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ОглавлениеPart One: Food in Santa Fe
“The City Different” melds local
traditions with a hip, modern style
In just a few short decades, Santa Fe has become the magical city of the Southwest, a destination for artists, writers, chefs and, of course, tourists. Nicknamed “The City Different”, Santa Fe’s reputation for tolerating individuality has had much to do with its attraction as a place to live. Its tremendous appeal as a trendy place to visit is the result of countless articles and books about the landscape, the art scene, the cuisine, the architecture and the Santa Fe look in clothing and jewellery-all part of what is termed Santa Fe style. And though its overexposure has fostered a certain Santa Fe blasé, there is just no denying the incredible charm of the place.
The city is on a high desert mesa at 2,100 metres above sea level, offering spectacular views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains that tower above it. The sun always seems to shine in Santa Fe and the quality of the light and the beauty of the mesas have drawn artists to the city for decades. The city’s adobe architecture, unchanged for centuries, reveals Santa Fe’s deep Native American roots. The buildings in the historic district-even new ones-all share the same ochre colour and smooth mud finish.
Santa Fe residents view the huge influx of tourists each year as just a continuation of history. After all, during the past 400 years Santa Fe has been controlled by Native Americans, Spaniards, Mexicans, Americans and Confederates. Each of these groups helped create the flavours of Santa Fe.
The first food fusion of Santa Fe occurred when Spanish settlers from Mexico founded the city in 1598, bringing European and Mexican ingredients that were combined with the corn cuisine of the native Pueblo Indians. New Mexican cuisine can thus be viewed as the northernmost of the Mexican regional cuisines; it is also the spiciest because of the New Mexicans’ love of chillies. The second food fusion occurred when Anglo-Americans arrived with new ingredients, recipes and restaurants offering the standard meat and potatoes of the eastern United States. But what really placed Santa Fe on the culinary map occurred during the last 25 years: a proliferation of fine restaurants that have vastly expanded the concept of Southwestern cooking.
Many of Santa Fe’s restaurants are the epitome of the concept of fusion, offering dishes that bridge the culinary gaps between cultures. Despite the international flavours, traditions are still strong. In homes and restaurants the visitor will still discover the delicious New Mexican dishes that depend upon the most basic New World ingredients: corn, beans, squash and chillies.
Native Americans and Their Food
An ancient culinary heritage of wild
game and native plants
When the first Spanish explorers ventured north from Mexico City in the sixteenth century and wandered into what is now the American Southwest, they encountered the descendants of a great prehistoric civilisation, the Anasazi. These Native Americans, known as the Pueblo Indians, were clustered along the Rio Grande near present-day Santa Fe in separate villages, or pueblos. They made excellent use of nearly every edible animal and plant substance imaginable. For protein, the Native Americans hunted and trapped deer, rabbits, quail, pronghorn, bison and many other mammals and birds. The meat of this game was usually grilled over coals or added to a pot and turned into a stew.
However, some tribes (such as the Apaches) had taboos against eating certain animals that they regarded as repulsive: snakes, fish and owls, for example. Later on, after the appearance of European food, game was viewed as “poor man’s meat”. Today, of course, game has made a comeback because of its exotic nature and appeal to adventurous diners.
Corn is held sacred by Native Americans and has been an important part of the Southwestern diet for centuries. The rich colours of this Indian corn only appear once the corn has dried; when it is fresh the corn is a more subdued yellow or white.
The food plants eaten by the Native Americans were divided into two categories: those harvested in the wild and those cultivated plants that had managed to adapt to the dry desert climate or were irrigated. Harvested wild plants included acorns (from which flour was made), berries such as chokecherry and juniper, yucca fruits, various herbs such as wild mint, mushrooms, mesquite seeds (sometimes called beans) and agave hearts (mescal), which were roasted in pits by the Mescalero Apaches and other tribes. Three other uncultivated crops were very important in Native American cooking (and are most commonly used today): cacti, piñon nuts and chiltepíns (wild, berrylike chillies). The cactus fruits and leaves were usually eaten raw, as in salads, while the piñon nuts were usually mixed with honey as a snack or dessert. Chiltepíns were used as a pungent spice before the Spanish introduced domesticated chillies.
Even though wild crops were important, the ancient Anasazi culture of the Southwest—and later the Pueblo Indians—depended on some important domesticated crops: corn, beans, squash and (after the Spanish arrived) chillies. It is not a coincidence that these foods are the foundation of Southwestern cuisine. Although domesticated in Mexico and Central America, these crops had moved north to what is now New Mexico long before the Spanish arrived.
