Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz at the table

In the convents of 17th-century New Spain, meals followed a monastic order grafted onto the liturgical calendar: a light *almuerzo* in the morning, a copious *comida* at noon (a festive stew on saints' days, otherwise beans and tortillas), an afternoon *merienda* punctuated by chocolate, and the famous *dulces de convento*, confections that the nuns prepared to preserve fruit and offer to benefactors. The kitchen was a true baroque laboratory where chiles, maize, and cacao from the New World met cinnamon, cane sugar, and almonds brought from Spain.

The hallmark of conventual cooking is this audacious alliance — as baroque as Sor Juana's verses — between chiles ground on the *metate* and spices from the Old World (cinnamon, cloves, almonds, sugar). The result: dishes that are at once spicy, sweet, and fragrant, where nothing is ever simply savory.