Regional differences in Mexican food.

[Jaymes]

Jaymes, getting the mojacete smooth:  I tried rice too and it didn't work.  Then a Mexican worker on my nephew's farm told me to pound up raw corn kernels cut off the cob and that worked.  At least I think it did -- I had a little salsa and hot sauce business at the time and we were busy pounding away at huge quantities of roasted jalapenos and serranos and roasted garlic over a period of several months.  Maybe sheer volume finally did it.

The rough ones are very beautiful -- I don't know that I've ever seen the smoother ones.

Thanks for the advice about the corn. I'll try it!

[Jaymes]

Jaymes--you are absolutely right about the fritos--after I fried up the tortillas, I tasted one, then two, then three, and they do get a very salty corn flavor--fritos would work, if time were a constraint.

But you'll have to do what I do....hide the Fritos bag when you are cooking for company

[Toby]

This is a wonderful thread -- I love Mexican food -- think it is a deep and complex cuisine. I've never been there, so all I know about it is from cookbooks, what I've been able to eat in restaurants in San Francisco and NY, and what friends who've lived in Mexico have told me -- essentially, acts of imagination.

I moved from San Francisco to NY 5 years ago. In SF, I lived in a Mexican neighborhood and was able to get ingredients easily, so I could at least cook a lot from Bayless, Kennedy. When I got to NY I was amazed at the invisibility of anywhere-near authentic Mexican food here. Trying to cook it involved complicated travels to many places to get basic ingredients (a day spent looking for piloncillo). New York had been overrun with fake taquerias run by Chinese cooks that are a travesty and now a Chevy's has opened that is just awful. In 1997 and 1998 I had this little fresh salsa business and I sold them at our stand at a farmers' market. All I made were 5 or 6 different types of Mexican table salsas -- green (with avocado) , red, tomatillo-chipotle, habanero, black bean (with avocado and serranos and a little tomatillo) and a chipotle-tomato-corn one, and sometimes I made chipolte en adobo. Most customers were completely unfamiliar with these fresh salsas and wanted the stuff that comes in jars with big chunks and thick tomato sauce.

But, I think that just as Chinese food used to be chop suey and sweet and sour pork, the sheer number of Mexican immigrants in NY may have begun to reach critical mass and more authentic Mexican food will become available. More people know more, more authentic ingredients are available in more places, there are more small restaurants run by Mexicans. (A great deal of the food in our upscale restaurants is actually cooked by people from Mexico, Central and South America.)

Last summer a regional Mexican (Veracruz) restaurant, Danzon, run by Zarela Martinez, opened. I had one meal there and was pretty happy with it -- we had deep fried green plantain chips; tamal de cazuela -- a masa casserole stuffed with shredded pork and flavored with hoja santa leaves; grilled octopus; and I had a big bowl of black beans cooked with chayotes, pork cracklings and pumpkin seeds that were the best beans I ever ate. We even had Mexican Zinfandel. (It was OK.) (Most of these dishes are in her Veracruz cookbook.) I recommended it to a number of people and they all hated it. I don't know if my meal was an aberration or if they ordered the wrong things on the menu; in any case the restaurant failed and has been converted (by Zarela M.) into a bocadito place. I think they actually put out a statement that they felt NY wasn't ready for regional Mexican cuisine.

Wow, I've managed to depress myself. But, if Ms. Martinez could think NY was ready for authentic regional food, maybe it soon will be. Meanwhile, I've located a number of neighborhoods in Manhattan with Mexican groceries and small, inexpensive restaurants run by Mexicans. My friend is about to pot an epazote plant out of her garden for me, so that dilemma will be solved -- I hear it grows like weeds.

Also, Stellabella, if you've managed to read through this endless post, I like texture in salsas also. What I used to do was pound up the roasted chiles and garlic in the mocajete and separately blend (on pulse) the tomatoes or tomatillos and then combine them in a bowl.

Please write more about dishes you ate in Mexico, Central America. I love to read about what people ate in places I've never been.

[stellabella]

Toby--what's holding you back? Time? Money? Other? If you decide to take the leap, I will do my best to give you some travel tips. I love traveling in Mexico--there are few places I'd rather go. I haven't been since May of 2000 and I am jonesing. There are still so many places on my list--Zacatecas, San Cristobal, Oaxaca.

One of the best things about eating in Mexico is the quality of the produce

--especially mangoes--Andrew Weil wrote a chapter about this in The Marriage of the Sun and Moon, a book entirely dedicated to altering consciousness--you get the picture. I like to buy mangoes and papayas and bananas at the local market and bring them back to my room and arrange and look at them, and I always travel with a pocket knife for slicing into them. I have tried mamey--wasn't sure about it. Avocado. At every meal I ask if it is possible to get an avocado sliced, plain, to eat alongside whatever else I'm having. There is simply NO COMPARISON to the fruits we have access to here, unless, I guess you're a lucky person in S CA or Fla with your own tree.