Here in New Mexico we not only claim the oldest regional cuisine in the United States but continue to enjoy many of the foods that have been part of the Native American diet for hundreds or even thousands of years. Despite the influences of these ingredients, Native American cuisine these days has mostly been incorporated into what has become New Mexican cuisine, so wild plants and game are no longer as common as they once were.
Corn is so important to Native Americans that it serves as the basis of the cuisine and also plays a pivotal role in their religion and many of their ceremonies. The four kinds of corn—yellow, white, red and blue—were a gift from the gods or creator who taught the people how to plant, harvest and use it before they were allowed to walk Mother Earth.
The Anasazis, ancestors of the the builders of the Taos Pueblo, built these cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado. At one time close to 5,000 people lived on Mesa Verde in 200- and 300-room apartment houses.
Beans, domesticated 10,000 years ago in Peru, even predate cultivated corn. Easy to grow and store, beans quickly became an essential part of the Native American diet. The Hopi grow 14 kinds of beans in a variety of colours, which when combined with corn provide a complete protein source for times when game is scarce.
Chilli, another staple in the diet, was domesticated in both South and Central America about the same time as beans and also migrated north. And although there is little doubt that domesticated chilli was introduced to Native Americans of the Southwest by the Spaniards, there is evidence that at least the wild chiltepín was already growing in the Southwest when the Spaniards arrived.
One way to get a feel of the life of Native Americans and a taste of their version of New Mexican cuisine is to visit a pueblo. In the autumn, with chillies sun-drying on roofs or hung in strings (ristras) and corn stacked around the pueblo to dry, it is almost like stepping back in time. Occasionally, visitors are invited into homes for some food. Many of the dishes, such as enchiladas and tamales, show a Hispanic influence, but there are a few specialities that are uniquely Indian. Interestingly, most Indian dishes today are made with ingredients imported by Europeans rather than with native foods that still exist in abundance.
Mutton stew was probably imported into the pueblos in the Santa Fe area from the Navajos, who live farther west. The Navajos were sheepherders whose sheep were originally from Mexico by way of Spain. The origin of fry bread, the bread that puffs up when it is fried in oil (lard is preferred), seems to be Navajo as well. Interestingly, a smaller version of this bread, called sopaipillas, is served in Santa Fe and Albuquerque restaurants. Wheat was imported by the Europeans; few Indians today cook with acorn flour. One traditional bread that probably antedates the Europeans is blue corn bread; undoubtedly, there was an earlier form of it that lacked the baking powder and milk used today. It is made with flour from Indian blue corn, and its brilliant blue colour can be disconcerting to those not accustomed to it.
Pueblo religious ceremonies were usually held in underground rooms—usually round—called kivas. This wall painting is in a kiva is at the Coronado State Monument, 80 kilometres southwest of Santa Fe.
Other dishes likely to be encountered at the pueblos are fried red chillies, dried pods that are simply fried in lard or oil and eaten; green chilli stew, which is virtually identical to the Hispanic version; green pumpkin stew, which is pumpkin stewed with corn, onion, green chillies and garlic; and red chilli stew, which is usually made with pork.
Since meat was preserved in the old days by either salting or drying, an Indian favourite is beef or lamb jerky, which is often treated with chilli powder. The jerky may be added to stews if fresh meat is not available.
The Deer Dance at San Juan Pueblo, which takes place in February, is performed by the young people of the tribe to honour the deer for the many gifts it has given them. The profile of a deer dancer is the symbol of the San Juan Pueblo people.
The Spanish Contribution
The Old World meets the New and
transforms the eating habits of the region
Imagine Southwestern cuisine without beef, lamb, pork, chicken, coriander, cumin, limes, garlic, onions, wheat bread, rice, beer and wine. That’s where New World cooking would be without the Old. The Spanish colonists brought a new dimension to this ancient cuisine because the native peoples had never before experienced food sources such as cattle and wheat. The new foodstuffs merged with the old but did not overwhelm them. Rather, they were incorporated into the ancient techniques, and the result was a unique and highly spiced cuisine.
The Spaniards who first settled Santa Fe brought with them the seeds to plant the crops they needed as well as livestock. Since Santa Fe was the terminus of the 2,400-kilometre-long Camino Real (Royal Road) from Mexico City, it became a trading centre and both the beginning and the end for caravans of wagons. The Plaza in Santa Fe was where the wagons unloaded, and vigorous trading was done in foodstuffs.
