EatNopales

: Cochinita Pibil seemed to always be served with Frijoles Colados (which do have their own creaminess & hearty flavor), Sour Orange pickled Onions, a thin Habanero sauce & awesome, heirloom corn tortillas. A good Pibil doesn't need much... did you use heirloom Pork leg? Fudge Family Farms is not too far from my home and produces some of the finest pork in the country so my pork shoulder was top notch. I think the habanero sauce you mentioned is what was missing. As I said, Bayless doesn't mention any salsa in the book so I didn't make any. Is the traditional sauce a simmered sauce or is it raw? Easiest sauce in the world... put four raw habaneros in the blender, about 1/4 teaspoon of salt (add more as needed), start with half a cup of water (add a little more at a time)... pureee, taste & adjust. The sauce should be the thickness of pulpy orange juice I haven't tasted the Fudge Family Farms pork but the pigs in the Yucatan have a strong / full "free range" flavor that is tamed a bit with the sour orange & achiote.. in California restaurants they talk up the Berkshire pigs alot but they are actually quite bland. Finally, did you use banana leaves? Their flavor isn't strong enough to notice it... but I definitely notice something missing when I don't use them (kind of like Bay leaves in a soup).

Absolutely... no crema! Honestly, I don't think they even make Crema or consume Crema in the Yucatan. I could be wrong.. but I can't remember much Cheese or (other than Edam) being sold in the Mercados or the small town shops. Cochinita Pibil seemed to always be served with Frijoles Colados (which do have their own creaminess & hearty flavor), Sour Orange pickled Onions, a thin Habanero sauce & awesome, heirloom corn tortillas. A good Pibil doesn't need much... did you use heirloom Pork leg?

I grew up in LA and never saw one of those signs. Sure there was prejudice but I never saw signs like that. Eddie Cano had relatives across the street from us and near his second El Torito. Since he had a business degree from USC, I'll bet El Chollo had a much bigger influence in his style than any food or culture. He was in the business of selling drinks. Toluca Lake was a gold mine then. He had waitresses/actresses in short skirts serving drinks from 5pm (when the studios let out) until late at night. He was a man with lots of charm and charisma. When I was about 10 or 12 he gave me a ride to his Encino restaurant in his new XKE Jaguar. The East section of the Ventura Freeway had just opened and I got my first chance to feel a car at over 125mph. Thank you for your response. With regards to "No Dogs, No Mexicans" signs... my grandfather came as a migrant worker during the 1920's and throughout the next 20 years, he personally saw them throughout rural California & Oregon. In fact, he told my dad the first time he encountered Burritos (which were and mostly are still unknown throughout much of Mexico) was when he picked Oranges in Orange County... they couldn't find any Cafe that would allow them to eat dinner, but there was a family from Sonora who would wrap stews with/without beans inside these strange wheat tortillas into a very transportable package that resembles a mule pack (hence the name). As for more academic resource... just go to Amazon.com and search for "No Dogs. No Mexicans" you will find dozens of scholarly works on the subject. As to the role of El Cholo in the development of Tex-Mex / Mexicanesque cuisine... it seems that it played very little role. Frank Berumen, a Harvard PhD, is the primary researcher on Mexicans in Hollywood.. and his research brought him to research El Cholo as a Hollywood institution. As you might know, after Prohibition, much of the Hollywood & L.A. elite turned Tijuana into its boozing playground. In fact, the same families that developed L.A., founded LA Times, the eugenics society that eventually became the Cal Tech endowment etc., bought up much of the land of Rancho Tijuana and developed it into 1920's Tijuana. El Cholo Spanish Cafe was founded as place where the Hollywood elite could indulge in the cuisine they had come to love in Tijuana. The name was actually very telling... the word Cholo (derived from Xoloscuintle the hairless, skinny, black dogs prized by the Aztecs) was the Spanish derogatory term for Native Americans - it is still very commonly used as such in South America - and then there is Spanish cafe. At that time many of Hollywood's biggest stars (Ramon Novarro et al) were born in Mexico but there was a lot of pressure to invent Spanish births or recent Spanish ancestry... and to downplay any Greaser ancestry (American slang for Mexican). El Cholo's menu for the first 30 years of is existence was essentially inherited from the Tijuana steakhouses of the 1920's. They were the first to introduce the Ceasar Salad to L.A. (invented at Ceasar's in Tijuana), the house specialty was the Bacon Wrapped Filet Mignon served with Baked Potato, you could also order Paella, Ropa Vieja served with Spanish rice, Shrimp in Garlic Mojo served with Spanish rice... a common appetizer was the Queso Fundido served with Flour tortillas. Unfortunately, there isn't any surviving copies of the complete early menus at El Cholo... but that should give us an idea of what their food was all about. It wasn't until the 1960's with the growing popularity of Mexican food, particularly among the hippies & hipsters, that El Cholo dropped "Spanish" from the name & began to "Mexicanize" its offering... which was clearly more influenced by the cuisine being popularized by El Torito (and its cognates) than what was going on in Mexico.

