Most people know tamales are hot well before they ever know what a tamale is. (It's a steamed cake made of stone-ground cornmeal, usually stuffed with some kind of filling and wrapped in a corn husk. It's mostly hot sauce that makes 'em hot.) In the United States, trying to find the special flour and hominy corn used for tamales used to be like looking for Gorgonzola cheese in China. Not so any more.

The “New American” cuisine movement over the last twenty years has highlighted the regional cuisines of America, including the now-beloved Southwest cuisine. Mexican influence on that cookery brought chilies, different corn varieties, Yucatan spices, and dessert vegetables into most markets. Canned and dried products, tortillas, and even fresh Mexican import vegetables like jicama and prickly pear cactus regularly appear in specialty food shops.

Key items for your Mexican-inspired pantry include pickled jalapeño peppers, chipotle (smoked chilies) in adobo (tomato-based sauce), nopales (pronounced “noh-pah-lays”; slices of delicious cactus perfect in salads, stews, and wraps), and Mexican chocolate disks (the best hot chocolate you'll ever taste — it's made with cinnamon bark and ground almonds!). If your local specialty store is lacking, get them by mail order or over the Internet (see the Resources Appendix).