Oaxaca’s street food scene has surprises for us every day of the week. From breakfast to lunch, we can find plenty of stalls with a plethora of options: eggs, tamales, tortas, tacos, hot drinks, juices and more. However, when sunset bathes the streets of the historic center, most of these stalls are disassembled into heaps of tarps, letting esquites, burger and hot dog stands take over the night shift. Fortunately, this is not the case for Empanadas del Carmen Alto, a classic among locals for serving up daytime dishes until midnight. The menu at Empanadas del Carmen Alto is succinct: memelas (thick corn tortillas topped with various ingredients), the famous empanadas de amarillo (calzone-like corn tortillas filled with chicken and mole amarillo) and squash blossom or mushroom quesadillas.

It’s a cold December afternoon when we arrive at the headquarters of Tamales de Tia Tila in San Gabriel Etla, about 45 minutes outside of Oaxaca City. Knocking on the door, we catch a whiff of spices and corn that the cold wind quickly steals away. But as soon the door swings open, revealing a family with faces half-covered in masks and hands busy at work, waves of warm, fragrant air envelope us. The tamal workshop is brimming: a man is moving stews, a woman pressing dough, an older woman laying corn husks and banana leaves on one of the many tables. Everyone’s movements are so precise and focused that we feel guilty for intruding. But that feeling fades away when a young girl waves us in and brings over a cup of hot coffee.

Whether it’s Hacı Beşir Usta’s çiğ köfte from Istanbul’s Kadınlar Pazarı, a perfectly steamed Oaxacan tamale by Tia Tila or the Pang family’s late-night dumplings in Shanghai, street food and the folks who make it are the heart and soul of Culinary Backstreets. Yes, we love street food. It’s tasty. It’s fast. It’s cheap. But the carts, trucks and stands serving up our favorite snacks are also an integral part of the communities they operate in. There are the beloved vendors who have been local fixtures for decades and the hardworking entrepreneurs trying to get their start. Whatever their story, these street vendors are hardworking people worth celebrating. On this International Street Vendor Day, we’ve gathered together some of our favorite street vendor stories from over a decade of fanatic street eating.

Many years ago, a young Juan Luis Silis started working at a taco stand a block from home. Not only did Don Ignacio Ramírez, aka Don Nacho, the taco master, become Juan Luis’ employer, he became a kind of second father to the young man. It was under Don Nacho that Juan Luis learned how hard you must work and persevere to achieve your goals. In 2009, Juan Luis (who is now 40 years old) took off his apron and stepped into the distinctive traje de luces (suit of lights) of the torero. While working at the taco stand under Don Nacho, he had also been stomping his way towards achieving his true dream, that of becoming a professional bullfighter. He trained under the famous matador Mariano Ramos.

We recently spoke to Mely Martínez about her cookbook, “The Mexican Home Kitchen” (Rock Point, September 2020), which compiles the traditional home-style dishes that feed Mexican families day in and day out. These include comforting foods like caldo de pollo and carne con papas, celebratory recipes like mole poblano and pastel de cumpleaños, and classics like tamales and pozole, as well as basics like corn and flour tortillas, salsas, rice, and beans. Mely is best known for her popular blog, Mexico in My Kitchen, which she started in 2008 for her teenage son, hoping that someday he will use it to recreate the Mexican food his mom made for the family. Although born and raised in the city of Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mely has traveled to most states in Mexico and lived in several of them.

Tamales Doña Emi, a tamal mecca in Colonia Roma, was our first foodie obsession in Mexico City. But really, we were just the most recent converts in a long line of devotees. For the unaccustomed palate, a tamal – steamed corn dough wrapped in a corn husk or banana leaf, with some type of filling at its center – may not sound like much. But anyone who has found that tamal, the one they can’t live without, knows that it is no mundane snack. Doña Emi’s was our game-changer. Big and fluffy, and just moist enough without being greasy, Doña Emi’s tamales are a solid meal, with a current list of wild flavor combos never imagined by the original entrepreneur, Ermilia Galvan Sanchez (Doña Emi).

(Editor's Note: The ill anti-immigrant and -refugee wind blowing out of the White House in Washington, DC, does not represent the America we know, nor does it speak to our experience exploring the world’s culinary backstreets. The cities and countries where we work – the United States included – have always been havens for those looking for a better, safer place. All have come with their food, making their new home a truly better place for us all and becoming an indispensible part of its fabric in the process. In their honor, this week we are running some of our favorite archived stories of immigrants and refugees who have left a culinary mark on their adopted land.) If you walk the length of Roosevelt Avenue from 69th Street to 111th Street in the early morning, you may encounter up to two dozen tamale ladies, usually at the major intersections that correspond to the 7 train’s stops.

