from Los Angeles to London. But behind every cheesy pull and consommé dip is a story not just of migration, but of struggle. Of young women on the line. Of makeshift union halls. Of border towns turned battlegrounds for dignity.
Like the workers who first revived birria in the factories and streets of Tijuana, these tacos are adaptable, bold, and built to last.
At home, birria takes time, but it’s worth it. There is nothing better than the taste of a day’s worth of labor.
Birria Tacos
Birria tacos are slow-cooked beef tacos with a rich, spicy consommé, typically served with melted cheese and dipped in the broth.
Ingredients (Serves 4–6):
For the Beef:
2 lbs beef chuck roast or short ribs, cut into 3-inch chunks
1 white onion, halved
4 garlic cloves
2 dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
2 dried guajillo chiles, stemmed and seeded
1 dried chipotle chile (optional, for extra heat)
1 tbsp oregano (Mexican preferred)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1 (14.5 oz) can crushed tomatoes
4 cups beef broth
Salt and pepper to taste
For the Tacos:
12–16 corn tortillas
2 cups shredded Oaxaca or mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup diced white onion
Lime wedges for serving
Instructions:
Prepare the Chiles: Toast ancho, guajillo, and chipotle chiles in a dry skillet over medium heat for 1–2 minutes until fragrant. Soak in 2 cups hot water for 15 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup soaking liquid.
Make the Broth: Blend soaked chiles, reserved liquid, garlic, half the onion, oregano, cumin, coriander, and tomatoes until smooth. Season with salt.
Cook the Beef: Season beef with salt and pepper. In a large pot or Dutch oven, sear beef over medium-high heat until browned (5–7 minutes). Add chile paste, beef broth, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, and remaining onion half. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook 3–4 hours until beef is tender.
Shred the Beef: Remove beef, shred with two forks, and reserve. Strain broth (consommé), discard solids, and adjust seasoning.
Assemble Tacos: Heat a skillet or griddle over medium heat. Dip a corn tortilla in consommé, place in skillet, add shredded beef and cheese, then fold. Cook 2–3 minutes per side until crispy and cheese melts.
Serve: Serve tacos with a bowl of consommé for dipping, garnished with cilantro, diced onion, and lime wedges.
Tips: For extra flavor, add a spoonful of consommé to the beef before folding tacos.
Elotes: Corn of Rebellion
Before rebellion, before rifles, before the world knew the name “Zapatista,” there was corn. In the highlands of Chiapas, where mist clings to mountains and Indigenous languages still echo through the trees, corn is not just food, it is cosmos. The Maya creation story says humans were made of corn, their flesh molded from masa. For millennia, the people of this region have planted, harvested, and lived by the cycles of maize. Every cob carries memory. Every field, a lineage.
But on January 1, 1994, the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect, that ancestral cycle came under siege. Under NAFTA, Mexico opened its borders to subsidized U.S. corn, grown industrially and sold cheaply. For the Indigenous farmers of Chiapas, who could never compete with Iowa’s scale or Washington’s subsidies, it was not just economic displacement. It was cultural erasure.
That same day, in a stunning act of defiance, a group of mostly Mayan peasants emerged from the Lacandon jungle and declared war on the Mexican state. They called themselves the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), in honor of Emiliano Zapata, the revolutionary who once vowed, “The land belongs to those who work it.” Wearing ski masks and bandanas, and led by the pipe-smoking philosopher-spokesman Subcomandante Marcos, they seized towns, occupied military posts, and issued a declaration: Ya basta. Enough.
Unlike previous armed rebellions, the Zapatistas were not trying to seize power in the capital. They were trying to create a new world in the margins, a world where Indigenous autonomy, dignity, and self-governance could survive the twin onslaughts of state repression and global capitalism.
Their movement was born from desperation but powered by vision. The uprising quickly evolved from military confrontation into civil resistance and community building. The Zapatistas established autonomous municipalities, self-governed areas free from PRI control, where local assemblies made decisions through consensus. These zones, called caracoles, or “snails,” symbolized slow but deliberate progress, each spiraling toward justice at its own pace.
