Mexico Road Trips: Dolores Hidalgo

The Flavors of a Small Town

Someone has gotten carried away with the ice cream flavors.

“Pulpa?” asks one of the many vendors, each with a stand in the four corners of the zocolo or town square of Dolores Hidalgo, a small city tucked away in the Guanajuato Mountains north of Mexico City.

Dolores Hidalgo is famed for their nieves or ice creams, all homemade and sold from carts that come out every day and set up in the town square which is bordered, on one side, by the magnificent Nuestra Senora de los Dolores, an amazingly Churrigueresque style church with an elaborate façade of intricately carved pink figures and rose stucco walls that was built in the 1700s. My Spanish is not great but I know enough to understand that the flavor he is offering is octopus. I shake my head no.

“Camorones?” he asks pointing to a container of pink colored ice cream with flecks of minced shrimp.

Oh what the heck. It’s only five pesos, about a nickel in American money, and so I order the shrimp ice cream which he scoops up generously and places in a paper cup. I pick up a small wooden paddle spoon and take a taste. Not bad, but I don’t think it’s going to become a big hit in the U.S. I look at the other containers, some 25 in all, and then at the list, written haphazardly on a piece of cardboard that is tacked on to the side of the cart. My choices are many, from the typical—vanilla, strawberry, pecan and chocolate to the more exotic such as mango, papaya, tequila and avocado, to the fairly obscure— elote (corncob), fried pork skin and pulque, a popular fermented drink. More flavors are frequently added as the vendors compete with each other to come up with unique flavors. A visit to a stand at the northwest corner of the zocolo confirms this as one of the offerings today is seafood mixture containing shrimp, octopus and other creatures of the deep. Dairy Queen aficionados would not be happy with this selection.


Loading up on several flavors, including chili, an interesting looking orange brown nieve that has a hint of heat, I walked towards the Nuestra Senora de los Dolores where a crowd is forming. Today is September 16th and 195 years ago, the Priest Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla delivered El Grito, an impassioned, spur of the moment cry for independence that started the Mexican revolution against Spanish rule. Every year, El Grito is re-enacted in this historic square whose buildings date back almost 300 years that intrigue with their style-- including the Visitor’s House, with its faded pinkish stone and five ground level arches topped by second story stone balconies and the nearby Museo de la Independencia, filled with artifacts from the historic struggle, which is lit up at night creating an appealing glow across the zocolo.

Like many small Mexican towns, downtown of Dolores Hidalgo is centered around a square where musicians play on Sundays and families gather to visit and to sit on wrought iron benches, enjoying the trueno and palm trees which shade the walkways. Because it is not a tourist destination for those across the border, it retains much of the charm of old Mexico. During my stay there, people stared at me while I was taking photos as I became just as much of interest as the sights I was seeing and three caballeros rode down the cobbled streets on horseback, making their way to the courtyard restaurant of Hotel de Posada Los Campanas which serves such traditional Mexican fare as chiles rellenos d’queso, sopas (little baskets of fried masa topped with a variety of fillings including chorizo (a spicy Mexican sausage), chicken and pork or flan (a custard like pudding) topped with caramel sauce.

But there’s more to Dolores Hidalgo besides history, Baroque style architecture and fanciful flavored ice creams. Just blocks off of the zocolo, tucked away on quiet side streets are stores selling Talavera, a Mexican variation of the Spanish majolica pottery made in just a few cities. In an interesting aside, Father Hidalgo, an intellectual who was also considered a man of the people, introduced Talavera pottery techniques to the people of Dolores Hidalgo during the years he lived there as well as silk worm raising, harness making, blacksmithing, weaving leather tooling and wine and olive oil production. The stores, such as Talavera Cortés, La Casa de las Artesanias and Talavera Vázquez, overflow with brightly patterned and colored Talavera products ranging from soap dishes, light switches, small vases and tiles to large—mosaics and bird baths to the too large to even think about taking home on the airplane--pedestals and bathtubs and bathroom sinks.

The Talavera, no matter what the size, can be shipped home. Unfortunately, after developing a taste for papaya ice cream, the nieves cannot.