If you walk the length of Roosevelt Avenue from 69th Street to 111th Street in the early morning, you may encounter up to two dozen tamale ladies, usually at the major intersections that correspond to the 7 train’s stops. Few have licensed carts; most vend from grocery carts. Many of these women are up at 3 a.m. cooking and packing their steaming goods and are on the street by 4 or 5 a.m. Licensed or not, their business is brisk, efficient and professional. The ladies feed their own and charge prices that day laborers can pay. It is 5 a.m. on the corner of 69th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside, Queens. I am here to meet Christina Fox and her favorite tamale ladies.

The cuisine of Mexico City has long been influenced not only by waves of international immigrants but also by regional cooking from around the country. In the mid-20th century particularly, droves of workers and their families, lured by economic opportunities, arrived in the Distrito Federal from every corner of Mexico, bringing their local customs and food traditions with them and greatly enriching both the city’s culture and its culinary scene.

As we mentioned in our piece about Rosca de Reyes, February 2 is an important date in the Mexican calendar - for Candlemas and, relatedly, for tamales. True, tamales are one of the most popular foods in Mexico City, and we can find all kinds of reasons for eating them any day of the week. But this day commemorates a ritual visit Mary made to the temple in Jerusalem with the baby Jesus. In the Catholic Church and Orthodox traditions, February 2 is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, and at one time, the candles used in services in church throughout the year would be blessed that day, hence the name Candlemas or Candelaria. Native Mexicans would celebrate the planting this time of year with a big feast that would include tamales, and the indigenous and Christian traditions became linked.

On our list of favorite Mexican comfort foods, the tamal would likely come in near the top. Simple, yet extremely versatile, tamales share pre-Hispanic roots with the tortilla. A corn masa very similar to the kind created during the nixtamalization process to make tortillas is used as the base for delicious tamales. Recently, we found a first-rate version of this ancient food from a new street vendor located just blocks from the Monumento a la Revolución.

One of our favorite places in Mexico City is Xochimilco. Like many visitors, when we hear the word “Xochimilco” the first thing that comes to our mind is a relaxing ride aboard a trajinera, or boat, on the waterways of this southern borough. We’ve been to Xochimilco many times before, on family excursions to buy flowers, plants and compost from the local farmers.

There wouldn’t be much of a revived culinary scene in Mexico City without chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita. A kind of recipe detective and writer of several well-regarded Mexican cookbooks, including the superb Diccionario Enciclopédico de Gastronomía Mexicana, he has been even more successful in his restaurant ventures. After his humble Café Azul y Oro at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) received rave reviews, he expanded on its concept – a menu of traditional regional Mexican cuisine based on sometimes forgotten recipes he had gathered through his field research – by opening a larger restaurant in the hip Condesa neighborhood in 2010. Two years later, he opened a third location in a beautifully restored building in the Centro Histórico, which has proven to be his most successful venture yet.

Humanity came from corn, or so says the Mayan creation story, the Popol Vuh. After creating the earth and animals, the story goes, the Maker decided to create beings in his likeness. After failing twice with dirt and wood, the Maker formed man and woman out of the “nourishing life” of ground corn. And so began Mexico’s deep relationship with one of the most widely used crops in human history, one that seems to be present in almost every aspect of Mexican cooking.

The past year has been a very good one for food in Mexico City. We’ve had a wonderful time exploring new restaurants, tracking down exciting dishes and meeting great people along the way. There have been so many memorable moments over the past year that it was hard to sit down and come up with a list of the ones that really stood out the most. Through debate and discussion (and some revisits), we narrowed down the worthy field to our top favorites. Here are our Best Bites of 2012 from Mexico City. El Pozole de Moctezuma First up on our best food experiences of the year would have to be the pozole at El Pozole de Moctezuma. Located near Metro Garibaldi, the building is nondescript and shows no sign of the deliciousness that lies within, so if we hadn’t been taken there by a friend, we never would have known about it. But what a discovery! The friendly staff showed us exactly how to build the perfect bowl of pozole, from choosing the color and flavor of the broth to adding oregano, chili powder, lime juice and, of course, a splash of mezcal. A bowl of soup never tasted so good or filled us up more satisfyingly than that at El Pozole de Moctezuma. Best of all, the place is a long-term neighborhood fixture that celebrated its 65th anniversary in 2012, a fact that bodes well for future visits.