Sopes !

I recently posted on Facebook a very nice picture of Medula Sopes.

I took the picture in a very nice restaurant in Guadalajara, part of our Executive Tour but right after I posted it, I realized you might not know the meaning of Medula or Sope. So here we go.

Medula, is the the marrow inside a beef bone and we can find it in mexican cuisine in different types of dishes. You can have tacos, soup and in this case, sopes.  A sope is obviously a Mexican dish as well, originating in the central and southern parts of Mexico. We often see disputes of different regions claiming the “original” receipt, however, in Mexico I’ve learned that its very hard (many times nearly impossible) to closely tie a dish with a city or even a state.

Anyways, Sopes look like an unusually thick tortilla with a pinched border and some toppings. The base is made from a circle of fried masa of ground maize with the characteristic pinched sides to keep the topping. It’s often topped with refried beans, cheese, lettuce, onions, red or green sauce and some kind of “guisado”. Sometimes other ingredients (mostly meat) are also added to create different tastes and styles of sopes. Sopes vary in size although they are normally around the size of your palm.

I wanted to write a specific post about sopes since I they play a protagonic role in the cuisine from Jalisco. Guadalajara is famous for the Cenadurías. In México, a cenaduria is a small unassuming restaurant serving delicious casual fare.  The cenaduria is often run by a family, at times as a “collapsable” restaurant put up in the street during meal times and taken down afterwords, thus returning the street to its original form as though nothing had occurred there.

We need to talk about those later… for now. I hope its clear what a sope is and make sure you book a Nigh or Executive tour to give them a shot !