The culinary capital of Mexico — seven moles, mezcal from wild agave, Zapotec ruins, Día de los Muertos processions, and the most alive food market in the Americas
Oaxaca de Juárez is a colonial city at 1,550m in the Sierra Norte mountains of southern Mexico — widely regarded as the culinary and cultural capital of the country, the source of its most complex cuisine and its finest mezcal tradition. The seven moles of Oaxaca (negro, rojo, amarillo, verde, coloradito, chichilo, manchamanteles) are the backbone of a culinary tradition that was recognised as Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2010. The Benito Juárez Market in the city centre is the most overwhelming food market in Mexico: rows of comals piled with tlayudas (massive corn tortillas wit…
The Oaxaca Valley was the heartland of the Zapotec civilisation — one of the oldest and most sophisticated pre-Columbian cultures, the builders of Monte Albán (500 BCE–700 CE), a mountaintop city of 25,000 at its peak and the first city in Mesoamerica. The Zapotec were followed by the Mixtec, whose codices are the finest surviving pre-Columbian books. The Spanish conquest brought the city of Antequera (later Oaxaca) in 1521; two of Mexico's most important historical figures were born here — Benito Juárez (the first indigenous president of Mexico, born Zapotec in Guelatao) and Porfirio Díaz (t…