The celebrated fare traditionally uses around 30 ingredients, not least the poblano chilli – grown mainly in the central state of Puebla – which is stuffed and covered in walnut sauce.
“The dish contains seasonal fruits such as pear, Creole peach and panochera apple,” said Olga Mendez, a member of a committee formed in Puebla to mark the bicentennial.
“They are combined with almonds, raisins, cinnamon, cumin, oregano and brown sugar, and ground pork and beef are added.”
The dish was born in what is known as Puebla’s “convent kitchen”, where Spanish nuns and their indigenous helpers created legendary recipes combining ingredients from both traditions.
“It’s a representative, iconic, elegant, Creole dish. We’re proud of it,” said Mendez, who also heads a restaurant union in Puebla.
With its red, white and green ingredients, the dish represents the Mexican flag. The stuffed chilli, often coated in an egg batter, is covered in a white sauce and decorated with green parsley and red pomegranate seeds.
According to historical accounts, the dish was served to Agustin de Iturbide, the first ruler of independent Mexico, when he passed through Puebla after signing the Treaty of Cordoba establishing independence from Spain on Aug 24, 1821.
It is traditionally eaten between July and September, the ideal harvest season for pomegranates, walnuts and poblano chillies.
Reinventing a classic
Traditionalists are worried that the original ingredients are being replaced, partly due to the use of poblano chilli seeds from China that are cheaper but yield less spicy peppers.
The innovators defend their efforts to give the classic dish a modern-day twist.
“I didn’t invent it. I just transformed it,” said Gerardo Morales, an artisan ice-cream maker in Atlixco, Puebla, whose version has the same red, white and green colors as the original dish.
“The ice cream has everything that a chile en nogada has – pomegranate, parsley, walnut, pear, panochera apple, pork,” he said. “Now we are in a time in which we have to innovate, not destroy.”
There is also a chile en nogada version of “chilaquiles” – a popular breakfast dish of tortilla chips bathed in salsa – cooked up by Lulu Reyes and her husband Gerardo Castillo at their restaurant.
“It is nothing more than chile en nogada but presented differently,” Reyes said.
In Mexico City, some restaurants offer vegetarian and vegan versions of the iconic dish.
Mendez accepts that change is inevitable, but she draws the line at a sauce made from pine nuts instead of walnuts, or using other types of meat in the filling – not to mention the hamburger or pizza versions that some have tried to create.
“We should value the dish that has given us a place in Mexican gastronomy,” she said.
Restaurateurs hope to serve up a record 3.5 million chiles en nogada for the 200th anniversary, in a welcome boost to Puebla’s pandemic-ravaged tourism industry.