When it comes to Mexican food, the antojitos, jealous, steal the spotlight. Street stalls are crowded with hungry diners, eager food critics looking for notes, and photographers ready to capture images that will end up on Netflix. Traditional family dining halls and fine dining restaurants that appear on global foodie lists are not overlooked. Alongside them, in plain sight but under the subtle veil of invisibility, are the locales that leave us with the aromas of true Mexican cuisine: those of the comida corrida, the fonditas.

Almost always, under the proper name of a woman – Doña Mari, Doña Margarita, Doña... – the fonditas bear the authorship of those who, with a fixed budget, bring color to the ingredients of the basic basket. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, like Don Arturo, the fondita that fed me for almost seven years while I worked in Polanco. The comida corrida was daily offered by a man, Don Rubén, whose pasta with cream and bread pudding helped ease the burdens of all the advertisers who daily sought a dose of the home we rarely reached.

The concept in the fonditas is basic and therefore, masterful: a set of unchanging culinary stops that fill your stomach and your clothes with the aromas from the pots. Although the origin is humble, they are almost always located on the peripheries of markets, in popular areas, on avenues with a working-class flow, mostly away from the tourist bustle.

In the comida corrida, you know that you won't leave until you finish the menu from beginning to end. “The term corrida is a Spanish term we use in Mexico when one thing follows another; so if a person speaks corrida, it’s because they say one thing, then another, and then another,” comments essayist and culinary historian José N. Iturriaga. Once you settle in, the waitress will serve you a soup, and then, the rice or pasta. “In the case of the main dish, they will ask you what you want because there are almost always options,” assures Iturriaga.

The structure is a culinary institution that has barely changed over the years: for a price that rarely exceeds one hundred pesos, a series of dishes will parade from the kitchen aimed at satisfying the voracious hunger of students, the kinesthetic worker, and the anxious petite bourgeois. In the center, there will also be tortillas or plastic baskets with bolillo and salsas in small pots. And in the comida corrida, everything is arranged to reproduce a family scene, escaping the celebratory glory of Saturday or Sunday.

“The comida corrida always comes with a glass of aguas frescas, which can be lemonade or a drink made from hibiscus, tamarind, watermelon, melon, or some seasonal fruit,” comments Iturriaga.

Culturally, like everything that simmers in the national territory, the comida corrida is a product of mestizaje. “The first course is almost always a pasta soup. The pasta brought by the Spaniards originated in China about two centuries before the Conquest. Then, the second course is rice, which is also of Chinese origin and was also brought by the Spaniards. We call it ‘Mexican’ because it has a red color from the tomato with which it is cooked. The most classic has peas and small cubes of carrot.”

The main dish varies; it is almost always a stew and not precisely an antojito. “We are not talking about highly elaborate dishes, as those are for more festive occasions. We talk about a pork meat in green sauce with purslane, shredded beef tinga with flank steak meat. When there is fish, we will get some fillet of mojarra or those thin ones you buy to make it go further.” That said, it will almost always be breaded to make it more filling.

Those offering options outside the menu will almost always cost a few pesos more. There’s the egg or the banana that will add flavor and color to the rice. And in the main dish, the queen of the fondita kitchen is never missing: the milanesa. “The milanesa owes its name to Milan, which today is in northern Italy but was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th century. In fact, the most famous milanesas in the world are in Vienna, the capital of Austria.”

The irrevocable dessert of the comida corrida is rice pudding, which is almost always cooked with cinnamon. “All the cinnamon consumed in the world comes from Ceylon, an island south of Sri Lanka,” adds Licenciado Iturriaga. But gelatin is also common, almost always in bright colors – greens, oranges, and reds – bread puddings made with leftover bread from other days, and tres leches cake for special days, like Fridays, when the owner, if she’s in a good mood, will treat her diners.

The cuisine of the fonditas makes us feel at home amidst the hustle of the day. From the owner, from the person in charge, we end up becoming close, getting to know each other’s temperaments, getting accustomed to the flavorful experience. “The fonditas solve, especially for those who have to eat out daily, whether you are an office worker or a student from the lower-middle or working-class socioeconomic strata, and in them, you eat like at home.”

There is an invisible treasure in the cities to which we owe journalistic hours. Thanks to the flavors of Doña Mari or Don Rubén or the lady we trust, our hearts are nourished from one to three P.M. Their stews remind us that we belong to something more than a corporation, that we are human beings even during work hours.