I also love sprinkling the super sweet ripe fruits with chili.

Your knowledge and appreciation of Mexican cuisine are enviable--you'd love going there. It's very inexpensive. It's also a mind-blower--to think Mexico is out neighbor, and yet in so many ways Mexican culture [not that it's homogenous....] couldn't be more different from ours......

[Toby]

Stellabella, the reason I don't travel is essentially laziness and, even more pathetic, I hate being parted from my beloved possessions for more than a few days (I'm a Taurus). Worse, when I do travel, I almost immediately begin buying doubles of things I already own at home so that I'll feel more comfortable (I have Gemini rising). You can imagine what a blow dying will be for me. My only hope is that in my next lifetime I'll be free of this ridiculous preoccupation with my things.

I guess I'm the equivalent of an armchair traveller -- an armchair stomach. I read a lot and can imagine how things taste and actually can get pretty good at recreating things I've never tasted to taste authentic; I grill everyone who's travelled to anywhere I'd want to eat on what they ate; and whenever I meet anyone from a country I'm interested in, I try to get them to cook with me. I've been lucky to live in San Francisco where Mexican ingredients were readily available. Now in New York, I'm starting to be able to get more ingredients plus my nephew is a farmer and he grows all kinds of chile peppers and tomatillos.

A few years ago I had a major obsession with Mexican food, and read (and continue to read) a bunch of Mexican cookbooks. Beyond Bayless and Kennedy's early cookbooks, these are the ones that I like for learning about regional foods.

Cuisine of the Water Gods, by Patricia Quintana, which goes around the entire coastline of Mexico, state by state, with recipes for local fish and shellfish plus vegetables, salsas, desserts.

The Food and Life of Oaxaca and Zarela's Veracruz--Cooking and Culture in Mexico's Tropical Melting Pot, both by Zarela Martinez. She seems to have embarked on a mission to educate Americans about the regional cuisines and cultures of Mexico. The Oaxacan cookbook is rather austere (there's an incredible dish in it called che guina -- a masa-thickened beef soup with chiles, made with beef short ribs and guajillo chiles -- that I love), but the Veracruz one is just great. She explains that the cooking has been influenced by both Mediterranean (Spanish) and Afro-Cuban Caribbean ingredients and techniques.

My Mexico--A Culinary Odyssey, by Diana Kennedy, is arranged by region, and gives a lot of very odd recipes I've never seen anywhere else.

Seasons of My Heart by Susana Trilling, is about Oaxaca, and is divided into the seven regions of Oaxaca, plus a chapter ofn Oaxaca City and other one on moles.

A Cook's Tour of Mexico, by Nancy Zaslavsky, combines recipes with descriptions of the marketplaces, restaurants in each region.

Some coffee table books, Savoring Mexico and Mexico the Beautiful Cookbook, while not arranged by region, give the region each dish comes from, and also give a sense of what different regions look like for slugs like me.

[stellabella]

I have A Cook's Tour of Mexico and have used it a couple times--mostly I like reading about the markets.

Unfortunately, Toby, you're gonna have to get up out of that armchair and go down to Mexico someday, to taste how sweet the mango is. I'm sure you hear "Well, I can't really describe it...." all the time, but....'tis true.

I'm a Pisces and therefore need to keep moving. Nothing can stop the flow.

[Jaymes]

Decided to bump this up. LOTS of good info here about "real Mexican food."

[poshpeckish]

Yea!!  After suffering through the "South of the Border" thread, I'm happy to find some folks talking about the FOOD!

I, also, am no expert on Mexican food.  And unless you're Dianne Kennedy or Rick Bayless, I claim no one who's posting here is an expert either.  

I've travelled there a few times and here's my take.  Mexico is a very complex country with many many regions and many influences (the tourist beach-cities don't count!).  The result is a rich tapestry of cultures and therefore food.  It's a hard country to generalize.

The two areas I'm most familar with are the South and the Yucatan.  The food in Yucatan is wonderful with a heavy emphasis on seafood, which is usually prepared modestly with fresh seasonings.  And of course, is always served with hot corn tortillas and limes.  Mexican food law: Limes make EVERYTHING better.  Taste whatever is in front of you and, even if it's muy delicioso, it'll be better once you squeeze that mexican lime on it.

