Juchitepec de Mariano Riva Palacio

Juchitepec is the seat of the municipality of the same name, on the high, open farmland between the Chalco valley and northern Morelos, at about 2,540 m. It borders Milpa Alta, in Mexico City, and Totolapan and Tlalnepantla in Morelos. It had 17,736 residents in 2020. The name comes from Xochitepec, "on the hill of flowers"; it was written Xuchitepec in the 17th century, and the X became a J in the 18th. The second part honours Mariano Riva Palacio, governor of the State of Mexico three times in the 19th century.

Tradition puts its founding in 1381 or 1382, in the reign of Acamapichtli, though no document confirms it. Its early inhabitants, the Xochitepecas, were related to the people of Xochimilco and worked as farmhands for the Tenancas of Tenango. In 1603, on the orders of Viceroy Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo, the people of the scattered settlements nearby were gathered into one town here. The Franciscans began the evangelisation and the Dominicans carried it on and built a convent, which is why the town was known as Santo Domingo Juchitepec; it passed to the secular clergy in the 18th century. One of the last battles of the War of Independence was fought nearby in 1822, and in 1899 the municipality was briefly merged into Tenango del Aire until residents asked to split off again.

The Baroque parish church of Santo Domingo anchors the centre, facing the town hall. It also holds the Señor de las Agonías, a Christ whose feast from 24 to 26 April is the biggest of the year, with fireworks and open-air dances. The town's streets and gardens have been used as locations for films and commercials. All around is farmland: corn, wheat, oats, fava beans, lettuce, carrots and potatoes, much of it sold in Mexico City.

Local cooking runs from mole, barbacoa and mixiote to cheese tamales and fava-bean tlacoyos, with a whole chapter of rainy-season mushrooms such as chinanaca quesadillas. To wash it down there is tecuí, the town's own drink: alcohol and water steeped with seasonal fruit, sugar cane, pineapple or guava, raisins, cinnamon and sugar.