Oval masa cakes cooked on the comal, pinched at the edges, then spread with lard or asiento, beans, salsa and crumbled cheese. Breakfast food, cheap and eaten by hand.

The memela is the plainest thing on a Puebla comal and one of the oldest: a thick oval of masa, cooked, pinched around the rim to hold the topping, then dressed with asiento, refried beans, salsa and crumbled cheese. It belongs to breakfast rather than dinner, and the counters that sell it open early and shut in the afternoon. La Ververa in Arboledas de Guadalupe presses them on hand-made blue-corn tortillas and prices them between twenty and forty-five pesos, which is the version worth leaving the Centro for, though it only opens at the weekend. Mercado Xonaca, out between 22 Norte and 28 Oriente, cooks them daily and is the fallback on a weekday.

2 editor picks for Memelas in Puebla, ranked by editorial score. All Puebla signature dishes · Memelas across every city.

Also in: Oaxaca.