NEW MEXICANS TEND to gather outside on December evenings. We want to be among the lights: blazing bonfires on Christmas Eve, little paper-bag-and-sand lanterns all season long, and even the faux-minarias and fake-o-litos atop the roofs of big hotels and stores. We sing carols in the crisp night air, gaze at holiday displays, and reflect on the passage of another year.
But desert nights get chilly. For that, we turn to steaming soups and stews laden with New Mexico chile. From red to green to Christmas and beyond, their toasty properties give us an even warmer sense of place and community. For instance, for more than three decades, it just wasn’t the annual Bonfires on Bent Street block party in downtown Taos without Charlene Dulong’s green chile chicken posole.
“I duplicated what I liked,” says the former owner of the Bent Street Grille, who made 30-plus gallons of posole for the event every year before she retired. Of her recipe, which includes the requisite hominy flavored with cumin, chipotle, oregano, and tomatoes, Dulong kept crowd-pleasing in mind. “I always went for more flavorful than hot chile, because that would appeal to the everyday palate,” she says.
But then again, she advises, “You definitely want to know you’re eating something with green chile, so there’s always that nice, pleasant burn.”
Bonfires, luminarias, and a bowl of comforting green chile posole bring communities together.
Farther south, one of the highlights of the Elephant Butte Luminaria Beachwalk is the expectation of piping-hot posole and green chile stew. At the backhoe-dug bonfires that mark each stop, stations offer hot chocolate, cider, bizcochitos, or a hearty soup. “The people that secure their spot can serve whatever they want,” says Liz Hansen, who helps organize the event with the Friends of Elephant Butte Lake State Park.
Her organization’s station traditionally serves green chile stew, but about nine groups usually contribute versions. “They all make the kind they want,” Hansen notes. “Some people who didn’t grow up in New Mexico put corn in it. I’ve seen carrots. Some put meat in it, some don’t.”
There’s a twist, though: It takes a village when it comes to the Friends’s signature stew. “We put it out in big roasters,” Hansen explains. “We just keep adding. It’s all thrown together as the night progresses.”
What’s the flavor of this community effort? “It’s a little different, but it’s good!” she says. “We have people come back, and back again, and say, ‘That’s the best chile I’ve ever had! What’s the recipe?’ We tell them it’s a conglomerate of all our styles.”
That’s the kind of heartwarming collaboration we’re talking about when we say, “Panza llena, corazón contento.” (Full belly, content heart.)
Read more: A New Mexico Hanukkah celebration never skimps on flavor.
