posole mio.

Pictured above: one of the many food-related perks of being the vice-president of sales for a foodservice company is that the people who you work with send you all kinds of great stuff at Xmas. This wooden thing above from La Tienda came in the mail this morning, along with a cookbook:

Someone else sent a chocolate cheesecake, someone else sent a massive thing of dried fruit....we might not even have to cook tomorrow. 

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I wonder how many other people are further complicating their Christmas cooking by doing ingredient research. 

I decided to cook pozole for Christmas Eve a long time ago, for a lot of reasons: it's true Southwestern food, I would be in the Southwest, and it also has a Christmastime significance because it's traditionally eaten on the 24th to "celebrate life's blessings". 

This celebration wasn't always a "win-win" for everyone. Here's an interesting tidbit I found on the Google wire:

The story of pozole is obscure, but some believe that the stew originated with the natives of Tonalá, Jalisco. After the arrival of the conquistadores, Tonalá’s legendary queen Cihualpilli threw a banquet in their honor and pozole was served. After the priests found out the secret behind the recipe, a decision was made to change the human flesh for pig's. Pozole spread throughout New Spain with variations in different regions according to local tastes.

Hopefully this holiday's version will be a little lighter on the human casualties.

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Like any traditional dish with more than three ingredients, there are a zillion variations on the original pozole recipe based on which victim protein to use, which chiles to use, what kind of dried corn is available, etc. 

Since we already had our green chile explosion last week, I thought we'd go the red chile route this time.

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