# Bread in Mexico



## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

TundraGreen said:


> The advantage of a hostel over a hotel/motel is that it will have a kitchen you can use. If you are on a budget, you will not want to eat in restaurants for a month. They also tend to be nicer/cleaner than the hotels that rent for similar rates. The downside is that you have to put up with a somewhat communal atmosphere. That can be a plus or a minus depending on your temperament.


Sandwiches with crunchy French rolls, tamales, Maruchan soup, cereal and milk, fruit and fruit juices, OXXO etc. and the microwave next to the office. Just for a month that wouldn´t be too bad.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

*You say birote, I say bolillo*



AlanMexicali said:


> Sandwiches with crunchy French rolls, tamales, Maruchan soup, cereal and milk, fruit and fruit juices, OXXO etc. and the microwave next to the office. Just for a month that wouldn´t be too bad.


Can you get crunchy French rolls in Morelia. I find the bread everywhere in Mexico except in Jalisco to be pretty terrible. I am sure Mexico city as some specialty bakeries that are different but the standard birotes in panaderias outside of Jalisco seem awful.



TundraGreen said:


> Can you get crunchy French rolls in Morelia. I find the bread everywhere in Mexico except in Jalisco to be pretty terrible. I am sure Mexico city as some specialty bakeries that are different but the standard birotes in panaderias outside of Jalisco seem awful.


What are birotes?

As I understand it, birotes are extra sturdy bolillos, baked to be used to make tortas ahogadas, the Jalisco version of a French Dip Sandwich.

Back to the OP's housing question: check out the Baden Powell Institute Apartments, in Morelia Centro.

Also, Hostal Allende, also in Centro.

I have friends with rooms and apartments to rent, and I've contacted one in this regard.



Isla Verde said:


> What are birotes?


Just plain bolillos

Birotes (in Spanish).

More on Tortas Ahogadas and birotes. Also in Spanish.

Now I want one, but can't get it where I am. 

Back on topic, kind of: there are a few Tortas Ahogadas restaurants in _Morelia_, notably "Tortas Ahogadas Guadalajara", but in my two samplings of their products, I wasn't all that impressed.



Anonimo said:


> Birotes (in Spanish).


Thanks.



Isla Verde said:


> What are birotes?


Sorry about that. I forgot that the more common name is "bolillos". I was told by one individual that Jalisco calls them "birotes" just to be different than Mexico City.

But really all of the non-dulce bread in Jalisco seems better than the rest of Mexico. The teleras, saladas and bolillos are all free of preservatives and have the texture and taste of real bread.



TundraGreen said:


> Can you get crunchy French rolls in Morelia. I find the bread everywhere in Mexico except in Jalisco to be pretty terrible. I am sure Mexico city as some specialty bakeries that are different but the standard birotes in panaderias outside of Jalisco seem awful.


I don´t know about Morelia but here, TJ and Mexicali they have French style baked goods in many panaderias and the white bread seems the same as a baguette loaf and 2 sized of buns. Delicious and about $1.50 pesos for the larger buns.

In Mexicali they call them birotes quite often but here no, only bolillos.

Here many buns have soft crusts but they have the crunchy crust ones also.

It is hard to find a croissant made with real butter here but the French specialty bakeries and better restaurants have them and they are expensive. Most bakeries use margarine and they are yellow, but fresh they are OK.

Maybe the birote/bolillo topic should be split off into a separate thread?



Anonimo said:


> Maybe the birote/bolillo topic should be split off into a separate thread?


Excellent idea!


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

I did something wrong when trying to start a new thread on bread in Mexico. That's why they're all lumped into one post attributed to AlanMexicali. TG, could you fix this?


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

Isla Verde said:


> I did something wrong when trying to start a new thread on bread in Mexico. That's why they're all lumped into one post attributed to AlanMexicali. TG, could you fix this?


I don´t mind. I´m a "Panista" anyway.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

AlanMexicali said:


> I don´t mind. I´m a "Panista" anyway.


Great pun, Alan!


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## TundraGreen (Jul 15, 2010)

Isla Verde said:


> I did something wrong when trying to start a new thread on bread in Mexico. That's why they're all lumped into one post attributed to AlanMexicali. TG, could you fix this?


