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On Feb. 2, Mexicans celebrated Dia de la Candelaria, a Catholic holiday that represents the day the Virgin Mary presented the baby Jesus at the temple. As part of any tradition celebrated by Mexicans, food is of the utmost importance. However, in the case of the Candelaria, it's not very imaginative: Eat tamales and drink hot chocolate, a repeat of Three King’s Day.
But in the Colonial city of Puebla, my friend and restaurateur Luis Javier Cue, has created a new twist on the trustworthy tamal. This year Cue's restaurant El Mural de los Poblanos will offer duck tamales in a mole Poblano sauce.
Cue says the dish will take diners back in time to the era before the Spanish conquest. The indigenous cultures cooked with duck until the Spaniards introduced chicken to the Americas. Cue’s chefs will mix the duck into a thick mole Poblano, a fragrant and delicious signature sauce made with a melange of flavors, including chocolate and chile.
The duck tamal is part of Cue’s mission to bring interesting, tasty innovations to traditional Mexican cuisine. El Mural de los Poblanos, in the heart of historic downtown Puebla, is known for its chiles en nogada and tres enchiladas. Cue is also determined to make Puebla, east of Mexico City, as much of a culinary tourism destination as Oaxaca, San Miguel de Allende and Veracruz.
He is now working with Puebla’s secretary of tourism to create organized culinary tours of the city -- complete with cooking classes and history lessons on Puebla’s distinct cuisine. The tours will include visits to the city’s most interesting restaurants, including Meson de Sacristia and La Novia, as well as a visit to the market in Atlixco, where hundreds of vendors gather on Saturdays to sell flowers, vegetables and fruits.
Like Oaxaca, Puebla has much history. Spanish viceroys settled there after their victory over Mexico’s indigenous people in the late 15th century. The Spanish influence is still alive in Puebla’s cobblestone streets and distinct houses with inner courtyards reminiscent of cities in Andalucia.
In the last few years, Puebla’s visually stunning downtown has enjoyed a renaissance, with new businesses cropping up alongside hotels, restaurants and top-rate antique shops.
"Our friends used to laugh at us for living downtown in one of the old Spanish houses," said Cue, whose wife, Angeles, is an interior decorator. "They don’t laugh anymore. I live better than they do. I walk to work and live in a great loft."
Puebla is also a culinary dream. It is the birthplace of chiles en nogada, poblano peppers stuffed with ground meat, layered in a creamy almond sauce and topped with pomegranate seeds. In the 17th century, nuns at the convent of Santa Rosa invented mole Poblano, a gentler cousin to Oaxaca’s mole negro.
Cue, a sixth-generation Poblano, said he was skeptical there would be much of an international interest in Puebla’s cuisine, which is admittedly heavy. But at a sustainable tourism conference in Todos Santos, Baja California, a few years ago, he offered his restaurant’s signature dish, enchiladas tres moles (enchiladas in a green mole, mole poblano and yellow mole). To his surprise, the guests at the conference devoured the enchiladas and told him they had never tasted such Mexican food.
"That was when I realized the potential of Puebla’s cuisine with foreigners," Cue said.
El Mural de los Poblanos, which means the Mural of People from Puebla, is housed in a former 18th century residence. In 2000, Cue and his father decided it was time to bring back the personalities and cuisine of Puebla. And so they hired an artist to render a mural, in the grand Mexican tradition of Diego Rivera, inside the restaurant’s courtyard depicting all of the city’s most important figures.
They changed the name of the restaurant and revamped the menu from Spanish food to Poblano.
"At the restaurant I have tried to rescue traditional recipes from Puebla," said Cue, who was a lawyer before he quit to run the family restaurant four years ago. "A lot of people are not familiar with traditional Mexican food. I have seen how people from Spain and Santa Monica appreciate it when they taste the real thing."
Lorenza Munoz teaches Mexican cooking classes in Los Angeles and travels frequently to her native Mexico to write about its food culture. She covered news and entertainment for 14 years as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times.
Photos: Postal chiles en nogada frente-seleccion, at top. Below, a poster showing the mural Cue created for the restaurant. Both courtesy of Luis Javier Cue of El Mural de los Poblanos.
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