Oaxaca in the south is by far my favorito.  Birthplace of mole, nectar of the Mayan gods.  Yes, there are many variations on mole (Puebla, near Mexico City is the other pillar of mole), but my soul melts after a taste of Oaxacan black mole.  Pour it on a leather shoe and I'll clean my plate.

True interior Mexican food still bewilders me with its complexity and I'm just scratching the surface.  I'd love to see what others' experiences have been.

Best.

any recommendations for restaurants/food stalls/crazy grannies' homes/dive bars in oaxaca are appreciated. looking to attack mole and tequila with equal relish.

[ExtraMSG]

I was just talking to a lady during the Cinco de Mayo celebration here whose son used to cook for Cafe Azul (owner trained with Diana Kennedy) and who travels *a lot* in Mexico and she recommended a place she says is on the main plaza that's on the second floor and called something like La Casa de la Abuela or something like that. Yep, probably got it right:

http://www.laregion.com.mx/oaxaca/guia/gourmets/rest_h.php

Some links:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...19493&hl=oaxaca

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...23047&hl=oaxaca

http://www.fronterakitchens.com/home_away/travel/oaxaca.html

[theabroma]

Yes. Soledad Diaz' El Topil, which is close to Sto Domingo, on the town side. Classic Zapotec regional cooking. And if you want to take a taxi out to Teotitlan del Valle - worth it for the weavers and the rugs, go to Tlamanalli. The segesa and sopa de chepil are holiness in a bowl. Also, Sra Fili's stall in the Mercado Comedor next to the Mercado Benito Juarez in the center of town for pan de huevo and chocolate.

Theabroma

[theabroma]

Oh, yeah. While you are around the Juarez market in Oaxaca, let your nose lead you to the chocolate row just outside where Chocolates Mayordomo and Chocolates Guelaguetza have their shops. They will grind to your order of cacao, sugar, cinnamon, and almonds. If you make it to the Central de Abastos, find Molinos del Sol for chocolate.

Also Iliana de la Vega's restaurant El Naranjo is excellent. There is another restaurant, the name of which escapes me just now, in Za'achila, right on the road. It is set in a grove of trees. Specializes in mescal and roast meats, and has hammocks in the trees to help nurse you through wretched excess. It is about a 40 minute cab ride south of Oaxaca.

Theabroma

[shelora]

Great posts. There are so many knowledgable people on this forum. I just love it.

I travelled throughout Mexico with the Zazlavsky book, A cook's Tour and was ready to toss it out many times.

I didn't find one market stall or restaurant she wrote about. And I looked very hard. I've also found her recipes sketchy at best. Just my opinion.

Like Diana Kennedy says, to understand Mexican cuisine would take a lifetime.

For me that is what intrigues me so much. Everytime I return, I learn something else or something I thought I knew and understood is contradicted.

I love the cuisine of Oaxaca, those moles have me hooked. I recommend anyone that goes there to buy the ingredients and start making them at home. Or take cooking lessons when you are down there.

Susanna Trilling does great day long classes that start out shopping for ingredients at Abastos market - that gal knows her way around - then back to her cooking school to cook a four course meal. Lots of fun.

I also recommend Tlamanalli for comida in Teotitlan and you can also take classes in Teotitlan at Casa Cerro Sagrado on the hill overlooking the village.

There, my two centavos.

Shelora

[theabroma]

I did not know that Abigail Mendoza taught classes. I have had the great privilege of eating at Tlamanalli and I found it wonderful. I am still trying to get my mitts on some chepil seeds (Crotolaria longirostrata - to those of you out there who undoubtedly are hoarding a dowry's worth!! Fess up)

When people ask me what it is about Mexico that has stolen my heart and soul, I am often at a loss of how to bottle lightning and explain to them. One of the images that comes to mind, however, is a dinner I had at Tlamanalli. One of the sisters was kneeling on a petate (ubiquitous straw mat), bent over a metate, grinding roasted, dried, soaked chiles into a paste. There was a telephone call, and someone handed her a cell phone. She tucked it between her left ear and shoulder, grinding away, while speaking to her caller in the language Sahagun said was like the singing of birds - Zapotec. It is the confluence of those things - the ancient, unwritten language still spoken, the ancient food still lovingly prepared, the retention of the traditional - the metate - and the additional of the (hopefully) rational new technologies. It is wonderful to see them all playing so well together, and to realize that they can co-exist. The adoption of the new helpers does not, independent of and attitude, obliterate the old.

I need to be aware of this in my own life. I think we all do.

Theabroma

[shelora]

Abigail Mendoza has never and will never teach cooking classes. I think the only person who has ever been able to glean a recipe out of her is Diana Kennedy. Even then, I heard that Diana was given the wrong ingredients!

