Ensalada de Coditos

Ensalada de coditos is from central Mexico. The kitchens of Ciudad de México, the Estado de México, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Querétaro. The states where the posada season runs from December 16th through Nochebuena, where the Christmas plate carries pavo, bacalao, romeritos, and somewhere on the side, always, the bowl of coditos. This is not Italian pasta salad. This is not American macaroni salad. This is its own thing and it belongs to the central Mexican holiday table.

The dressing tells you where you are. Crema mexicana, not sour cream. Mayonnaise, yes, but cut with three tablespoons of brine from a jar of jalapeños en escabeche. That brine is the whole point. Without it, you have a beige, sleepy salad. With it, you have something with edges: tangy, faintly hot, slightly vegetal from the carrots and onions that were pickled alongside the chiles. The ham, the corn, the panela, the bell pepper, those are negotiable. The brine is not.

My mother made this every December. She kept a Tupperware of it in the refrigerator from the 23rd through the first week of January, and the leftover bowl after Año Nuevo was somehow the best version, because by then the pasta had absorbed everything and the salad tasted like the whole holiday at once. She wrote in her notebook, in pencil: 'el jugo de los chiles, no se te olvide.' The juice from the chiles, don't forget. She was right. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.