Quick overview on the genres of Mexican sausage tradition: Chorizo Fresco (Red)... in Mexico it is always made from firm meats (shoulder, leg etc.,) not offal, > Chorizo from the Altiplano & Bajio (this style is what is most common in the U.S.) it is vinegary, spicy & very herbal > Chorizo Norteno.. is the spiciest colored with Chiltepin or Arbol Chiles (usually eaten inside the casing) > Chorizo from Guerrero, Isthmus of Tehuantepec, & Yucatan is colored with fresh achiote & pickled with Sour Orange juice or tropical fruit vinager... also less herbal Chorizo Verde... already described above almost exclusive to Toluca the Charcuterie capital of Mexico Chorizo Seco... less common but still traditional in regions... it is somewhat more similar to Spanish chorizo but with some spice to it. Longaniza ... this is less expensive Chorizo made from offal, it has a chunkier texture, less intense vinegar, more chiles, it can also be aged in some regions Chistorra... a basque chorizo made parts of Mexico with heavy basque immigration (mostly around Mexico City) Obispo... mentioned by Dining Diva... Moronga... blood sausage Those are the basic types I have eaten. You might also included Salchicha (Frankfurters) which are now a basic part of Mexican cuisine, and made artisinally through out the country, I don't know that there is anything unique enough about the franks to constitute regionality.

You might be giving Bayless a little too much credit.. all he is really doing is collecting basic recipes and translating them to English & U.S. measurements. Most of these flavor combinations have been created over an 8,000 year history I really like this book because it actually does a good job of representing the way Mexicans think about cooking. In Mexico, there has traditionally been very little use for recipes... people learn some loose rules & techniques and apply them in many ways... its not anything Bayless invented though.. the is just how people in Mexico cook. For example, when my parents make Guisado Ranchero (choice of protein & seasonal vegetables cooked with onions & jalapenos in a sauce of peeled tomatoes, Mex oregano, Thyme & garlic) the leftovers are typically used as followed: Stales tortillas used to make Chilaquiles made with the leftover sauce.. topped with the leftover Protein, Vegetables, some Queso Fresco or Requeson (Ricotta), a little bit of Natas (Clotted Cream)... some Fried or Poached eggs if there isn't enough a protein. If there isn't any Stale tortillas then they get a package of Fideos (Vermicelli) out of the cupboard... pan fry the pasta, add the sauce thinned with some broth... mix in the protein & vegetables, top with Queso Fresco / Requeson and Natas etc., If the weather is hot.. instead of making Chilquiles or Fideos with the leftover Guisado.. you make a Salpicon (chopped salad)... take the protein and chop or shred it.. toss with some spring onions, vegetables & marinade in lime juice. After an hour or so... it gets served over Orejona lettuce (the common type of lettuce grown & consumed in Mexico is like a cross between Romaine & Butter) which according to this site might be a variety of romaine called Parrish Island: http://www.hydroenvironment.com.mx/catalogo/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=226 You don't feel like Chilaquiles, Fideos or Salpicon? Then maybe a Taquiza with a side of Sopa de Milpa... Taquiza is the term you use for homestyle tacos... reduce the leftover sauce to a very thick consistency.. add the protein and sweat it until warm... spoon the filling over fresh tortillas, add some avocado or queso fresco slices... and have it with a bowl of soup (Sopa de Milpa is a name for any variation of soup where the broth is made by simmering chopped tomatos, corn on the cob, whole onion & herbs with salted water, then add fresh vegetables from the milpa... squash, zucchini, wild greens, chiles whatever is available) ... on & on... from any particular sauce you can make a variety of dishes.... that is the premise of Mexican grassroots & cooking & Bayless approach on Mexican Kitchen.

