Early Summer 2024: Neighborhoods

“Far up on heights, in regions of the mist,” wrote John Shepherd, a nineteenth-century journalist and poet of Colorado and New Mexico, “silvery lakes . . . sleep calmly near eternal banks of snow—the source of the life which blooms so sweet below.”

That Shepherd was writing of our region might come as a surprise to those who recognize New Mexico by its capacious horizons, its yucca-studded mesas, its cactus and cottonwoods. Known from afar for its desert landscapes, red rocks and badlands and bone-colored canyons, New Mexico is nonetheless a tapestry of mountains. The Sangre de Cristos, named, if not for alpenglow, for a red-throated bird or a red-crested flower or a crimson-colored spring; the Sandias, named for watermelon sunsets or Native squash or a saint; the Pinos Altos, named for tall trees; the Jemez, the Zunis, the Mimbres, each named for a people.

This issue of edible New Mexico is devoted to life in those mountains. We follow Ellen Zachos up Holy Ghost Creek, where she guides us in foraging for early spring greens. Weaving apprentice leticia gonzales talks with sheep farmer Elena Miller ter-Kuile about coming home, the health in diversity, and regenerating land in the Mountain West. Taking stock of the impacts of fire in Mora and around the state, ecologist Charles Curtin argues for a foodshed-centered approach to managing our drying forests, all likely to confront more fire.

In light of that vulnerability, we’ve gathered stories whose common thread is healing, through food and community as through land. At Whiskey Creek Zócalo, we find a constellation of garlic- and tree-growing, rural community building, pizza baking, and art making. Through Comanche Creek Brewery, we meet a group of disabled veterans finding recovery in fly fishing. On Taos Pueblo, we visit a café whose foods and practices are grounded in remembrance. Turning to the home kitchen, we explore a traditional practice with its own woodland roots: cooking with ash.

The mountains, whatever our perspective of their peaks, are very much of this world. We hope these stories likewise ground you in the tangible, be that through coal-roasted pumpkin fondue, spring greens fritters, a lamb pelt, or holistic, place-based ways to tend our working lands and forests through whatever comes.

Twenty-first-century travel can become a best-of battle, a race to taste all the most recommended flavors and to check off the destinations on all the top lists. At the same time, everyone wants to know where the locals go. Reporting on the epic meal abroad—epic for its extravagance and precision or, more commonly, for its simplicity—can be code for intrepidness, a fluency in getting off the beaten path. Often, that means traveling one of the most beaten paths there is: the neighborhood.

In this issue of edible New Mexico, we kick off summer with a celebration of neighborhoods around the state. Las Cruces author Denise Chávez takes us back to the early days of Mesquite Street, mapping the way with stories that marry cuisine and culture, migration and family, books and candy—sprinkled with evidence that most early restaurants were conceived not for escape but for subsistence, survival. On our trip to Barelas, where Route 66 once ran parallel to the train tracks, we’re reminded that some of Albuquerque’s longest-lasting establishments began with industrious women making tortillas in living rooms. But it’s not all red chile and history; as the home to Street Food Institute’s new headquarters, we learn, Barelas is ripe for fresh culinary growth. And a visit to Lena Street stokes reflection on the ways that contemporary design has fed culinary entrepreneurs while satisfying a hunger for the modern in Santa Fe.

Riding alongside farmer-teacher Willy Carleton through the Albuquerque-bound village of Los Ranchos, we take a tour of very small farms, each in its way continuing the state’s long tradition of small-scale farming. Writing of such enterprises, Carleton highlights their oft-overlooked gifts to their communities. Our neighborhoods, with their old and new standbys, do similar work, providing anchors for those who live here, iconic dishes for those who visit, and spaces where creative minds—and cooks—can incubate, grow, and flourish.

Whether you take your tamales or huevos rancheros with a side of story or prefer the story as the main, with delicately wrapped onigiri and a fistful of dahlias for the road, we hope these pages inspire you to tune into the profound intersections of dining and place.