The primary crops of the colonists were corn and squash. Historian Marc Simmons wrote about the early Spanish agriculture: “Other field crops included the frijol bean, horsebean, peas, squashes and pumpkins, melons, chilli, tobacco and cotton. Only a limited variety of garden vegetables seem to have been cultivated in the later Colonial period. Onions and garlic were regarded as staples in the diet, but other things, such as cucumbers, lettuce, beets and the small husk-tomato, are mentioned in the documents only rarely. The potato was practically unknown.”
Dancers performing a traditional Spanish danza folklórica, a Flamenco-style dance, at the Fiesta de Santa Fe, a three-daylong celebration that takes place every September.
The first and most important Old World influences were meats and grains. “Wherever Spaniards went, they took their livestock with them,” notes John C. Super, an expert on colonial Latin American history. “Pigs, sheep and cattle were as much a part of the conquest as Toledo steel and fighting mastiffs.”
Indeed they were. In fact, the introduction of livestock was so successful that the animals thrived even when they escaped into the wild. Within a century after the arrival of Columbus, the estimated New World population of cattle was 800,000, and of sheep, an astonishing 4.6 million. Sheep were introduced in 1598 by Capitán General Juan de Oñate. By the 1880s, there were millions of sheep in New Mexico and about 500,000 a year were exported. Today, the number of sheep produced remains at about half a million. With all that additional meat available, no wonder the cuisines of the Americas changed radically. Beef was readily added to such dishes as enchiladas, while pork was a favourite for carne adovada, the baked, chilli-marinated dish. Domestic fowl such as chickens added diversity as their meat was incorporated into the corn cuisine of Santa Fe.
Wheat was also instrumental in changing the ways the Native Americans cooked by offering an alternative to corn for making the most basic food of all: bread. It was planted in such abundance throughout Mexico that by the middle of the sixteenth century, it was more common in the New World than in Spain, where wheat supplies had dropped and the people were eating rye bread. In New Mexico, wheat tortillas eventually became as popular as those made with corn.
It is not generally known that New Mexico and El Paso are the two oldest wine-producing regions in the United States. A Franciscan friar, Augustin Rodríguez, is credited with bringing grape vines to southern New Mexico in 1580, about a hundred years before the friars in California planted their vineyards. By 1662, priests of the Mesilla Valley in southern New Mexico were regularly producing sacramental wine for Mass.
Making ristras, strings of chillies, by hand at the Rancho de las Golondrinas, which was a stopping place for caravans from Mexico and is now a living history museum.
Most of the Hispanic population of Santa Fe is the result of the early Spanish immigration from Mexico, and not from later Mexican immigration. The descendants of the early settlers have lived and prospered in the region for about 400 years, and today, together with all other Hispanics, make up about 40 percent of the population. Thus the Hispanics of New Mexico refer to their Spanish heritage.
Hot, Hotter, Hottest
The glorious chilli comes in many varieties,
each with its own shape, size, colour and flavour
Surprisingly, the now ubiquitous chillies are not native to New Mexico at all, but were introduced from Central America by Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century. According to one member of the Antonio Espejo expedition of 1582-83, Baltasar Obregón, “They have no chilli, but the natives were given some seed to plant.” Even by 1601, chillies were still not on the list of lndian crops, according to colonist Francisco de Valverde, who also complained that mice were a pest that ate chilli pods off the plants in the field.
After the Spanish began settlement of the area, the cultivation of chillies developed rapidly, and soon they were grown all over New Mexico. It is likely that many different varieties were cultivated, including early forms of jalapeños, serranos, anchos and pasillas. But one variety that adapted particularly well to New Mexico was a long green chilli that turned red in the autumn. Formerly called Anaheim because of its transfer to California around 1900, the New Mexican chillies were cultivated for hundreds of years in the region with such dedication that several distinct varieties developed. These varieties, Chimayó and Española, are still planted today in the fields that they were grown in centuries ago; they are a small, distinct part of the tonnes of chilli pods produced each year in New Mexico.
Capsaicinoids, the heat-producing substances in chillies, can be seen here as golden droplets in the centre below the seeds.
In 1846, William Emory, Chief Engineer of the Army’s Topographic Unit, was surveying the New Mexico landscape and its customs. He described a meal eaten in Bernalillo, just north of Albuquerque: “Roast chicken, stuffed with onions; then mutton, boiled with onions; then followed various other dishes, all dressed with the everlasting onion; and the whole terminated by chilli, the glory of New Mexico.”
