Gaznates de Etla

Gaznates are from Villa de Etla, in Oaxaca's Valles Centrales, about a half hour north of the capital. Every Wednesday is market day in Etla and the dulceria stalls line up under the portales with trays of these pastel-white cylinders stacked next to the cocadas, the alfeniques, the jamoncillos, and the nicuatole. If you have not eaten one at the Etla market, you have not eaten one in its proper home.

The shell is wheat flour, lard, egg yolk, and mezcal, kneaded into a stiff dough, rolled thin enough to read through, wrapped around little tin tubes called canutos, and fried in lard until it blisters and crackles. The mezcal does the work. It cuts the gluten and evaporates in the fryer and leaves the shell with that characteristic shatter under the tooth. The filling is merengue italiano, stiff and glossy, sometimes flavored with mezcal espadin, sometimes with lime zest, sometimes only with vanilla. Every dulcera in Etla has her version. None of them agree.

This is a convent dessert, like so many of Oaxaca's confections. The nuns of the colonial period had wheat flour, eggs, sugar, and lard, and they had time, and they had the obligation to make sweets for festival days and for the families that supported the convents. What survives in the dulceria stalls today is a direct line back to that tradition. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo. A gaznate looks delicate. It is not. It is technique stacked on technique. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to Etla.