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Traditional Flavors of New Mexico
It’s hot! It’s lively!
Need some spice in your life? Come savor New Mexico’s lively singular cuisine. Our early melding of Native American and Spanish cultures gave root to a cooking style different from elsewhere in the American Southwest and Mexico.
The local chiles form the core of New Mexico’s traditional cooking, often in sauces made of fresh long green chiles or their more mature dried red counterparts. Come savor dishes like enchiladas, burritos, tamales, posole corn, long-simmered frijoles, and stuffed pockets of cornmeal dough called gorditas. If you like your food really fiery, don’t miss red chile-marinated pork carne adovada. Even if you have had versions of these dishes from other parts of the Southwest or Mexico, you will be delighted with the differences.
Don’t overlook some of New Mexico’s newer fun food traditions too, like green chile cheeseburgers and red chile-drenched Frito pies. We haven’t even mentioned that New Mexicans are so passionate about their local foods that the state honors chile (even though the pungent pods are technically a fruit) and frijoles, or pinto beans, (even though beans are technically a legume) as New Mexico’s state vegetables. And how many states have a State Question? Ours is “Red or Green?” and refers to which color chile you want ladled over your New Mexican food.
Fill your glass with wine from one of our lovely vineyards. Spanish settlers first brought wine grapes to New Mexico, and today our state’s wine industry is considered the oldest in North America. More than three dozen wineries operate here, and most are small to medium-size operations that welcome visitors. Whether you travel throughout the state or not, you can sample many of their offerings whenever you dine out.
If you want a more in-depth look at traditional foods beyond restaurants, check out some of our cooking schools and some of these stops:
The Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, is an international nonprofit organization devoted to education, research, and archiving information related to Capsicum. The extensive chile garden is open to visitors year-round. Las Cruces.
El Rancho de Las Golondrinas, the Southwest’s premier outdoor living history museum, preserves northern New Mexico’s heritage on an 18th century Spanish colonial ranch. The ranch is always fascinating place, but never more so than on its festival weekends from spring through fall. The autumn Harvest Festival for example, showcases crushing wine grapes by foot, burros grinding sorghum, the stringing of colorful chile ristras, tender biscochitos warm from an horno oven, and tortillas piping hot from the comal griddle. South of Santa Fe off I-25.
New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum displays exhibits about the state’s agricultural heritage and cowboy life, has a working dairy and dairy farm, and breeds traditional livestock. Visitors can stroll too through its garden, orchard, and antique agricultural implements. Las Cruces.
Hacienda de Los Martinez, one of the last remaining Spanish Colonial “great houses,” resembles a fortress with massive adobe walls. Headquarters of an extensive ranching and farming operation, the hacienda also served as an important trade center at the northern edge of the Spanish Empire. Its kitchen exhibit brings to life the challenges that faced cooks two centuries ago. Taos.
Farmers’ Markets statewide view the list here.