Emory went on to relate his experience with chillies: “Chilli the Mexicans consider the chef-d’oeuvre of the cuisine, and seem really to revel in it; but the first mouthful brought the tears trickling down my cheeks, very much to the amusement of the spectators with their leather-lined throats. It was red pepper, stuffed with minced meat.”
Chillies come in a wide range of colours, shapes, sizes and levels of heat. This photograph shows a small selection of that vast array.
Las Cruces in southern New Mexico is well known for its bountiful chilli harvest.
The earliest cultivated chillies in New Mexico were smaller than today’s; indeed, they were (and still are, in some cases) considered a spice. But as the varieties developed and the size of the pods grew, the food value of chillies became evident. There was just one problem—the many sizes and shapes of the chillies made it very difficult for farmers to determine which chilli they were growing from year to year. And there was no way to tell how large or how hot the pods might be until modern horticultural techniques produced more standardised chillies.
Today, New Mexico is by far the largest commercial producer of chillies in the United States, with about 14,000 hectares under cultivation. All the primary dishes in New Mexican cuisine contain chillies: sauces, stews, carne adovada, enchiladas, tamales and many vegetable dishes. The intense use of chillies as a food rather than just as a spice or condiment is what differentiates New Mexican cuisine from that of Texas or Arizona. In neighbouring states chilli powders are used as a seasoning for beef or chicken stock-based “chilli gravies”, which are thickened with flour or cornflour before being added to, say, enchiladas. In New Mexico the sauces are made from pure chillies and are thickened by reducing the crushed or puréed pods. New Mexico chilli sauces are cooked and puréed, while salsas use fresh, uncooked ingredients. Debates rage over whether tomatoes should be used in cooked sauces such as red chilli sauce, but traditional cooked red sauces do not contain tomatoes, though uncooked salsas do.
Chillies have become the de facto state symbol. Houses are adorned with strings of dried red chillies, or ristras. Images of the pods are emblazoned on signs, T-shirts, coffee mugs, hats and even underwear. In the late summer and early autumn, the rich aroma of roasting chillies fills the air all over the state. “A la primera cocinera se le va un chile entero,” goes one old Spanish saying: “To the best lady cook goes the whole chilli.” And the chilli is the single most important food in New Mexican cuisine.
The Arrival of the Anglos
New flavours travel to the Southwest
along the Santa Fe Trail
Following Mexico’s independence in 1821 and the opening of the Santa Fe Trail from Missouri, Santa Fe saw more and more trading (which had been prohibited by Spain, necessitating smuggling), and soon it was the terminus of two major trade routes from the east and the south. After Santa Fe fell to the Americans in 1846, the area really opened up as goods flooded in from the east.
Imported grains such as wheat became readily available with the arrival of the railroads. These grains were grown mostly on the eastern plains. However, imported flour was available, and corn was raised in small plots by both Hispanics and Native Americans. Agriculture was so primitive in the region that one critic, Antonio Barreiro, wrote in 1832: “Agriculture is utterly neglected, for the inhabitants of this country do not sow any amount, as they might do to great profit without any doubt. They sow barely what they consider necessary for their maintenance for part of the year, and the rest of the year they are exposed to a thousand miseries.”
Wagon trains bringing goods from the eastern states, as well as luxuries from Europe, began making regular trips across the plains from Missouri in the 1820s. The momentous opening of the Santa Fe Trail is reenacted each year.
One such misery was described by Susan Magoffin, the teenage bride of American trader and agent Samuel Magoffin. In her diary she describes her first taste of New Mexican green chilli stew in 1846: “Oh how my heart sickened to say nothing of my stomach . . . [from] a mixture of meat, chilli verde and onions boiled together completing course No. 1 . .
There were a few mouthfuls taken, for I could not eat a dish so strong, and unaccustomed to my palate.” However, she did become accustomed to spicy food and even wrote a “cookery book” so that her friends in the States (New Mexico was still a territory, of course) could experience New Mexican cuisine.
By 1846, champagne and oysters were available, and flour for making bread sold for US$2.50 per fanega. If that sounds expensive, know that a fanega was 65 kilograms. About this time, a Lieutenant James Abert was travelling extensively throughout New Mexico. Later, in his book Through the Country of the Comanche Indians, he described the market at Santa Fe: “The markets have ... great quantities of ‘Chilli Colorado’ and ‘verde’, ‘cebollas’ or onions, ‘sandias’ or watermelons, ‘huevos’ or eggs, ‘uvas’ or grapes, and ‘pinones’, nuts of the pine tree.”
