Budín de Milpa con Flor de Calabaza

This is a central highlands dish. Puebla claims it. So does Ciudad de México. The truth is that the budín lives wherever the milpa lives, and the milpa, corn, squash, beans, planted together as the Mesoamericans have done for thousands of years, is the agricultural foundation of central Mexico. When the calabacitas and the flor de calabaza and the elotes are all in the mercado at the same time, late summer through early fall, this is the dish you make.

The flor de calabaza is not a garnish. It is the headliner. Squash blossoms have been eaten in Mexico since long before the Spanish arrived, and they show up in every kitchen from Xochimilco to Cholula during their short season. If you cannot find them, do not make a substitute. Make something else, then make this dish when the flowers come back. Mexican grandmothers cook with what the mercado is selling today.

The epazote is the other non-negotiable. It is the herb that makes central Mexican food taste like central Mexican food, slightly medicinal, slightly minty, with no real translation into any other cuisine. Skip it and you have a vegetable lasagna. Use it and you have a budín. My mother used to say more epazote than you think. She was right.

The queso Oaxaca melts into ribbons under the salsa verde and the crema, and the whole thing comes out of the oven the color of an autumn afternoon in the Valle de Puebla. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the milpa belongs to all of them.