San Andrés Calpan: Without them there is no chile en nogada (chili in walnut salsa)

In San Mateo Ozolco and San Lucas Atzala, villages of San Andrés Calpan, several families harvest the necessary supplies to prepare chile en nogada (chili in walnut salsa). They sell them both in markets and in inns and restaurants of the capital and the surrounding area.

Chile en nogada (chili in walnut salsa) is expensive, it is also painstaking to prepare. Therefore, it is not an everyday meal or from every household in Puebla. The latter is one of the most important pieces of general knowledge to demystify, along with the legend that they were created to entertain Augustine of Mexico or originated in a convent. Much of their consumption depends, too, on the state of the crops.

Sabores del campo in Calpan is a cooperative that since 2016 has been working as a group and for at least a decade looking for their crops to be preserved, valued and generate better profits each year. 

There are 25 families dedicated to the cultivation of the leche variety of pears, 20 to walnut, 15 to Creole panochera apples and 10 to the cultivation of Creole peaches. The current recipe also includes pomegranate, but they focus on the ones mentioned above.

Freddy is part of a family that has been dedicated to fruit farming, but he is a technician in agriculture. He says that young people do not like working on land and they have a high school center with agricultural training in their town because the field is the future.

One of the problems they face with Creole apples is hail that can affect their appearance. For that reason, there are sites that no longer buy it.

The walnut with which the chili salsa is made is ready to be sold when it has a slice in the center. It is removed from the tree, it is peeled with a knife (and pulled to the ground to be reintegrated into the soil as compost), a white membrane is removed and then repeeled for cleaning.

The fruit fly is one of the threats of this type of nut. They can sell it by piece or percent, whole or clean (the latter raises the price by 70%).

Another important ingredient for the filling is peach. Cecilio explains that Creole peaches are known to be ready "when they fall off they're good." This variety is sweeter than others and its external color sometimes does not match the inside, which is of intense orange.

Two to three tons of peaches are obtained on half a hectare. The tree must be six years old to be productive and he has trees from five to 20, which are on the hillside.

Another fruit that makes up the chili's filling is the leche or pera lechera (lechera pear), so called for its juiciness and fleshy consistency. From each large tree you get up to 10 boxes of approximately 44 pounds each season, Freddy explains. 

One of problems of growing the ingredients for chile en nogada is that there is theft—some 30% of the harvest. And also spectulation that results in intermediaries trying to buy at the cheapest cost (up to 50% or less at the direct purchase time).

The farmer's garden provides not only individual but social benefits, as it allows the reduction of CO2, one of the main causes of the greenhouse effect caused by climate change, in addition to the conservation of the bio-cultural environment.

The use of organic fertilizers and pruning are some of their good agricultural practices. That is why farmers prefer a better taste than uniformity or large sizes.

Paying a fair price and without haggling with the farmers of San Andrés Calpan is an act of love and dignity to the earth. "Since the sun rises until the cricket sings" is a common phrase they say and it is that the days on the plots are constant. What really shines and preserves the everyday heritage are their hands and frank stories of those who bring quality, taste and health to the tables.