Prices were relatively high. Corn was two (US) dollars a bushel, beef and mutton eight to 10 (US) cents a pound, sugar and coffee were 25 (US) cents a pound, and tea was very expensive at US$1.25 a pound. About this time, W. W. H. Davis travelled to Santa Fe and sampled the native cuisine. In his book, El Gringo, he described his encounter: “The meal was a true Mexican dinner, and a fair sample of the style of living among the better class of people. The advance guard in the course of the dishes was boiled mutton and beans, the meat being young and tender, and well flavoured. These were followed by a sui generis soup, different from any thing of the kind it had been my fortune to meet with before. It was filled with floating balls about the size of a musket bullet, which appeared to be a compound of flour and meat. Next came mutton stewed in chilli (red peppers), the dressing of which was about the colour of blood, and almost as hot as so much molten lead.”
After mentioning the albóndigas soup and the mutton, Davis described the standard beans, tortillas and atole (a corn drink) and then commented on chilli: “Besides those already enumerated, there are other dishes, some of which have come down from the ancient inhabitants of the country. The chilli they use in various ways—green, or verde, and in its dried state, the former being made into a sort of salad, and is esteemed to be a great luxury.”
The agricultural situation improved shortly after the U.S. Army raised its flag over Santa Fe’s Palace of the Governors and New Mexico was opened up to further settlement by American pioneers. The introduction of modern tools and techniques and new crops such as apples, peas and melons helped the farmers greatly. By 1900, more than 2 million hectares were under cultivation in New Mexico.
Santa Fe survived the Civil War without a scratch and did well under American control. Hotels and restaurants flourished with the coming of the railroad. Gradually, wheat crops surpassed corn crops. However, wheat tortillas have not supplanted those made of corn; both are still equally popular.
Cattle had been introduced by Juan de Oñate but only assumed a significant role in New Mexico after the Civil War. By 1890, after the great cattle drives to the New Mexico gold mines (which took place to feed the miners) there were 1.34 million head of cattle in the state. Remarkably, the figure nearly a hundred years later (1988) was almost identical: 1.32 million head.
After the Homestead Act of 1862 and the arrival of the railroad between 1879 and 1882, settlers from the eastern United States flooded into the state. With the advent of the railroad came the first railroad restaurants, the Harvey House chain. New Mexico boasted 16 of these establishments, including five that were the grandest of the system: Montezuma and Castañeda in Las Vegas, La Fonda in Santa Fe, Alvarado in Albuquerque, and El Navajo in Gallup. Harvey hired young women between the ages of 18 and 30 to be his hostesses, and they were quite an attraction on the Western frontier, where women were scarce. The humorist Will Rogers once said, “Fred Harvey kept the West in food and wives.”
The Harvey Houses attempted to bring “civilised” food to the frontier, and early menus reveal dishes like chicken croquettes, baron of beef, turkey stuffed with oysters, vermicelli with cheese à la Italian, and the ever delectable calfs brains scrambled with ranch eggs. “Mexican” food was considered too “native” for travellers and rarely appeared on upscale hotel and restaurant menus.
The railroads brought the settlers, and these pioneers brought new food crops. At first, vegetables such as tomatoes, asparagus, cabbage, carrots, lettuce, onions and peas were produced in home gardens on a small scale, but when extensive irrigation facilities were constructed in the early twentieth century, commercial vegetable production began.
During the years following World War I, Santa Fe began to emerge from obscurity as the city-and the rest of the state-was discovered by artists such as Peter Hurd and Georgia O’Keeffe, authors such as Willa Cather and D. H. Lawrence, and other prominent sculptors, poets, photographers and musicians. The high concentration of artists in the city, combined with Santa Fe’s tradition as an Indian trading centre, produced one of the top art markets in the world. More than 150 galleries (concentrated around the Plaza and along Canyon Road) now feature local as well as international artists, and special events such as Indian Market in mid-August ensure that the ancient artistic traditions are kept alive.
A parade in downtown Santa Fe circa 1932. The large building on the left is La Fonda hotel, built in 1922 and still standing in the same spot today.
In the decades after World War I, the cuisines of Santa Fe, however, remained fairly segregated: an Indian-Hispanic hybrid cuisine served in the pueblos; hotels offered mostly standard meat and potatoes eastern-style; and the traditional New Mexican chilli-based cuisine was served in Hispanic houses and restaurants. But major culinary changes would occur as Santa Fe became one of the top ten tourist destinations in the country.