I don't know how. But it doesn't hurt anything. It is not like there is a lot of highly useful information in this exchange. It is just for recreation.


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## terrybahena (Oct 3, 2011)

In Playa Ventura a lady walked by our house every few days with a huge basket on her head, usually with bolillos and cookies- she always stopped with us and we gave her nice cold water. Up here, there's a little car that drives around our neighborhood about 4pm in the afternoon with a speaker on his car that plays this little pan song (ha ha). I buy bosillos, both the hard ones like french bread and the soft ones- didn't know they have different names. He also has these long hard breads with some kind of butter & sugar on them, squares of a pastry, and a small round bread with cream inside like a cream puff, cookies of course. It's fun to jump up and run out there to see what he has....and oh it's sooo cheap! Ok now I'm hungry!


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

TundraGreen said:


> I don't know how. But it doesn't hurt anything. It is not like there is a lot of highly useful information in this exchange. It is just for recreation.


I beg to differ. Any thread dealing with my favorite food group is useful .


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## Hound Dog (Jan 18, 2009)

We buy excellent bread in Mexco including, according to where we are, very good croissants and many other types of breads. There are, within a few blocks of our home in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, two excellent bakeries featurung both traditional and modern French and Mexican breads and pastries. Of course, this is not Paris so I won´t go there but I can live very well on Mexican breads and pastries and I don´t have t freeze my ass off in the winter.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

Isla Verde said:


> I beg to differ. Any thread dealing with my favorite food group is useful .


Since first spending weekends in Mexico I have been a fan of Mexican bread and know it is a large part of many people´s diet. It and corn tortillas. If I didn´t eat so much weekly I wouldn´t have to walk 3 or 4 times a week for several hours a day. But it is worth it and I get to stick my head into open gates and doorways to see many interesting things I would miss driving around.

It is fortunate the French were in Mexico and left their bread recipes and the Germans when here left accordion music and tuba blasts. They forgot to leave their sausage recipes. 

The Vietnamese have French crunchy rolls also that are elongated and delicious.


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## mes1952 (Dec 11, 2012)

I love the different breads but I do not like cakes and cookies (at least here in Baja) as they are so dry. Someone told me the reason they are dry is because people dip them in coffee or beverage.
I only had to eat 1 cake when I first arrived here to start making cakes. The cakes I've made in a microwave were better than the ones I bought in a store.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

terrybahena said:


> In Playa Ventura a lady walked by our house every few days with a huge basket on her head, usually with bolillos and cookies- she always stopped with us and we gave her nice cold water. Up here, there's a little car that drives around our neighborhood about 4pm in the afternoon with a speaker on his car that plays this little pan song (ha ha). I buy bosillos, both the hard ones like french bread and the soft ones- didn't know they have different names. He also has these long hard breads with some kind of butter & sugar on them, squares of a pastry, and a small round bread with cream inside like a cream puff, cookies of course. It's fun to jump up and run out there to see what he has....and oh it's sooo cheap! Ok now I'm hungry!


In Mexicali there is a guy with a hatch back selling pan that drives though our neighborhood blasting the Tin Tan pan song. He has to blast it as the houses are closed up with the AC on most of the time and it happens during my nap time at about 4 PM daily unfortunately for me.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

mes1952 said:


> I love the different breads but I do not like cakes and cookies (at least here in Baja) as they are so dry. Someone told me the reason they are dry is because people dip them in coffee or beverage.
> I only had to eat 1 cake when I first arrived here to start making cakes. The cakes I've made in a microwave were better than the ones I bought in a store.


They used to be even drier than they are now before because they skimped on vegetable oil [considered expensive in Mexico] and gluten. Even the conchas were dried out and crumbled [no gluten] in no time. Here they figured out oil instead of water keeps the cake and conchas fresher longer, but adds calories they didn´t have before.

Bimbo packaged sweet bread is full of oil and they last weeks if unopened but very high in calories.


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

mes1952 said:


> I love the different breads but I do not like cakes and cookies (at least here in Baja) as they are so dry. Someone told me the reason they are dry is because people dip them in coffee or beverage.
> I only had to eat 1 cake when I first arrived here to start making cakes. The cakes I've made in a microwave were better than the ones I bought in a store.


