Just steps away from the tourist bars of Puerto Escondido, Afromexicano villages offer some of the most stunning food in all of Oaxaca. So why don’t more people know about them?
As a result, there have been few economic opportunities for Afromexicanos, even in their native Costa Chica, which is home to resort-ridden Puerto Escondido, where luxury lodgings can cost well over $200 a night.
Luciana Bernal Vargas holds up his traditional Afromexicano “diablo” mask alongside Andrés Gonzalez, better known as Tio Maga.There was caldo de hueso, a spicy beef bone soup eaten with a mash of sweet, boiled plantains, called machuco; small rounds of plantains are pinched away to dip into the soup, a practice that came from West Africa where fufu is similarly used.
It’s good form to loudly slurp the lightly pungent paste inside and outside the shell, chasing with sweet, garlicky mussels, using the emptied shells to scoop up the last traces of bean paste. At the end, there’s a pile of empty Coronas and mussels spread across the table. Concepcion Mariano Liborio, or Doña Concha, shows off her meal of tortillas, rice, local cheese, and chepiles.
In Collantes, like in most pueblos Afromexicano, people raise their own pigs, cattle, lambs, and chickens to sell or cook for a celebration after they slaughter them. They also grow vegetables and herbs to trade, cut young green coconuts off trees, fish, and dive for oysters and mussels.
The hospitality — the sense of family, community, and traditional values often associated with Mexico — was alive at this humble town square in Collantes. “Anyone here would let you stay in their home, and they would sleep on the floor so you’d be comfortable,” said Tio Maga. This sentiment rang true on this night, where dear guests and welcomed strangers were embraced with the same cold bottles of beer, replenished before the last one emptied.
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