Celebrations and Festivals
The many feasts of life in Santa Fe each
seem to have their own celebratory foods
Santa Feans love to party, and the entire year seems to revolve around the many fiestas-one after another. Even calling these celebrations markets doesn’t prevent people from partying.
Spanish Market, held during the last weekend in July for more than 45 years, showcases the arts and crafts of New Mexico’s Hispanic artisans. There is the Traditional Spanish Market, held on the Plaza, and the Contemporary Spanish Market, held in the courtyard of the Palace of the Governors. The crafts sold include santos (carved wooden saints), tinwork, embroidery, jewellery, weaving and handmade furniture.
Indian Market, held around the Plaza during a weekend in mid-August for more than 75 years, is probably the finest single show of Indian arts and crafts in the United States. Collectors travel from all over the world to this event, which features only Indian-made arts and crafts. As with Spanish Market, numerous food booths featuring the local street fare of tacos, tostadas and burritos are also set up.
A young Hopi boy in the traditional costume of the koshare, or clown, during Santa Fe’s Indian Market. At Hopi feast days children often dress as koshares and cause mischief
The Santa Fe Wine and Chilli Festival is held in mid-September, and the events take place in various restaurants and cooking schools. A grand tasting is held in a tent in the parking lot of a downtown hotel and features traditional and innovative food prepared by Santa Fe’s best restaurants, and wines from New Mexico, Texas and California wineries.
One of the largest celebrations in Santa Fe is Fiesta de Santa Fe, which was established in 1712 by Don Diego de Vargas to commemorate the reoccupation of New Mexico by the Spanish. It begins the Friday after Labour Day in Fort Marcy Park with the burning of Zozobra, a 12-metre-high effigy representing Old Man Gloom. Afterward, the party moves to the Plaza and downtown area for two more days of parades, dancing, singing, religious processions and booths filled with arts, crafts and traditional food. The best time to visit is during a feast day, for you can be sure that a ceremony or dance will take place. Of special fun are the grab or throw days. Many Native Americans are named for Catholic saints, and on each saint’s day, all pueblo members with that name go up on the roof and throw something down to the crowd that travels from house to house. Sweets such as chocolate, apples, prizes or even small plastic rubbish bins are among the items that get thrown. Historically, water would be flung from gourds to encourage rain, and although it is still done, children seem to prefer water balloons to gourds! You may get wet, but you’ll have a good time.
During the feast days at the Indian pueblos, tourists are welcome during most of the ceremonies and dances and may even be invited to join in. However, there is a definite etiquette to be observed. Enter a home by invitation only, and if invited to eat (which is common) don’t refuse and don’t linger, as others will be invited to take your place. Limit your questions—asking too many will be viewed as inconsiderate. And don’t walk across the plaza or dance area, look into kivas or talk to dancers during the ceremonies; remember that these are religious shrines and activities.
It is always best to check with the tribal or tourist office before wandering into a pueblo. They can steer you to craftspeople and places of interest and inform you of the particular rules governing that pueblo. Always respect Indian traditions when you’re on their land; it is a sovereign nation, and you are subject to their laws and regulations.
At the end of August, the height of the tourist season in Santa Fe, large crowds mingle with Native American artists from all over the country at the Indian Market.
Other special events in Santa Fe include Rodeo de Santa Fe, which began in the 1940s and has steadily grown into a popular regional competition. It happens in early July, and between 300 and 500 cowboys compete in riding, roping and racing events. The Santa Fe Festival of the Arts is held in October, and history buffs will enjoy the Mountain Man Rendezvous and Buffalo Roast held in mid-August on the Plaza.
The Christmas season in New Mexico always brings its distinctive sights, aromas and tastes. The traditional colours of the season are evident in the red and green New Mexican chillies; the aroma of burning piñon pine permeates the air. The Spanish brought Christmas to the Southwest about 400 years ago, but the Pueblo Indians were already celebrating this time of the year with a number of feast days. After the harvest was stored for the winter, dances were performed both to give thanks for the bounty and to apologise for the necessity of having to hunt for winter food. These traditions continue to this day.
La Entrada, a reenactment of the reconquest of Santa Fe by Don Diego de Vargas after the Pueblo Indians revolted against the Spanish, is a popular spectacle during the Fiesta de Santa Fe, which has been celebrated since 1712.
