Flautas con Milanesa de León

Guanajuato first, then León, right in the Bajío. This is a city of leather workshops, shoe workers, and Mercado Aldama lunches, where a flauta has to be long enough to feed a person, not decorate a plate.

These are built on tortillas largas de maíz and milanesa de res: thin beef pounded, breaded with pan molido from bolillo, fried, sliced, then rolled. The trick the señoras perfected is not glamour. It is timing. Keep the tortilla flexible, keep the milanesa crisp, fry the roll hard enough to hold its shape, then cover it before it dries out. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.

The salsa is not generic red sauce. Guajillo gives brick color and body, chile de árbol gives the edge, and jitomate from the Bajío market gives the sweetness. Then lechuga romana, crema de rancho, queso fresco or queso ranchero. In León the flauta arrives covered, generous, almost excessive. That is lunch.

My mother was Jalisciense, so she didn't claim this dish. In her notebook, on the Guanajuato page, she wrote: 'tortilla larga, lechuga bien seca, salsa roja abundante.' She was right. Cada estado, su propia cocina.