Conventual New Spain

Culinary Explorer

A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.

Discover Culinary Explorer

13 recipes
Conventual Plates: Moles, Pipianes & Asados de Boda
The plated main dishes of the colonial convent kitchen. Feast-day wedding stews from San Luis Potosí and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Vigil and Lenten cazuelas the Catholic calendar required every Friday. Baroque almendrados, picadillos, and chiles rellenos that synthesized Old World almonds, raisins, olives, capers, cinnamon, and clove with New World chiles, chocolate, and corn. Convent-traceable plates that the subregion collections (Centro Mexicano, Oaxaqueño, Occidente) rightly left to the institutional lineage that birthed them.
6 recipes
Conventual Soups (Sopas Conventuales)
The criollo-conventual soup and stew repertoire: Spanish broth-and-bread grammar bent by New World ingredients in the convent kitchens of Puebla, Oaxaca, Morelia and Querétaro. Sopa de almendras from the Convento de Santa Rosa, Lenten habas strained through a colador, the Poor Clares' vigilia soup, olla podrida adapted to the New World pantry, Puebla's carnero verde of milpa herbs, conventual Lenten lentils. The Iberian potaje tradition transmitted through eighteenth-century convent manuscripts and the institutional kitchen.
19 recipes
Dulces de Frutas: Ates, Almíbares & Cristalizados
The fruit pantry of the convent huerto. Ates from Morelia (membrillo, guayaba, mango, perón, ciruela, seis frutas), the cristalizados (acitrón de cidra, camote, surtido), calabaza en tacha, tejocotes en almíbar, higos rellenos de coco, limas rellenas de coco, dulce de papaya verde from Oaxaca, chilacayote en dulce from Michoacán, duraznos en conserva de Tlalpujahua, cocada conventual, capirotada de Cuaresma, and the Valle de Oaxaca wedding dish dulce de chilacayota con pan de yema. The preserved-harvest tradition the convents perfected because the harvest came free from the huerto.
19 recipes
Dulces de Leche, Yemas & Almendras
The dairy-egg-almond dulces of Mexico's criollo-conventual lineage. Camote poblano de Santa Clara, jamoncillo, cajeta de Celaya, chongos zamoranos, manjar blanco, huevos reales y huevos moles de Sor Juana, tocino de cielo, mazapanes de almendra y de pepita, antes de mamey y de coco, suspiros de monja, beso de monja, yemitas, jericalla, crema reina, leche quemada. The convent kitchen's proper-noun grammar.
17 recipes
Moles, Pipianes & Escabeches Conventuales
The mole architecture as sauce, separated from the plate it dresses. Convent-register moles, pipianes, almendrado, nogada, conventual adobos and recados, escabeche poblano and verduras en escabeche. Each preparation carries the institutional provenance of a colonial-era convent or order: Santa Rosa, Santa Catalina, Santa Mónica, Santa Clara, the Augustinian, Dominican, Carmelite, and Conceptionist nuns who built this repertoire.
9 recipes
Pan Conventual
The convent oven tradition of New Spain: pan de pulque leavened by fermented maguey sap, picón and pan de fiesta of the Puebla-Tlaxcala patronal calendar, marquesote on the Día de Muertos altar, semita conventual documented in the 1696 Puebla cabildo records, rosca conventual still baked by Dominicas and Clarisas, hojaldras for November. The breads the nuns baked at institutional scale and gave to the poor at the gate.
11 recipes
Polvorones, Marquesotes & Hojarascas Conventuales
The convent pastelería: polvorones de boda, empanaditas de lechecilla, mostachones, hojarascas, tortitas de Santa Clara, morelianas, puchas, suspiros de monja, bizcochos de manteca, soletas, almendrados. The technique-driven baking the nuns of Puebla, Oaxaca, Morelia, and Querétaro sold at the cloister gate to fund the convent.
8 recipes
Rompope, Chocolate & Atoles Conventuales
The drinks the convent kitchen invented and codified. Rompope from the Clarisas of Puebla, chocolate de metate as the morning ritual, atole de almendra and champurrado for the colder months, mistelas of membrillo, durazno, and canela macerated in aguardiente for the festive table, and the charape that the Pátzcuaro Augustinians took from the Purépecha tinacal. Old World dairy, eggs, almonds, and spices bound to New World cacao, masa, and pulque, every recipe traceable to a recetario manuscrito.

Where cooking meets culture.

Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.

Discover Culinary Explorer

Culinary Explorer

Conventual Plates: Moles, Pipianes & Asados de Boda

Conventual Soups (Sopas Conventuales)

Dulces de Frutas: Ates, Almíbares & Cristalizados

Dulces de Leche, Yemas & Almendras

Moles, Pipianes & Escabeches Conventuales

Pan Conventual

Polvorones, Marquesotes & Hojarascas Conventuales

Rompope, Chocolate & Atoles Conventuales

Where cooking meets culture.