rajas

The Latin verb radere meant to scrape or shave, a motion applied to wood, skin, and metal. From it came the Vulgar Latin root that entered Spanish as rajar, a verb meaning to split, crack, or cleave. The noun raja followed naturally: a split portion, a strip, a slice. Spanish colonists brought the word to Mexico in the 16th century, where it attached to a specific culinary preparation.

Rajas in Mexican cooking refers to strips of roasted poblano chile. Poblano chiles (Capsicum annuum from the Puebla region) are roasted directly over a flame, then sweated in a bag to loosen their skins, peeled, seeded, and cut into lengthwise strips. The technique likely developed in Puebla during the colonial period, where the combination of local chiles with Spanish dairy in rajas con crema became a defining regional dish.

The most common preparations are rajas con crema (strips of poblano with Mexican crema and onion) and rajas con queso (with cheese). Both are served as taco fillings, as an accompaniment to grilled meats, or as a topping in modern Mexican-American cooking. The preparation requires no special equipment and appears in home kitchens as readily as in restaurants from Monterrey to Los Angeles.

Radere also gave Latin rasus (scraped smooth), which entered Old French as ras and eventually English as raze (to demolish) and razor (the scraping instrument). A razor and a raja share an etymological action: the same clean stroke that separates one thing from another. The domestic and the architectural share a root, as they often do in Latin.