Mexican Slow Food
From the moment I tasted Mara Welton's chile-laced posole at the Burlington Winter Farmer's Market 1 1/2 years ago, it was love at first bite.
Posole with flour tortilla
The rich soup had earthy flavors from slowly braised beef, heat and sweetness from the New Mexican chiles, tart notes from a squeeze of lime, and brightness from a sprinkle of fresh cilantro. Swimming in the soup were pieces of chewy hominy, and alongside it was a homemade flour tortilla, to be used for dunking. I was in heaven.
That day I made a beeline back to the Half Pint Farm stand to ask Mara to teach a class on posole for City Market, but another growing season would come and go before we would be able to nail down the details. Happily, the class came to pass recently, and it was every bit as delicious as I thought it would be.
Mara Welton of Half Pint Farm and Slow Food Vermont
It all starts with chiles. Mara grew up in Colorado, descended through a long family lineage from Spanish conquistadors. The Mexican border area cuisine is full of the heat of chiles, and to Mara, the smell of these chiles "smells like home." We sell small bags of dried chiles in the Produce department, but when Mara cooks for the farmer's market, she orders hers in bulk straight from the source at New Mexican Connection (the ones shown in this picture are so-called "Hatch" chiles from the Hatch region of New Mexico, similar to Anaheim chiles). Roasting brings out the flavor of the chiles, and when they are blended with water in the blender, and then strained to get rid of their tough skins, you have "rojo" - red sauce, the basis for posole.
The other thing you need to pull off this meal is flour tortillas. If rojo is the "blood" of the meal, tortillas are the flesh or "body," Mara says, drawing on Catholic imagery to explain the importance of these two foods in her native cuisine.
The dough comes together in a snap, and the trick is all in how you roll them out - smoothly and deftly, one quarter-turn at a time. Mara learned to roll out flour tortillas using the sanded top of a shovel handle, which her husband lovingly recreated for her.
Mara's grandmother taught her to make flour tortillas as a little girl. This food is "slow food," Mara explained, the opposite of fast food - as you can see in the picture of her grandmother sorting dried beans so that each bean passed muster before cooking it.
Mara heads up Slow Food Vermont, the Vermont chapter of the international organization devoted to preserving and savoring heritage foods and recipes. The organization has a robust calendar of events, and you can find them doing tastings at Summervale this summer.
It was a delight to hear the stories and see the process behind Mara's delicious food, and I encourage you to sample it at the Burlington Winter Farmer's Market and to check out the other classes and events Slow Food Vermont has organized.
Also, stop by and say hi to Mara the Burlington Summer Farmer's Market kicking off Saturday, May 11th, where she sells produce she grows with her husband on two acres in the Intervale - including, if the weather cooperates, some New Mexican chiles.