I scanned the thread and didn't notice a proper historical perspective.. although I imagine in much of the British colonies 300 years represents antiquity... Barbeque (Anglicized) & Barbacoa (Hispanicized)... terms derived from the languages of the Arawak / Taino people (the natives of the Caribbean) initially described a technique of gentle cooking over a pit using a combination of smoke and/or steam. The Spanish of course arrived in the Caribbean a decade before exploring the North American mainland.. by the time they made it to Mexico they had already adopted the term Barbacoa for Pit cooking and that is generally the most common term used in much of the Spanish speaking world. The Arawak / Taino people themselves descended from people that migrated to the Caribbean (and later Florida) from the Yucatan & Venezuela starting in 500 B.C. (probably crowded out by more developed Early Mayan cultures themselves outgrowing their strongholds in Veracruz & Tabasco). These early explorers took with them the Closed & Open Pit cooking techniques popular through much of Central & Southern Mexico... the oldest pits found thus far date back to 3,000 B.C. Whether the Spanish were too casual in their adoption of terminology or not, for 500 years the term Barbeque / Barbacoa has been used to describe a range of cooking styles from 45 degree grilling* over an indirect fire to full on Closed Pit cooking with heated rocks & wood similar to what you find throughout the Pacific Islands.

It is "official" Americans spend less time cooking than any other nation in the world: http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/post.aspx?post=8b076135-7e59-4aca-8727-b5ede40b6ba6

What would ne the name of the dried cheese? That sounds like a decadent treat The most common dried cheese in Mexico is Cotija... be forwarned that the packaged stuff sold by Cacique, El Mexicano etc., is cr@p... the good stuff is artisinally made in the town of Cotija, Michoacan... I don't know if its available in L.A. but the famous cheese shop in Healdsburg (right off the square) is carrying imported artisinal Cotija... but any good quality Pecorino-Romano would do... I would also like some Aged Gouda etc.,

Here is a picture of the crystalized figs (Higos Cristalizados) http://nuecesysemillas.com.mx/tienda/images/higo.jpg If you want to go fancy.. people also stuff the Figs with nut meats & dried cheese and serve with Natas (Clotted Cream).

Here is a picture of whole pumpkins in syrup (Calabaza en Tacha)

That is interesting - my neighbor and I exchange fruit and he has figs. So a similar syrup to the one described for pumpkin and then leave the leaf in the jar? All of these ideas sound like wonderful Christmas/Holiday gifts since the produce will be available in the fall. Yes heidi here is a picture of the Figs (you can google Higos en Dulce for more pics & recipes): They are usually done in two different styles.. one where they are very syrupy as in the picture above, and another where the sugar is more crystallized (I like both actually.. the crystallized ones are usually sliced & served with homemade Panela cheese which is similar to the Greek & Sicilian basket cheeses or Requeson (Ricota) & slivers of good quality Cotija as part of a rustic Mexican cheese plate in the Highlands of Jalisco & nearby Guanajuato, Aguascalientes etc. )... my parents boil the fig leaves when making the simple syrup... they chop a few of the leaves very finely and also include whole leaves that will be removed.

As a tip.. Mexican grocery stores carry inexpensive Cal (Lime) in small packages for those wanting to start small. You can also buy pickled Pumpkin & other vegetables & fruits at Mex markets to have something to compare to (the homemade product should be superior though). My favorite of the Mex sweet pickling tradition are the whole figs... the secret is to use fig leaf when making the syrup gives them a subtle, complex herbal flavor that is hard to pin down.

Heidi... I understand what you are saying.. I don't mean to berate... just wanting to share my particular experience of initially being excited to try it, very disappointed with my first taste... now as my palette has developed I've tried Taco Bell... it has plenty of off putting flavors... I will be the first to admit I do eat Fast Food from time to time... I do trade convenience for quality at times... and whether it be McDonalds, JIB, Carl's Jr... when I taste the food its got bad flavors.. recently I ordered the Churros at JIB and from the first bite they had that chemical flavor you find in canned frosting, and the oil was a bit stale. Even though I will eat fast food it doesn't cancel out the fact that it does taste bad... if you are on the road & listening to the radio... it seems to matter less, but all the fast food joints are pretty much crap, no?