Probably no other image symbolises the Christmas season in New Mexico more than the luminarias that line walkways and outline buildings and houses throughout the state. Originally, little crisscross fires of piñon wood were lit on Christmas Eve to light the Christ child’s way. With the advent of the square-bottomed brown paper bag, the bonfires were replaced with a votive candle anchored in sand in the bag—and the farolito (little lantern) was bom. Whether called luminarias or farolitos, they are traditionally lit only on December 24, la noche buena; and with most electric lights turned off, they weave a quiet, soft spell.
Many of the tastes of the season are prepared from recipes handed down from generation to generation. These recipes incorporate a mixture of cultures—Indian, Spanish and Anglo—and utilise locally available foodstuffs, including corn for flour or dried for use in stews, whole pods of chilli from the strings of ristras, and meat from livestock that could not be kept over the winter. Stews like posole were kept on the stove to feed friends stopping by after Mass or for hosting neighbourhood posadas, Spanish plays enacting Mary and Joseph’s search for an inn. Many of these traditions continue today in New Mexico homes. For example, it is not unusual for spectators attending Indian dances at a pueblo on Christmas Eve to be invited into a home for tamales, a bowl of posole or green chilli stew, or even some carne adovada. Dessert would be flan (custard), natillas (soft custard) or biscochitos (anise-flavoured shortbread cookies). It would be impolite to refuse the invitation to dine, since it is a part of the New Mexican Christmas tradition for everyone who stops by.
Farolitos light the Christ child’s way through Santa Fe at Christmas time. These lanterns are called luminarias in Albuquerque, but don’t try calling them that in Santa Fe.
Dining Out in Santa Fe
A new generation of chifs reinvent the traditional cuisine
while adding quite a few new flavours of their own
Within just a few of blocks of the Plaza in Santa Fe, foodies can indulge every gastronomic whim imaginable. Want to buy the hottest salsa known to man? Like some to-die-for blue corn enchiladas with delicious red chilli? Care to taste some New Mexican wines and beers? Need a ristra for your front porch? It’s all here in Santa Fe.
There are probably more fine restaurants per capita in Santa Fe than anywhere else in the United States, and this is undoubtedly the result of tourism.
As is true of New Mexico in general, people living in and visiting The City Different love their food spicy hot. In fact, a study done a few years ago determined that Santa Fe is the fiery food capital of the United States. Despite the spiciness of the Santa Fe food, visitors should note that there is a wide variety of cuisines available to sample because Santa Fe attracts great culinary artists as well as great visual artists. There isn’t space here to mention all of the city’s great restaurants, so we have described only our personal favourites.
Twilight outside Cafe Pasqual’s, one of Santa Fe’s best-known eateries.
Travel back in time as you reach the end of the Santa Fe Trail at La Fonda hotel and restaurant (100 E. San Francisco Street), a mainstay in Santa Fe for 300 years. Although the current structure is only 80 years old, it is filled with the charm of Old Santa Fe and features thick adobe walls, high ceilings, carved wood furniture, stone floors and big inviting fireplaces. The restaurant is in an atrium with painted windows and turn-of-the-century art, including works by legendary American artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
The menu is inspired by the cuisines of Old Mexico and Spain and contains items such as Grilled Quail Breast with Ancho Chilli Glaze served in a Sweet Potato Taco, Wild Boar Carnitas and rattlesnake dishes.
From artists to outlaws, much of Santa Fe’s history has been witnessed at the bar of El Farol (808 Canyon Road), a popular social spot for locals since 1835. The stories say that it was the scene of many gunfights, and in the 1950s, famed artist Alfred Morang paid his tab by painting a mural on one of the walls. Hidden underneath panelling for a number of years, his work has now been restored and continues to be a popular attraction. The fare is traditional Spanish, and the specialities are tapas (they even have a designated Tapas Room), paella and Spanish wines.
The garden courtyard outside La Casa Sena provides a quiet dining spot for residents and visitors.
The tradition of great restaurants in Santa Fe during the modern era was born more than 45 years ago when Rosalea Murphy opened The Pink Adobe (406 Old Santa Fe Trail). As Rosalea recalls, when “the Pink” first opened, Santa Fe was not the tourist mecca it is today, but rather a “lazy, sleepy town”. She served 25-cent “Pink Dobeburgers”, then imported chicken enchiladas from Mexico, and eventually became the first chef in Santa Fe to serve seafood. Today, the restaurant is in a former barracks for Spanish soldiers, Barrio de Analco, one of the oldest parts of Santa Fe. Despite its name, the Pink Adobe is no longer pink but rather a shade of sandstone. Santa Fe’s Historical Design Review Board has refused to allow the restaurant to be painted its original colour because, according to the board, pink is not an earth tone. During a hearing on the issue, Rosalea presented several samples of pink rocks collected in the desert and mountains around Santa Fe, but the board still refused.
