Postcard from Oaxaca: Serious salads

Gorgeous greens, so incredibly fresh they taste as though the kitchen just harvested them from a rooftop garden.

Not the stereotypical first food post from Oaxaca, but the salads in this capital of respectful fusion of ancient cooking traditions and contemporary presentations are that good. Long-gone are the days when traveling Americans need feel constrained in vegetable consumption, and Oaxaca is about more than mole.

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Among the salads we have sampled recently are:

• Mounds of fresh watercress – berros – with pears, Roquefort and honey, a wonderful spinach and grapefruit salad and yet another one with roasted nopales, asparagus and smoky quesillo at La Biznaga
• Spinach salad with a round of goat cheese and crispy adornment at Los Danzantes
• An organic salad with strawberries and crispy strips of sweet potatoes and one layering fresh nopales and roasted baby kale topped with luscious enormous shrimp covered with chapulines, toasted grasshoppers – a Oaxacaan delicacy – at La Olla
• Spinach salad topped with pomegranate seeds and a stone-ground mustard vinaigrette at El Morocco Café
• An abundance of arugula and pears at Mexita

More food posts ahead.