To tell the story of the Chiles en Nogada, you have to go back two centuries. Go back to the moment when Agustín de Iturbide played a key role in completing Mexico’s independence. One that led him to sign the Treaties of Cordoba, legal manuscripts that recognized Mexico as an independent territory and that charted his path as the country’s first emperor.
Having been drafted into the army since he was 15, life without the armed forces is unimaginable. He agreed with the provincial militias and always remained loyal to the Spanish authorities. However, Iturbide’s actions had an impact on the independence movement around 1820 when he was called upon to pacify southern Mexico. At that time he corresponded with Vicente Guerrero, the last living insurgent leader of the movement and of equal importance to Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla or José María Morelos, as well as with ecclesiastical figures, elites and provincial armed forces. In his mind there was a plan consisting of three guarantees to combine forces on the territory: religion, independence and union.
Decisions that led to him leading the Trigarante army, and incidentally acknowledging him with the gastronomic myth as the person for whom they prepared an incomparable recipe: one of the first versions of Chiles en Nogada, going from a dessert to a full-fledged one court developed .
A recipe for Iturbide
The story is as follows. After the treaties were signed, a first regency was created, consisting of Iturbide, the fugitive viceroy Juan de O’Donojú, Manuel de la Bárcena, Isidro Yáñez, Manuel Velázquez de León and Bishop Antonio Joaquín Pérez Martínez, a key figure in Puebla who would be in charge of expanding the idea of the new dish prepared exclusively for the Trigarante leader.
“The contracts were finalized at the end of August and once the matter was settled, Don Agustín, who knew how to enjoy life and was a pioneer in image maintenance, decided to take a few days off to … This allowed the preparation of the necessary celebrations and could allow for a triumphant entry into the capital of the former kingdom,” says archaeologist Eduardo Merlo in the article The Myth of the Chiles en Nogada and the Flag of the Three Guarantees of the magazine Cuadernos de Nutrición.
On August 28, 1821, a month before the triumphant entry into the capital, the Trigarante army made its way to Puebla to celebrate, in addition to the signed treaties, the saint’s day of the leader, who was born in Valladolid (now Morelia). The capital Puebla was chosen for the celebration because Pérez Martínez was part of the regency and therefore responsible for all the activities and the food of the celebration.
The origin of the recipe
202 years after Iturbide tasted this recipe, Eduardo Merlo, also a teacher of anthropology, pointed out that it predates the arrival of the military in Puebla. According to several historians, a book published in Puebla entitled “El cocinero poblano” (1714) already detailed the preparation of a dish of chili peppers dipped in walnut sauce (from Castile). For this reason, it is believed that it was not made for the independence leader.
“In official history,” the former director of the Viceregal Art Museum recalled in a 2018 lecture, “there are always inventions added to events to give meaning and to obscure them.” Works Patrimonio de Puebla (2001), this Mexican delicacy even predates the birth of the first Emperor of Mexico, which dates back to 1783. Therefore, any book, pamphlet or commentary on the exclusive invention of this national delicacy is false.
The truth is that the dish commissioned from the Augustinian nuns of Santa Monica, despite its centuries-old age, had one distinctive feature: it was decorated with the colors of the Trigarante flag. To do this, it was decided to add two ingredients: the sweet red pomegranate and a strip of parsley, which, together with the walnut or nogada sauce, which was seasoned beforehand, gave a reference to the historical moment.
dessert or food?
From the first recipe Emperor Iturbide tried to the seasonal chilies currently on offer from the Calpan and San Nicolás de los Ranchos regions of Puebla, the dish has evolved over the years.
“The semi-dessert quality was achieved by the filling of the chili peppers, which was perhaps the key to its success.” They called it a delicacy, in the truest sense of the word. It is made from fresh and crystallized fruits, mainly peaches, pears, panochera apples on the one hand and biznaga (lemon), figs, pine nuts and almonds on the other. All finely chopped, resulting in a delicious but firm dough due to excessive sweetness,” says the same article cited by Merlo Juárez.
Currently, ingredients like the lemon have been lost as the biznagas have been endangered for a decade and are banned from consumption in Mexico. In addition, it was modified and supplemented with other ingredients throughout the 20th century, until the version that is known across the country today was arrived at.
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