The Art of Mexican Cooking: Tradition, Technique, and Flavor From Mesa to Table

THE ART OF MEXICAN COOKINGTradition, Technique, and Flavor from Mesa to TableR. A. CalkinsFrom a warm comal and a handful of chiles comes a cuisine built on patient technique and bold honesty. The Art of Mexican Cooking is a practical, deeply informed guide for home cooks who want more than recipes — it teaches you how to think like a Mexican cook. Rooted in markets and family kitchens, this book shows you how to read a chile, coax corn into perfect tortillas, and build sauces that balance heat, acid, fat, and salt so every dish sings.Begin with the essentials: a clear pantry of staples and a compact, durable tool kit that will serve you for everything from everyday salsas to celebratory moles. Learn the fundamentals — working masa, pressing and cooking tortillas, handling dried chiles (toast, rehydrate, strain), and building a sofrito — through step-by-step methods and practice exercises designed to make technique second nature. Practical safety and timing tips keep you confident when handling hot chiles and complex sauces.Then travel region by region. Mexico is many kitchens in one: coastal seafood traditions, the smoky moles of Puebla and Oaxaca, the ranchero traditions of the North, and Yucatán’s citrus and achiote. Each regional chapter explains the ingredient logic, characteristic techniques, and representative recipes so you can reproduce authentic flavors at home and adapt recipes with clarity and respect. A dedicated chapter examines Tex-Mex — its American history, how it diverged from and honored Mexican roots, and how to cook it thoughtfully without losing sight of tradition.Inside you’ll find approachable recipes for day-to-day meals and the special things that reward time and care: fresh masa tortillas that puff on the comal, salsa verde and salsa roja that brighten any plate, a deep, layered mole that builds from toasted seeds and chiles, simmered beans with honest seasoning, coastal stews, grilled meats, and simple desserts that finish a meal with balance. Notes on pantry sources, ingredient substitutions, and why certain steps matter mean you won’t be tied to the exact pantry on page one — you’ll learn to solve problems and sharpen flavor by taste.The Art of Mexican Cooking privileges technique over mystique. Rather than asking you to memorize long ingredient lists, it asks you to practice a handful of repeatable actions: toast, soak, purée, strain, bloom, and finish with acid. The outcome is cooking that feels inevitable: fresh tortillas, lively salsas, deeply savory stews, and sauces with true structure. Exercises and short drills at the end of chapters help you turn instruction into muscle memory so that confident cooking — not rote following — becomes the norm.Whether you are new to Mexican food or seek a more disciplined approach, this book is a companion for the stove. It gives you the vocabulary and the muscle to translate markets and memories into honest meals — from the simple joy of a warm tortilla to the slow satisfaction of a perfectly balanced mole. Practical, respectful, and richly rooted in regional knowledge, The Art of Mexican Cooking brings the mesa to your table.