Horno Restaurant – Santa Fe, New Mexico
By the time my Kim and I returned to New Mexico in 1995, the days of my family steam-baking chicos in hornos were long past, but she sure was intrigued by our mud and adobe outdoor ovens. She wasn’t so much interesting in exaggerated tales of our back-breaking labors, but of the process of baking chicos in those hornos. We explained that the process began by building a fire inside the oven and letting it burn for hours–long enough for the hornos’ mud walls and floor to acquire a thermal capacity perfect for steaming corn. The corn isn’t inserted into the horno until all that’s left of the fire is red embers. With the corn nestled comfortably atop the ashes, we would sprinkle water over the corn to inspire steam. We would then seal the horno door with adobe bricks, We would also seal the “smoke hole” in back of the horno. The corn was then baked overnight. At this point you might still be wondering what “chicos” are. Chicos begin as an ear of field corn which is tied into ristras (strings) and hung to dry. Alternatively, as we preferred, the corn is baked (steamed) in an horno where…
