Pozole: Eat Me, It’s Thursday

On Thursday mornings in Guerrero, big pots of pozole simmer in kitchens from the mountains to the sea. When served, steaming bowls of soup arrive simple—broth, corn and meat—with the toppings set out for everyone to flavor their own—crisp cabbage, sliced radish, avocado, salsas, chicharones and lime. It’s personalized comfort food in its purest form.

It seems so heart-warming, so kind, so traditional, so communal. It's been part of Mexican culture for thousands of years. The word pozole comes from the Nahuatl pozolli, foamy, for the way the kernels “bloom” when cooked. That foam comes from nixtamalized corn—dried maize soaked and cooked in lime-water until the skin loosens and the grain softens. It’s one of Mesoamerica’s great inventions, turning tough field corn into something tender, digestible and nutrient-rich.

To the Mexica, corn wasn’t just food, it was the basis of life itself. In fact, their creation myths describe humans as being made from corn, the varied colors–white, yellow, red and black–providing a diversity of skin tones. To eat corn was to take in life itself. So when the Mexica prepared corn stews to feed themselves or to honor their gods, they weren’t just cooking—they were bringing an ancient theology to life.

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THE FLAYED GOD’S STEW

Every spring, during the festival of Tlacaxipehualiztli [literally, the wearing of human skin], priests honored Xipe Tótec, the skin-wearing god of renewal and vegetation. Slaves and war prisoners were sacrificed, their hearts offered to the sun. Their flesh wasn’t wasted, their bodies became part of a ritual celebrating transformation; it was cooked in a ceremonial stew called tlacatlaolli—literally, tlacatl (man) and tlaolli (corn), or "man's corn"—a sacred meal of sacrificed human meat.

16th-century Franciscan missionary Bernardino de Sahagún recorded that even the families of the deceased gathered to share the corn stew, each bowl containing a small piece of their loved one. To modern readers, it sounds horrifying. To the Mexica, it was communion—the merging of human and divine, earth and sky, death and regeneration—philosophy in a pot—the corn representing the life granted by the gods, the flesh symbolizing its return, eating the two together keeping the cosmic cycle in motion.

After the Spanish arrived, their governors banned the Xipe Tótec ceremonies and outlawed cannibalism, but the framework of the ritual remained. Pozole survived as a special celebratory meal. Pork—new to the Americas and, by an odd coincidence, similar in texture to human flesh—replaced the forbidden, more traditional meat, and what had been sacred became social, a dish for baptisms, fiestas, Independence Day and, ultimately, Thursdays. It would seem pozole never lost its sense of occasion; it simply changed gods.

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WHY THURSDAYS

No one can say for sure why pozole became a Thursday “thing” in Guerrero. Ask five people and you’ll hear five stories—that it started in Chilpancingo when market workers and household staff had that afternoon off; that restaurants picked a specific day to make a dish that takes all day to prepare; or that the political crowd in Acapulco and Chilpancingo turned jueves pozolero into a kind of social ritual, one that was part meal, part networking.

Minerva, the owner of Ceneduria Mine in Buena Vista, the long-time Thursday pozole destination for Troncones locals, connects it back to community, explaining, “It’s said that Pozole Thursday was born in the mountains of Guerrero generations ago, after the last corn harvest one September, in solidarity with those who didn’t have a good harvest. The corn was harvested and pozole was prepared on Wednesday nights, and the celebration took place on Thursday.” Whatever the reason, by the mid-20th century, Thursday pozole had become part of the rhythm of life across Guerrero, a quiet celebration tucked into the latter half of the work week.

THE THREE COLORS OF POZOLE

Verde [green]: tomatillo, pumpkin seeds, epazote—bright, herbal, coastal.

Rojo [red]: pork or chicken, simmered with guajillo or ancho chile—deep, smoky, festive.

Blanco [white]: clear broth with chicken or pork, or both—simple, restorative.

THE RITUALS & TRADITIONS CONTINUE

Strip away the gore and grandeur, and what survives is remarkably consistent. Pozole is still slow food. It still gathers people. Corn, that once symbolized life and death, still softens for hours in wide pots; families still ladle it out and share it. A dish born of ceremony still works its quiet magic of renewal.

Here on Guerrero’s coast, jueves pozolero isn’t a grand event—it’s a comfort, a reason to slow down. Each restaurant adds its own rhythm—a different broth and new stories to be told over the steam.

In Buena Vista, its scent drifts out from Mine’s, where the tops on the pots of the open-air kitchen crash and rattle like cymbals each Thursday night. Mine and her family serve steady bowls of red or white broth, offering a mix of pork and chicken as well as traditional tamales and atole. Mine will begin service this year on November 6. She can also accommodate a vegetarian option with a day’s notice. [The restaurant celebrates its 25th anniversary this February; there will be no flaying, only plenty of good food.]

In Lagunillas, Jaqueline’s traditionally serves verde de pollo [green with chicken] and blanco de puerco [white with pork]. In Troncones, a new pozolera, Ceneduría Vero, has just opened on Main Street. Rufi’s also serves up pozole in the high season.

THE AFTERTASTE OF HISTORY

Five hundred years ago, pozole was prepared and offered to the divine as proof of life’s cycle. Today, it’s offered to friends, neighbors and anyone who walks in hungry. The ingredients have changed; the purpose softened; Jewish mothers finally satisfied.

Every Thursday, somewhere in Guerrero, corn bubbles in a pot, waiting to be transformed once again into sustenance, its story holding the faint echo of something sacred. No one talks about gods or sacrifice anymore, but pozole still marks a pause—between days, between people, between worlds.