Sopa Queretana de Tortilla y Aguacate

Querétaro, in the Bajío and on the old Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, is where this soup belongs. In Santiago de Querétaro, around Mercado de La Cruz and Mercado Escobedo, cocineras build it for a weeknight table: chicken broth, fried tortilla, chile guajillo, avocado, queso ranchero, and crema. Mild. Deep. Not every Mexican soup is trying to burn your mouth.

The chile guajillo gives red color and clean fruit, not aggression. The pasilla is fried in thin rings for perfume and a little bitterness. The tortillas must be corn, preferably yesterday's nixtamal tortillas from the tortillería. They fry in manteca de cerdo until crisp enough to hold their edge in the broth. La manteca es el sabor. Use flour tortillas and yellow cheese and you have left Querétaro entirely.

My mother was from Jalisco, so her tortilla soup leaned another way. In Querétaro I learned to taste the dairy country in the bowl: queso ranchero on top, crema from the hacienda lechera softening the broth, tortillas fried in lard from a pantry that wastes nothing. The same state whose cooks make Otomí mole de conejo around Tolimán and use chilcuague in Sierra Gorda salsas can also make a quiet soup like this. Cada estado, su propia cocina.