Chef Lupita
Agua de Chilacayota
Oaxaca's market agua fresca built on chilacayota squash, piloncillo, and Mexican canela, served cold with the spaghetti-like strands of squash and toasted seeds floating in the glass.
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Licuado de Mamey Oaxaqueño
Created by
Oaxaca's breakfast licuado, the salmon-pink flesh of ripe mamey blended with cold milk and Mexican canela until it is thick enough to eat with a spoon, sweetened only by the fruit itself.
Beverages
Mexican
Weeknight
Quick Meal
10 min
Active Time
0 min cook•10 min total
Yield2 large glasses
This is Oaxaca. The mamey grows across the southern half of Mexico, but the licuado is what the senoras at the Mercado Benito Juarez and the Mercado 20 de Noviembre in Oaxaca de Juarez hand you in a tall glass at seven in the morning, alongside a tamal de mole or a piece of pan de yema still warm from the wood oven. It is breakfast and it is breakfast for working people. Thick, filling, sweet enough to wake you up, dense enough to carry you through the morning.
The mamey does the work. A ripe one is salmon-orange, almost the color of cooked salmon, with flesh that is dense and creamy and tastes faintly of sweet potato and almond at the same time. If you have to add sugar, your mamey was not ripe. La fruta hace el trabajo. The canela goes in to warm the cold milk, not to flavor the fruit. A pinch of salt sharpens everything. That is the recipe. No me vengas con atajos.
My mother did not make this. She was from Jalisco and Jalisco does not have mamey the way the south does. I learned this licuado from a woman named Dona Elvia who ran a juice stand in the Mercado de Abastos in Oaxaca for forty-three years. She told me the secret was to keep the milk and the fruit cold and the blender working long enough to make it heavy. Heavy is the word she used. A licuado de mamey hecho como debe ser is heavy. You feel it when you lift the glass. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Mamey sapote (Pouteria sapota) is native to southern Mexico and Central America and was cultivated by the Maya and the Zapotec long before the conquest, valued both as food and for the seed, whose oil, called sasafras or pixtle in some regions, was used cosmetically and ceremonially. The Spanish chronicler Francisco Hernandez documented mamey in his 16th-century catalog of New Spain's plants, noting its use as a dense, satisfying food for travelers. The licuado as a format, fruit blended with cold milk, is a 20th-century innovation tied to the spread of electric blenders into Mexican home and market kitchens after the 1940s, but the pairing of mamey with milk and canela follows a much older Mesoamerican logic of combining a starchy native fruit with a warming spice to produce a meal-in-a-cup.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
ripe mamey
Quantity
1 large (about 1 1/2 pounds whole, yielding roughly 2 cups of flesh)
cold whole milk
Quantity
2 1/2 cups
Mexican canela (Ceylon cinnamon)
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
freshly ground, plus more for dusting
piloncillo (optional)
Quantity
2 to 3 tablespoons
finely grated (only if the fruit is underripe)
ice cubes
Quantity
1 cup
fine sea salt
Quantity
a pinch
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| ripe mamey | 1 large (about 1 1/2 pounds whole, yielding roughly 2 cups of flesh) |
| cold whole milk | 2 1/2 cups |
| Mexican canela (Ceylon cinnamon)freshly ground, plus more for dusting | 1/2 teaspoon |
| piloncillo (optional)finely grated (only if the fruit is underripe) | 2 to 3 tablespoons |
| ice cubes | 1 cup |
| fine sea salt | a pinch |
Equipment Needed
- •High-powered blender
- •Sharp paring knife for splitting the fruit
- •Sturdy spoon for scooping the flesh
- •Two tall glasses, chilled
Instructions
- 1
Choose the mamey
Press your thumb gently into the rough brown skin near the stem. It should give like a ripe avocado. If it resists, the fruit is not ready and no blender will save it. An underripe mamey is starchy and chalky. A ripe one is the color of salmon flesh, almost orange-pink, and smells faintly of sweet potato and almond. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
If your mamey is firm at the market, buy it anyway and let it sit on the counter for two to four days. Once it gives to the thumb, refrigerate and use within two days. - 2
Open the fruit
Score the mamey lengthwise from stem to base, all the way around. Twist the two halves apart. Lift out the large glossy black seed in the center and discard it. The seed is poisonous if eaten raw, so keep it away from children and pets. Scoop the salmon-colored flesh away from the rough brown skin with a spoon. You should have about two cups of pulp, dense and creamy, the texture of pumpkin puree.
- 3
Build the licuado
Place the mamey flesh in a blender. Add the cold milk, the freshly ground canela, the pinch of salt, and the ice. If your fruit is fully ripe, leave the piloncillo out. The mamey sweetens itself. Only add the piloncillo if you tasted the raw flesh and it was bland. Asi se hace y punto.
Use Mexican canela, the soft brittle bark of Ceylon cinnamon. The hard cassia cinnamon sold in most American supermarkets is a different spice, sharper and more aggressive, and it will overpower the mamey. - 4
Blend until thick
Blend on high for 45 to 60 seconds, until the licuado is completely smooth. The mamey is dense, so the blender will work harder than it does for a simple fruta licuado. The result should be thick enough that the spoon stands up briefly when you stir it, almost like a loose custard. That thickness is what makes it Oaxacan. A thin licuado de mamey is a watered-down licuado de mamey.
- 5
Taste and serve
Taste it. The flavor should be sweet, faintly nutty, with the warmth of canela behind it. If it needs more sweetness, add the piloncillo a tablespoon at a time and blend again. Pour into two tall glasses. Dust the top with a little more ground canela. Drink it cold, with pan dulce or a tamal de elote alongside. This is breakfast in Oaxaca and it holds you until the comida at three in the afternoon.
Chef Tips
- •The mamey must be ripe. A ripe mamey is non-negotiable. If your fruit is firm and starchy, the licuado will be chalky and no amount of sugar can rescue it. Buy the fruit four days before you plan to use it and let it ripen on the counter.
- •Frozen mamey pulp is sold in the freezer aisle of most Mexican groceries in the United States. It is a real compromise, not an upgrade, but it is honest. Goya and La Fe both sell it in 14-ounce packets. Thaw it before blending and skip the ice or the licuado will be too thin.
- •Use Mexican canela, the soft brittle bark you can crumble between your fingers. It is Ceylon cinnamon. The hard cassia bark sold as cinnamon in most American supermarkets is sharper and will fight the mamey instead of supporting it. The chile and spice vendors at any mercado in Mexico carry the right one.
- •Whole milk only. Skim or low-fat milk produces a thin, watery licuado that does not honor the fruit. The fat carries the flavor of the canela and gives the licuado its custardy weight.
Advance Preparation
- •Mamey flesh can be scooped and frozen in two-cup portions for up to three months. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before blending.
- •The licuado itself does not hold. Blend it the moment you want to drink it. After 30 minutes the texture separates and the canela settles to the bottom.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 590g)
Calories
490 calories
Total Fat
11 g
Saturated Fat
6 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
4 g
Cholesterol
40 mg
Sodium
205 mg
Total Carbohydrates
86 g
Dietary Fiber
11 g
Sugars
42 g
Protein
13 g
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