Chiles Poblanos en Nogada

After the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the pre-Columbian Aztec civilization persisted and mixed with the imported culture of viceregal Mexico. This mestizaje, or “mixing,” affected every aspect of Mexican life. But the mélange is nowhere more noticeable, or more crucially defining, than in the kitchen and on the table.

The foremost Mexican gastronomic writer of the modern period, Salvador Novo, expounds this phenomenon almost ecstatically in his