In seven days’ time I will spend a few days in northern Mexico. I am researching, among other topics, how health and safety regulations influence food markets and why a border can matter so much for foodstuffs. My sites will be Hermosillo, Chihuahua, and Tijuana. Do you have any recommendations? I won’t have much free time. No whales, no Copper Canyon, etc., but of course I will eat three (or more?) meals a day and have some time in each city. I thank you in advance for your ideas.
Someday I will relate to you my misguided and delusional plan to visit every major urban area in the New World. I would not have otherwise made it to Hermosillo, so perhaps the gods are on my side.
For Tijuana I will have to ask my brother for specifics (even though is my home state), but almost certainly will be seafood and tacos (from a stand). If you have the time, go to Puerto Nuevo just south of Rosarito, and have lobster Mexican style. Also, the Valle de Guadalupe between Ensenada and Tecate (of beer’s fame) produces some world class wines and there are good tasting places for them in TJ.
As a guide, in Hermosillo you should try machaca Sonoran style and the gianormous flour tortillas. Carne asada (in Northwest Mexico we don’t call it fajitas, although is creeping in) is what Sonora is known for. For Mexican style (meaning light) breakfast or dinner try coyotas, which are flatbreads with piloncillo paste between two dough sheets. Sonora indigenous drink is bacanora, it’s an aguardiente even stronger than tequila or mezcal and to my knowledge, with very small distribution outside the State.
I don’t know much about Cd. Juarez food offerings, but Menonite cheese is what we always longed for when my father used to go there. Ask for “queso menonita”.
pozole (surtido) and quesadilla de sesos are probably the two dishes you must try in northern mexico, they can’t be found anywhere else. The pozoe is a soup with some interesting ingredients, and the quesadilla is the same but in tortilla form.
Queso menonita, at least at the Chihuahua supermarket where I habitually bought supplies many years ago, was good Cheddar from the Mennonite colony in the west of the state. The accompanying display featured a mannequin of a blonde, blue-eyed Mennonite woman in historically typical costume — long grey dress and sunbonnet.
(I was doing mining exploration in the hills west of El Sueco, the little desert crossroads that always makes one wonder — what was the Swede doing there?).
I would love to join you for the shrimp stuffed lobster at Puerto Nuevo. But, conscience and classes prevail. What to make of my students’ offer of travel money.?
Visit the fish markets and mercado Hidalgo in Tijuana; for fine dining recommendations visit http://hungryhiker-tj.com/
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