Tianguis snack — street food from the great market of Tlatelolco
Fruits of the Hot Land with Salt and Chile
Street foodReconstruction🍯 🍋 🌶️facile15 min
An assortment of cut tropical fruits, seasoned with salt and chile powder. Fresh, tart, sweet, and spicy all at once: the market snack as nibbled in the aisles of Tlatelolco.
Why this dish? In his Letters to the King, Cortés marvels at the market of Tlatelolco, where unknown fruits from Europe were sold. His men refreshed themselves with them in the heat — a Mesoamerican street snack, direct ancestor of Mexican 'fruta picada'.
If you had seen the great market of Tlatelolco, you would not believe your eyes: sixty thousand souls traded there every day, and I faithfully reported it to His Majesty in my letters. They sold fruits whose names we did not even know — the aguacate with its buttery taste, the vermilion mamey, the fragrant guayaba. In the heat, my men gladly refreshed themselves with them, cut with a knife and sprinkled with salt and ground chili. Such riches in these lands confirmed to me that God had led us to a new world.
Ingredients
- •Mamey — as desired (sweet, fleshy fruit)
- •Guava (guayaba) — a few (fragrant fruit)
- •Prickly pear (tuna) — as desired (sweet freshness)
- •Avocado (aguacate) — one (creamy richness)
- •Salt and chile powder — a pinch (to season the fruits)
How it was made : The market of Tlatelolco, described by Cortés and Bernal Díaz, offered a profusion of fruits: mamey, guava, avocado, prickly pear, capulin. The habit of seasoning fruit with salt and chile is ancient in Mesoamerica. No sugar cane or citrus: freshness came from the fruit itself, acidity sometimes from xoconostle (sour prickly pear).
Sources : Hernán Cortés, Cartas de relación (second letter) · Bernal Díaz del Castillo, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España