What you're referring to as "cakes and cookies" are what Mexican think of as "pan dulce", not really cake, more like coffee cake. Mexican cakes are what you get in a "pastelería" and are usually very rich and moist, for example, the "pastel de tres leches", very popular for birthday celebrations.

Las recetas de Cocota: Pastel de tres leches con melocotón


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

Isla Verde said:


> What you're referring to as "cakes and cookies" are what Mexican think of as "pan dulce", not really cake, more like coffee cake. Mexican cakes are what you get in a "pastelería" and are usually very rich and moist, for example, the "pastel de tres leches", very popular for birthday celebrations.
> 
> Las recetas de Cocota: Pastel de tres leches con melocotón


The pan dulce in Baja is crumbly and dry compared to here, but I have noticed it is slowly getting better. Probably the dryness in the air and old recipes they use.

Cake there at all places is extremely overpriced except Costco. I have no idea why but I guess what the market will bear.


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## joaquinx (Jul 3, 2010)

Isla Verde said:


> Great pun, Alan!


Isla, I believe you meant, "Great Bun!"


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

AlanMexicali said:


> Bimbo packaged sweet bread is full of oil and they last weeks if unopened but very high in calories.


And low in flavor, not to mention in all-around quality .


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## Isla Verde (Oct 19, 2011)

joaquinx said:


> Isla, I believe you meant, "Great Bun!"


Touché!


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## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

We get nice bread in Jalisco and I just got back from DF and had some wonderful bread in restaurants so some bakeries have to make nice bread.

Pan dulces are for dipping in hot chocolate or coffee and I like them as well. They are not meant to be desert and are not cakes. In Fance pan dulce is made by bakers mostly not pastry shops it is not meant to be a cake.

I have no problems with bread in Chiapas or Jalisco or DF do not know about other States .


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## Longford (May 25, 2012)

In Acapulco you'll observe people walking through the neighborhoods with large baskets of warm bolillos, singing a song or calling-out for attention. You have to walk to the tortillaria to get tortillas, but they bring the bolillos to your door. 

In Chicago, some of the Mexican bakeries in yuppie and upper middle-class neighborhoods have changed their names to include something in French, and colors of signs are painted in colors of the French flag ... because the bakers can sell their goods for more money when they do that than if they simply advertise themselves as Mexican.  I frequent the bakeries in Mexican neighborhoods where Mexicans represent 99.9% of the customers, and pay half the price friends of mine pay at the camouflaged bakeries. 

Anonimo is an artisan baker and bread maker and I hope he sees this discussion and offers some insight.


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## AlanMexicali (Jun 1, 2011)

Longford said:


> In Acapulco you'll observe people walking through the neighborhoods with large baskets of warm bolillos, singing a song or calling-out for attention. You have to walk to the tortillaria to get tortillas, but they bring the bolillos to your door.
> 
> In Chicago, some of the Mexican bakeries in yuppie and upper middle-class neighborhoods have changed their names to include something in French, and colors of signs are painted in colors of the French flag ... because the bakers can sell their goods for more money when they do that than if they simply advertise themselves as Mexican.  I frequent the bakeries in Mexican neighborhoods where Mexicans represent 99.9% of the customers, and pay half the price friends of mine pay at the camouflaged bakeries.
> 
> Anonimo is an artisan baker and bread maker and I hope he sees this discussion and offers some insight.


Here I walk a lot and if hungry stop to get bread to eat of take home. You are probably sort of right. The barrios that are lower class or working class colonias have panaderias where the price is about 35 % cheaper always, due to more competition close by and rent prices, smaller, less attractive space, no parking, less volume per day etc. Makes sense.

The ones in El Centro and the large commercial blvd.s or middle class colonias charge more I have noticed where the rent is more and not much competition etc.

The specialty panaderias which advertise a better selection and quality ingrediences , example real butter and not baking liquid margarine or vegetable oil substitutes , charge even more but are better tasting and these always have crowds. The French crusty rolls taste almost the same in all the places. The pan dulce tastes different.

Even at an expensive French panaderia/coffee house on the beautiful 150 year old Plaza where they have excellent pastries and cakes a single piece of double chocolate cake, iced all around [sort of a cupcake] with wedges of sliced chocolate stuck on the top is only $30.00 pesos and large enough for 2. No complaints.


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