As a Mexican I despise Taco Bell for a variety of reasons. Despite popular belief, Tex-Mex is not a Texan fusion or interpretation of Mexican cuisine... Diana Kennedy coined the term to explain why "Mexican" restaurants north of the border serve Chips & Salsa, Cheese covered Combination Plates etc., she happened to be living in New York at the time & restaurants that served this type of food often had Texan & Southwestern names & design themes... but they never referred to themselves as Tex-Mex. The menus, the style of cooking & plating the food had nothing to do with Texas.. it was invented by two California chains Taco Bell (founded by Glen Bell in South L.A. suburbs) and El Torito (founded as a Tiki bar by Eddie J. Cano in the San Fernando Valley). At this time in California there was a strong culture of segregation (L.A. enforced segregation through city ordinances in the 1920's & 1930's)... during the 1950's & 1960's when Faux Mexican restaurants became popular in the sub-urbs of Southern California restaurants in those communities typically had signs that read "No Hobos. No Dogs. No Mexicans" At that time Anglo society held a popular notion that Mexicans did not follow sanitary practices (Newspaper pundits & Filmmakers often - usually with Klan ties - on occassion created Fox News type insinuative infomedia that suggested people died or got very sick from eating Mexican food from Mom & Pop shops). Glen Bell was among those that promoted the idea, to his own profit, that "industrialized" Mexican food was more sanitary than what Mom & Pop restaurants offered up. I was bused out to High School in the sub-urbs and was actually excited when I saw that there was a Taco Bell a block away from my school... having seen so many commercials and never been inside one... the first time I tried it I thought... how the fk can anyone like this sht? A few months later, the local white girl I was dating invited me to her house for dinner and her mom thought it would be cute to have a "Taco Night"... she bought packaged "Taco Shells", cooked up Ground Beef with "Taco Seasoning"... had the full on spread with shredded iceberg, tasteless tomatos, black olives, bottled hot sauce etc., and I thought omg people actually eat this crap at home? That was one of the pivotal experiences in getting me interested in gastronomic culture... I ended up finding a proper Taqueria not far from the school and evangelized dozens of valley friends. Now stripping away the history & baggage that Taco Bell represents for Mexican food enthusiasts... if you take the time to taste the food everything tastes like preservatives, the ingredients are all crap (how much beans are really in their "beans", is their "cheese" even made from milk?, 36% beef.. really?) Is the American palette so fked up by processed food & fast food chains that it is numb to the off putting flavors?

Ethiopians drink it as tea to help with digestion of rich & spice heavy foods.... supposed to be good for the kidneys... I rather like it. You could make Chorizo Verde to sell at local farmer's markets... you would probably corner that pretty quickly.

How bad can sheee be?

... or you could have kept them out of the picture!

Unbleached, Undyed, ultra thing Cotton dish towels

I think there are two things at play there: One is profit margin. I suspect that the margin on prepared foods is better than 'raw' food. For one, it is harder to price compare, but more importantly, it offers a good value proposition to the consumer. I think the other factor is, as another poster mentioned, that the prepared foods are restaurant replacements. So for the store, those prepared foods present a new market, which means more money coming in. Doubling the produce section size won't make any more money unless the selection is so fantastic that you can draw people away from someone elses produce section; a tough proposition unless the competition is really awful. But I think it is a much easier proposition to take a chunk out of the restaurants, between the cost savings and likely perceived health benefit, not to mention time, schedule, etc. However.. Lola's also has a prepared foods counter and we can assume that the margin differential would also be similiar.. they are exposed to the same local taxes, regulations, high rents etc., I think the difference in the offering is almost purely Pull (Demand) driven rather than Push (Supply) driven. My analysis of the typical "American" (meaning people who have been here for enough generations to share more in commone with other Americans than with the mother country) family in Wine Country is that eating together at home is very important, they are more gastronomically literate than most of the country, care & are conscious about what they put in their bellies... but still the lifestyle & lack of cooking skill is preventing a more robust home cooking culture.

You so smug... you are just twisting the dagger when you "forget" to mention the blue corn tortillas

Ah but what beans!

Awesome!

While repurposing prepared foods might count as cooking skill... one must also consider the loss of control over ingredient quality. In my experience above regarding Oliver's... yeah the produce section has local organic stuff.. but they don't use any of it in their prepared foods (okay occassionally when things are in season & really cheap... Sebastopol / Gravenstein apples, Crane Melons etc.,) but is not extensive nor representative.

Although to be fair.. in Sonoma County there is another micro chain of Mexican grocers called Lola's... the produce section is 1,000 sq ft (total store size is about 1/3 of Oliver's) there is a real butcher, the only meats they sell packaged are bacon, ham & chorizo... clientele is probably 80% Mexican, 20% White... cooking seems to be alive & well in immigrant communities (although I can see there is a visible shift towards to process foods relative to the motherland).

Anecdotal observation... in Sonoma County which I think we can all agree is synonomous with people interested in cooking, wine, fine dining etc., there is a small chain of high end local grocery stores called Oliver's... nice local wine & cheese selection, local produce, higher quality dry goods etc., kind of like a bigger footprint, local version of Whole Foods... The produce section is about 500 square feet, there is a real butcher shop but most of what they sell is packaged... and most edible food space is devoted to prepared foods & packaged foods. On any given day from 4pm to 7pm.. the place is swamped with people picking up medicore prepared foods for dinner... but hey they do a very brisk business in cooking & restaurant magazines! If Sonoma County is as good as it gets for a relatively urban location... then the news can't be all that great.