In these caracoles, they built their own schools, clinics, radio stations, and agricultural cooperatives. Women, often sidelined in past revolutions, took center stage. The Women’s Revolutionary Law, passed within the EZLN, declared a radical set of rights, from equal land ownership to the freedom to choose marriage partners and participate in decision-making.
While the Mexican government waged a counterinsurgency through militarization, surveillance, and paramilitary attacks, the Zapatistas waged a quieter war: one of seeds, schools, and sovereignty. Their message spread globally, amplified by early internet activism and support from anti-globalization movements in Seattle, Genoa, and Porto Alegre. To many, they became a symbol of resistance not only to neoliberalism but to modernity without humanity.
And through it all, there was elote.
Grilled over fires built behind communal kitchens or sold in the plazas of rebel-held towns, elotes, ears of corn slathered in crema, mayo, cotija, chile, and lime, became more than a street snack. They became a ritual of defiance. Simple, local, and tied to the land, they stood in direct opposition to the processed foods and imported goods pushed by the global economy. In Zapatista communities, corn was grown with native seeds, not patented hybrids. It was milled by hand, passed through generations, and eaten not as commodity, but as communion.
Elotes, like the movement itself, are humble but potent, made with everyday ingredients, but assembled with purpose. Shared during assemblies, celebrations, and night patrols, they warmed hands and filled stomachs, a reminder that the revolution must also feed the people. In many rebel villages, corn is still bartered rather than bought. In some areas, markets run without money, favoring mutual aid over capitalist exchange. In this way, each elote is not just food, but politics made edible, a rejection of Monsanto, of Walmart, of everything the neoliberal world tried to impose.
The Zapatistas have endured. Despite decades of military encirclement, media blackouts, and economic pressure, the movement has not disappeared. Instead, it has evolved, opening more autonomous zones, sending delegations abroad, and continuing to inspire global movements for justice.
Their slogan, “Un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos” (“A world where many worlds fit”), remains a guiding light for those who believe another way is possible. And in the highlands of Chiapas, as the sun sets behind the hills, you can still find a vendor in a rebel town, char-grilling ears of corn, slathering them in crema, dusting them in chile, passing them hand to hand. That’s not just dinner. That’s a revolution in your hand.
Elote is incredibly easy to make, and incredibly worth it!
Elote (Mexican Street Corn)
Ingredients (Serves 4):
4 ears of fresh corn, husks removed (or frozen cobs, thawed)
1/4 cup mayonnaise (preferably Mexican-style, like McCormick)
1/4 cup Mexican crema or sour cream
1/2 cup crumbled cotija cheese (substitute queso fresco if unavailable)
1 tsp chili powder (ancho, Tajín, or a local blend for authenticity)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 lime, cut into wedges
Salt to taste
Optional: 1/2 tsp smoked paprika for extra smokiness
Optional: 1 small garlic clove, finely minced, for a subtle kick
Instructions:
Grill the Corn: Preheat a grill or grill pan to medium-high heat (about 400°F/200°C). If using a skillet, heat it dry or with a light oil coating. Grill corn, turning every 2–3 minutes, until kernels are tender and charred in spots (8–10 minutes total). For frozen cobs, char in a hot skillet for similar results, about 10–12 minutes.
Prepare the Topping: In a small bowl, whisk together mayonnaise, crema, and minced garlic (if using) until smooth. Adjust consistency with a splash of lime juice if too thick.
Assemble the Elotes: Brush or slather the grilled corn generously with the mayo-crema mixture. Roll or sprinkle with crumbled cotija cheese, ensuring it sticks to the creamy base. Dust with chili powder and smoked paprika (if using) for color and heat. Scatter chopped cilantro over the top. Finish with a pinch of salt and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.
Serve: Serve immediately on a platter with extra lime wedges for squeezing.
Comments
Post a Comment