Cooking Fats

Spanish cooks have traditionally loved to mix different cooking fats, and they brought their eclectic preferences with them to Veracruz. To this day, butter and olive oil are more popular in Veracruz than in other parts of the country. Nowhere else have I eaten refried beans made with butter. And nowhere else have I seen such lavish use of olive oil (especially to cook seafood) or such reliance on mixtures of oil with lard or rendered bacon fat.

As a result, Veracruzan cuisine can be many things to many people, if not all things to all people. If you favor a “Mediterranean diet” approach to cooking, with olive oil as the one basic fat, you will find many suitable dishes in this book. I confess that for me, this is one of the most attractive features of the cuisine. (But please note that Ve-racruzan cooks are not sticklers for extra-virgin olive oil — let your palate be your guide in deciding what grade to use.) I think, however, that it would be misleading not to point out that Veracruzan cooks deeply value butter for its delicacy and lard for the satisfying way it rounds out or complements other flavors.