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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Real del Monte
Baked wheat-dough pastry shaped like a half-moon with a braided edge, filled with potato and meat or other stews. It arrived in Real del Monte with miners from Cornwall in the 19th century and became Hidalgo’s best-known dish.
Traditional dish from Real del Monte, Hidalgo
Also known as: pastes, paste hidalguense, paste de Real del Monte
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Paste — Real del Monte, Mexico
The paste is a baked half-moon pastry made with wheat dough and a thick braided edge. The original filling is potato with ground or chopped meat, onion, parsley and black pepper, and it goes into the dough raw; the pastry is then sealed and baked. That is the main difference from empanadas, whose fillings are often cooked beforehand.
The story begins in 1824, when an English company took over the silver mines of Real del Monte and Pachuca and brought miners from Cornwall in southwest England. With them came the machines, football, the Methodist faith and the pasty, the pastry miners took into the shafts. According to tradition, they held the pastry by the braided edge, ate the rest and threw away the part touched by hands dirty with ore.
Over time the pasty became the paste and adopted Mexican flavors: in addition to potato and meat, there are mole, bean and other stew fillings, as well as sweet versions. Real del Monte was declared Cuna del Paste en México, has the Museo del Paste and hosts the Festival Internacional del Paste every October.
On the streets of Real del Monte and Pachuca, pasterías sell hot pastes straight from the oven, and many visitors take some to go.
Real del Monte , Hidalgo
Baked pastry brought by Cornish miners to Real del Monte in 1824; the town has the Museo del Paste and an international festival.
Wheat-flour dough with fat; traditional filling of potato, beef, onion, parsley and black pepper; also mole, beans, chicken or sweet fillings.
By hand, hot straight from the oven; sometimes served with chili sauce.
All year round; the Festival Internacional del Paste takes place in October in Real del Monte.
Your questions
It’s a baked wheat-dough pastry, half-moon shaped with a braided edge, filled with potato and meat or other stews.
It arrived in Real del Monte in 1824 with miners from Cornwall, England, who ate the pasty inside the mines.
The Festival Internacional del Paste takes place every October in Real del Monte. Check the dates before you go.
Flavors of Mexico
Round sweet bread with strips of dough shaped like bones, scented with orange or anise and topped with sugar or sesame. It is the offering bread of Día de Muertos and is made throughout Mexico, with shapes and recipes that vary from region to region.
Chicken pieces browned and slowly cooked in a tomato, onion, and garlic sauce seasoned with cinnamon, clove, and oregano, which in many recipes includes dried fruit. It’s the dish associated with the Feria Nacional de San Marcos in the city of Aguascalientes.
Layers of corn tortillas with black beans and shredded cazón, cooked with epazote, topped with tomato sauce and habanero chile. Despite the name, it does not contain wheat bread. It is considered a symbol of Campeche cuisine.
Salted, dried beef — tasajo — cooked in a thick sauce of ground pumpkin seeds, with tomato and rice. It is the celebratory dish of Chiapa de Corzo, served especially during the January Fiesta Grande, the Parachicos festival.
Desert distilled spirit made from the heart of the sotol or sereque plant, which is not agave — roasted, fermented and distilled. It has a denomination of origin and is the drink most closely associated with Chihuahua, which produces the majority of it.
Tacos of pork seasoned with a chile adobo, roasted on a vertical spit (the trompo), and served in a corn tortilla with pineapple, onion and cilantro. They descend from the tacos árabes brought to Puebla by Middle Eastern immigrants and took their current form in Mexico City taquerías.
Pozole made with pork and hominy cooked until nearly no broth remains, served on a plate (not in a bowl), with tostadas, lettuce, radish, onion and lime. It’s Colima’s version of pozole and one of the state’s signature dishes.
Refreshing drink made from coconut sap, harvested high in the palm and served chilled with peanuts and pieces of fruit. It arrived with Filipino influence and is the street drink most closely associated with Colima.
Hearty beef broth with chile pasado — a long green pod pepper roasted, peeled and sun-dried — plus tomato, garlic and onion. It’s Durango’s most representative dish, served in a bowl with tortillas.
White fish taco coated in a light batter and fried until golden, served on a corn tortilla with cabbage, tomato-and-onion salsa, mayonnaise or cream, and lime. It originated around 1960 at the stalls of the Mercado Negro, the fish market at the port of Ensenada.
Sandwich made with birote bread, a hard-crusted loaf, filled with carnitas and drenched in tomato sauce, with a spicy chile de árbol sauce on the side. A symbol of Guadalajara’s cuisine, which dedicated a municipal day to it on September 10.
Corn tortillas dipped in a guajillo chile sauce and fried, filled with cheese and onion, served with boiled potato and carrot, lettuce and pickled chiles. A typical dish of the city of Guanajuato, which tradition links to the wives of the silver mine workers.
