My teacher for the day, Chef Paco Cardenas, appears. It seems I’ve fallen behind the rest of the class, and he’s worked his way back through the market to retrieve me. He lures me with a sack of fresh chickpeas, marinated with lime and chile, possibly the most seductive snack I’ve ever eaten.

We’re students today at Sazón, a cooking school owned by the Orient Express’ luxurious Hotel Casa de Sierra Nevada (participants are not required to be hotel guests, though the hotel offers cooking packages). Indulging in the first part of a morning cooking class, we visit the market with Cardenas, a local chef, who teaches us how to navigate its stalls and teaches us about its exotic offerings.

We sniff cilantro and epazote, rub our fingers over dried peppers and taste dishes made from scratch. Cardenas shops for what looks fresh today — it all does to us — and buys sacks of pipiano, nopales (cactus pads), herbs, even chunks of pink pork.

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Guanajuato — If it weren’t for the fervor created by the rapid movement of Doña Lolita’s dry, brown hands, I might think her a wooden effigy, an extant wooden statue survived from another time. Except for those spurts of energy, she sits still and almost expressionless.

Hunched over on a stool in the crowded, aromatic fruit and vegetable market, just steps from the historic main plaza here, she furrows her brow just a bit. Clad in black, she rubs doughy balls between her palms, then sets each perfectly formed piece on a plate, before pinching more from a bucket and beginning the process again. Only when each ball is finished does her expression soften, yielding to triumph at a job well done.

“¿Que hace Usted? (What are you making?)” I ask, wondering what she makes with such
intensity.

She grins a toothless smile.

“Pipiano,” she says, handing me a spicy smelling clump of dough. Then, she gestures and shows me how to form the ball. While I attempt to do what she makes look easy, she tells me about the ingredients.

“Ground ancho chile and pumpkin seeds. It’s for making mole.”