The Cuisine of Mexican Convents

As someone once said to me, in the eighteenth century well-to-do Mexican families were as determined that one of their daughters become a nun in a major convent as twentieth-century families are to have their daughters graduate from Mexico’s most prestigious private university, the Tec de Monterrey.

These convents were powerhouses in the colonial period. They occupied whole city blocks. The nuns wrote (Sor Juana, the Spanish world’s most famous poet of the seventeenth century was a nun), they taught, they sang, they ran large estates, and they cooked. Or rather, they caused cooking to be done by their servants, often acting more as executive chefs than as hand-on cooks.

Not surprisingly, then, the convents were key to the creation of the upscale cuisine of Mexico. In the last few decades, we’ve learned a huge amount about this. The study of convent life by the distinguished Mexican historian, Josefina Muriel, was an early sign of this interest. Rosalva Loreto López followed up with a detailed study of the enormously important convents of Puebla.

And now we have another contribution by Japsy Arias González who has just published Los Místicos Sabores del Convento, her study of the cuisine of the nuns of the convent of Santa Clara in the city of Querétaro.

Here’s a plan of the convent showing just how much land it occupied.

And here are photos of two of the most famous convent specialties photographed by Ramiro Valencia. The first is duraznos prensados, candied pressed peaches.

The second is lagrimas de obispo o dulces plateados en dulce de piñon, bishops tears or silvered sweets in a pine nut sweet.

A couple of interesting points. For the wealthier nuns, the meat ration (on days when meat was allowed) was 12 ounces for the main meal, eight ounces for the evening meal. Even if this was on the bone it seems pretty generous.

Also at the end of the seventeenth century, the wealthier nuns made their chocolate with donkey’s milk, apparently more prestigious than cow, goat or sheep milk. If sick they took four cups a day.

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