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Independence Day and chiles en nogada
The national day, with chiles en nogada in the colours of the flag: green poblano, white sauce and red pomegranate.
Spices for Independence Day and chiles en nogada
Mexico's independence is celebrated on the evening of 15 September with the grito. In Puebla, the season of the chile en nogada falls in late summer: roasted poblano chillies are stuffed with a picadillo of minced meat, fruit, almonds, cinnamon and clove and topped with walnut cream sauce and pomegranate seeds. The dish is a way of eating the flag, and a reminder of the cinnamon and cloves that arrived through the Manila galleon trade.
The spices
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Chiles en nogada" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Clove: Bayu Nugroho, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Cinnamon: Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Poblano: stef yau, CC BY 2.0, source