Mexican food beyond the clichés: what you actually eat on tour

Mexican food in Britain is a thin version of the real thing, and one of the pleasures of the trip is finding that out.

Mexico's cooking is regional to a degree that surprises people. What you eat in Oaxaca has almost nothing in common with what you eat in the Yucatán, and neither resembles what is sold as Mexican at home.

In short

• A cooking class in a family home near Oaxaca, after shopping for the ingredients at the market in Teotitlán del Valle
• Mezcal at the source — an agave farm in Matatlán, where the spirit is actually made
• Three distinct regional cuisines: central, Oaxacan and Yucatecan
• Markets in Mexico City, Oaxaca and Mérida, with time to eat in them
• Fifteen days, maximum 12 travellers, land-only

This is the food day travellers talk about afterwards, and it is not a demonstration in a hotel kitchen.

It begins at the market in Teotitlán del Valle, outside Oaxaca, choosing ingredients among stalls of herbs and local specialities — which is half the lesson, because the shopping is where a cook makes most of the decisions.

Then you are welcomed into the home of Doña Trinidad, who cooks with you rather than at you: grinding spices, tasting, adjusting, building a traditional Oaxacan meal from the beginning. You eat it together at her table.

What makes it work is the group size. A maximum of 12 travellers is a number that fits in a family kitchen. It is the difference between cooking in someone's home and watching a performance.

Oaxaca is mezcal country, and the trip goes to a working farm in Matatlán rather than a tasting bar.

You walk the agave orchards and follow the process — the roasting that gives mezcal its smoke, the crushing, the fermentation, the distillation — with the smell of roasting agave over all of it. The guided tour covers the artisanal heritage and, usefully, the environmental questions around a plant that takes years to mature and is now in global demand.

Then you taste, and discover that mezcal is a category rather than a drink — the variation between them is enormous, and nothing like the single harsh thing most people have tried once.

Not a drinking day. Nobody minds if you taste little or none of it; the farm is interesting on its own terms.

The reason the route runs west to east is archaeological, but the food follows the same line, and it changes completely.

Central Mexico — Mexico City and Puebla. Street food at its most varied, and the country's most confident restaurant culture. Puebla is where mole poblano comes from.

Oaxaca — the region most Mexicans name as the country's best. Moles, chapulines, tlayudas, and a market culture that is genuinely the centre of daily life rather than a sight to visit.

The Yucatán — Mérida and around, and quite distinct: Maya ingredients, citrus, achiote, cooking methods with no equivalent in central Mexico. In Mérida there is free time in the markets specifically so you can eat your way through them.

Between them sit Chiapas and the highland villages of Zinacantán and San Juan Chamula, where the food is part of a religious culture that has merged Maya and Catholic practice into something of its own.

Spice. Mexican food is flavoured rather than uniformly hot, and heat is usually something you add at the table. It is easier for a cautious eater than its reputation suggests.

Dietary requirements. Tell your specialist before you travel rather than on the day. Vegetarians do well in Oaxaca in particular; the more restrictive the requirement, the more notice helps.

Not every meal is included. Some are, and the itinerary says which — the cooking class and several group dinners among them. The rest are yours, which in a country with food this good is a feature rather than an omission. Our page on what is included explains how that works across our trips.

The altitude question. Mexico City and Puebla sit above 2,200 metres, and rich food plus altitude on day two is a combination worth pacing. The route descends after Oaxaca.

The full itinerary is set out in fifteen days in Mexico. The trip is land-only and runs on guaranteed departures.