Coyote Cafe owner Mark Miller, who is today renowned as one of America’s leading chefs.
The Coyote Cafe (132 West Water Street) offers a truly unique dining experience because anthropologist-turned-chef Mark Miller presents a different menu each day, re-creating Southwestern and Latin American dishes that predate the arrival of Europeans. It is difficult to suggest any one particular menu item because they change so much, but some past menus have included Barbecued Duck Crepas, layered corn crepes with roast duck, barbecue sauce, and corn chilli relish; and Red Chilli Quail, fresh Texas bobwhite quail marinated in dried chillies and wild mushrooms.
“My café is small but lively,” says Katharine Kagel, chef-owner of Cafe Pasqual’s (121 Don Gaspar Avenue), which has been in business since 1979. Located one block from the historic Plaza, the café serves the food of New and Old Mexico, as well as New American Cuisine. During the day, the atmosphere is informal, but the mood changes at dinner time when the white tablecloths come out and the wine service begins. Signature dishes include Huevos Motuleños, a Yucatán egg dish; and Chicken Mole Presciliano, a Pueblo-style family recipe made with 20 different ingredients. The café also boasts an art gallery that features Mexican murals, traditional Apache cookware and jewellery.
The three cultures of Santa Fe come together in the food and the architecture of Inn of the Anasazi (113 Washington Avenue), where Native American spirituality, Mexican flair and European practicality define the experience. Diners can settle in on cozy bancos to warm their bones by the fire and their insides with cutting-edge dishes like Grilled Tortilla and Lime Soup with Barbecued Yellow Tomato Salsa and Coriander Corn Oil, a popular appetizer that has been on the menu since the award-winning restaurant opened in 1991.
La Casa Sena (125 East Palace Avenue) was expanded from a small house to a 33-room adobe hacienda in 1868 by a prominent Santa Fe family. The courtyard is now one of the city’s most beautiful outdoor dining spots. The restaurant opened in 1983 and serves innovative dishes such as Grilled Pepita Crusted Salmon with Ancho Chilli Hollandaise and Goat Cheese Epazote Quesadilla.
Serving traditional northern New Mexico cuisine, Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen (555 West Cordova Road) was originally a take-away place started in the early 1950s by Maria, the wife of a local politician. After several years she sold it, and it has grown since. Owner Al Lucero says that his place was the first to introduce fajitas to Santa Fe back in 1985. However, margaritas, more than 75 of them, are Maria’s main claim to fame. They are made with only the best authentic tequilas and are hand-shaken, never stirred.
The Santacafé (231 Washington Street), a “Southwest American Bistro” in a 150-year-old building, has been open since 1983 and is a local favourite for its innovative menu and celebrity-watching opportunities. Its decor is not traditional Southwestern but stark minimalist, with bare off-white walls. The signature dish is Crispy Calamari with Lime Dipping Sauce, and the menu includes Grilled Rack of Lamb with Pasilla Chilli Sauce and Roasted Corn-Shiitake Mushroom Salsa. It has been named a top-rated restaurant by Zagat’s guide.
Since 1989, the Santa Fe School of Cooking (116 West San Francisco Street) has defined traditional New Mexican cooking and has set the tone for contemporary Southwest cuisine with dishes like Lime-Marinated Grilled Salmon with Ginger-Lime Butter. “We mirror Santa Fe,” says Susan Curtis, founder of the school. Many Santa Fe chefs have taught or studied here, and instruction is open to all.
Paul’s Restaurant of Santa Fe (72 West Marcy Street) is an intimate place that incorporates the best of all worlds, from its folksy yet modem atmosphere to its eclectic cuisine. “We don’t follow trends,” says owner Paul Hunsicker, who opened the restaurant in 1990. His menu combines flavours from around the world in dishes like Baked Salmon in a Pecan Herb Crust and Red Chilli Duck Wontons.
The many innovations of the new Southwestern chefs, while surprising, are fully in keeping with the past. In New Mexico, the traditional cuisine based on corn, beans, squash and chilli will probably be cooked for centuries to come. But this doesn’t mean that it has to be static. And today’s chefs are creating exciting new food by blending the ideas of other cultures with the fundamentals of Southwestern cookery and ingredients in wonderful new ways.
The kitchen of the Martinez Hacienda, a restored Spanish Colonial adobe house dating from circa 1804, which originally belonged to a mayor of Taos.