Broth of cacahuazintle corn and pork thickened with a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds, tomatillo and herbs, served with many accompaniments. Dish from Guerrero, where Thursdays are pozole day.
Whole fish butterflied, marinated in achiote paste with sour orange and spices, grilled over charcoal and topped with tomato and onion. A Maya-origin dish from the Yucatán Peninsula, it’s a specialty of Isla Mujeres.
Almejas chocolatas, a large brown-shelled mollusk from the Sea of Cortés, arranged on the ground and cooked under a fire of dry branches, served with lime and hot sauce. It is the dish most closely associated with Loreto in Baja California Sur.
Thin, crispy batter cooked on a round griddle and rolled like a tube, filled with queso de bola, a cheese of the Edam type. A street sweet from Mérida, created by a family of ice-cream makers in the city and sold at night from carts in the plazas.
Whole fish butterflied open, seasoned with a chile sauce and grilled over coals secured in a double-wire grill, the zaranda, which gives it its name. An official publication places its origin on the island of Mexcaltitán, on the northern coast of Nayarit.
Large, thick corn tortilla taco topped with red rice and a stew-like filling such as chile relleno, milanesa, or boiled egg. It originated in Morelos and is the taco most associated with the state, from Cuautla to Cuernavaca.
Milk-fed kid opened, salted and slowly roasted on an iron stake beside the embers, in the shepherds’ style. It is the best-known dish of Nuevo León, present on the state’s traditional gastronomy routes, from Monterrey to the northern municipalities.
The darkest of Oaxaca’s moles: a thick sauce of chiles toasted almost to the point of burning, including the chilhuacle negro, with chocolate, seeds and spices. A celebratory dish of the state, prepared mainly in the Valles Centrales.
Poblano chile stuffed with a meat-and-fruit picadillo, topped with a white walnut sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and parsley, in the colors of the Mexican flag. A seasonal dish from late summer, associated with the city of Puebla.
Thick, dark sauce made from several dried chiles, spices, seeds and chocolate, traditionally served with turkey. Tradition links its creation to the kitchen of the old Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, the city that gives it its name.
Corn tortillas dipped in a guajillo or ancho chile sauce, filled with fresh cheese or chicken, folded and topped with crema and cheese, served with fried potato and carrot on the side. They are Querétaro’s typical dish.
Pork slowly cooked in its own lard in large pots until tender inside and golden outside, served in tacos. Quiroga, near Lake Pátzcuaro, is called the capital of carnitas: families in the town have been making them for more than a century.
Sweet wheat bread fermented with pulque, the agave fermented drink, instead of common yeast, and sweetened with piloncillo. It is Saltillo’s traditional bread in Coahuila, a legacy of the meeting between Spanish wheat and pulque.
Small corn masa tortillas dyed red with dried chili, filled with cheese and onion, folded into a half-moon and griddled on a comal. They are the most representative dish of San Luis Potosí, declared a state heritage.
Raw shrimp butterfly-cut and cured in lime with chiltepín chile, served with cucumber and red onion. It originated in the mountains of Sinaloa as a meat broth with water and chile and reached the coast, where shrimp took the place of meat. It is presented as the state’s most representative dish.
Distilled spirit from Agave angustifolia, roasted in an earth oven, fermented and distilled in the Sierra of Sonora. It is named after the town of Bacanora and has a denomination of origin exclusive to Sonora since 2000.
Freshwater fish with a long snout, grilled whole over coals and eaten with tortilla, lime, salt and chile amashito. It lives in the rivers and lagoons of Tabasco and is one of the state’s most representative dishes, with roots in pre-Hispanic cuisine of the southeast.
Distilled spirit from blue agave named after the city of Tequila, in Jalisco, surrounded by agave fields. It has a designation of origin since 1974, and the agave landscape and the region’s old industrial facilities are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Salad of romaine lettuce leaves with a dressing of egg, lemon, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, served with croutons. It was created in Tijuana by the Italian cook Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924, according to Tijuanan historian José Fernando Escobedo de la Torre.
Dark, thick mole made from dried chiles thickened with corn dough, with pork, served in clay bowls with long tamales. It is the festival dish of Tlaxcala and an intangible cultural heritage of the state.
Red snapper cooked in a tomato sauce with olives, capers, garlic, onion, herbs and pickled chiles güeros or jalapeños. A coastal Veracruz dish, from the Gulf of Mexico, considered one of the country's best-known fish recipes.
Pork marinated in achiote and bitter orange, wrapped in banana leaf and slowly cooked in an earth oven, the pib. A Sunday family dish from Yucatán that combines the pig brought by the Spaniards with a Mayan cooking technique.
Pork stew in a thick sauce of dried chilies fried in lard, with orange, chocolate, cinnamon and clove. It is the wedding dish of Zacatecas and the most important dish in the state’s cuisine.