The classes I was speaking about are through Abigail's sister-in-law and one of Abigail's cousins.

You can learn how to make segasa, work with chepil, make those wonderfu tamales with the leaf of the corn plant, how to grind chintestle, etc.

Reyna stayed with us in December last year to learn English and we gave a series of private set course dinners. Reyna wowed everyone with her moles, chocolate, tamales and making chintestle table side was an encore performance. She can really translate Zapotec cooking to the novice. God, do I sound like an infomercial, or what?

I don't think I've ever seen chepil seed for sale, come to think of it. I've seen frozen chepil leaves up here every now and then, but I found it very bitter in taste. I'll keep my eyes peeled, so to speak, for seeds next trip.

Shelora

[theabroma]

I guess Abigail does not have the best rep around. She pulled a real stunt on Elaine Gonzalez about a tejate making demo. Wanted a pile of money for it. We went past Teotitlan and way up a hill to a woman named Jovita - who did the whole thing. Had the rosita de cacao tree in her yard.

Anyone know why Abigail is so crochety?

And have you met Soledad Diaz or eaten at her El Topil in Oaxaca City?

Do you travel to Mx often? Any particular area?

Theabroma

[shelora]

Girlfriend, the best time to discuss all that would be when we are making tamales! I will say that what she has going on there is so special and those "celebrity chefs' want a piece of the action, but she certainly doesn't need to be so nasty.

Okay, just one thing. Have you ever seen the cookbook, Mexico for Dummies? Awful name, but written by the Two Hot Tamales. There are lovely photographs of Abigail and her mom in the book, sweating and smiling over a metate. Are they credited? Are they identified? Think about it. Here is a woman that can run circling around those two hot ones, and they don't even have the decency to name her in the book!!!! See what I mean? That is just one incident. There are many.

As luck would have it, I have never had a great meal at La Soledad. I think it is the hype that goes along with things, that finds me always disappointed.

And I remember she was written up in an issue of Saveur with a recipe for stuffed jalapenos with cheese and mint.

It is now one of my standby recipes when cooking for people. I went to her restaurant and requested it and they looked at me like I was from out of space. My Spanish is not that bad. I think!

Anyhow, I love Oaxaca, regardless. You must go again soon there are some incredible new restaurants.

But I must also say how absolutely incredible Michoacan is. We escaped one year from the Christmas beach rush and bused it to the city Uruhuapan. The market there is the best of my experience so far.

Maze-like, part indoors, part out. Since Michoacan is such an agricultural state, everything you can think of was being offered.

I bought the best chilies there and the outdoor stalls selling corundas was a revelation. Corundas - that speciality tamale that is wrapped in the leaf of the corn plant, a three-cornered number. So delicious. Tamales made from blue corn, red corn. Freshly made salsas using the chile manzano - the only chile with black seeds.

The zapote negro was in season. A black pudding-like black fruit which we ate on the street.

And every evening, a tamale stand run by a group of women was set up and ten different kinds of tamales were served and atole. This is where I had atole negro for the first time, made with the toasted skins of the cacao. Or that is how I understood it. The cascaras de cacao.

Noone I have spoke to here or in Mexico, had run into it before.

And the extra bonus of Uruhuapan, is that there were so few tourists and the coffee is amazing!

Freshly roasted.

Hope to be in Oaxaca again this Christmas. Or quite frankly anywhere in Mexico. I would love to go back to Veracruz and explore the Vanilla groves of Papantla.

S

[ExtraMSG]

I've found Zavlasky's book pretty useful, though for some areas more than others. It's also getting old, though. But it's a document no one else has tried to do and Frommer's, Fodor's, and even Lonely Planet really don't cut it. I'd love a chance to update it for her. She could pay me $1 in salary and then I could write off the trips. The recipes are difficult to reproduce, but there are ideas there. She could use a Christopher Kimball style editor to make her hammer out the steps. eg, the carnitas recipe, which works good and is one of the few all-fry methods in English cookbooks, gives very vague instructions.

Is there a Spanish language guide to food in Mexico? I just got back from Hawaii and there's a great set of guidebooks the "Revealed" or "Ultimate" series. Fabulous guidebooks. Best I've ever seen. (Second best are the "Best Places" series by Sasquatch Books.) However, Hawaii has a lot of dollars going in to a small area. Although it's probably unlikely, is there anything like that for Mexico or Mexican states or regions?

[theabroma]

You don't find many overt 'food guides' in Mexico: Mexicans writing about their food write for each other - or those who either grew up with it, have had it possess their very souls, or have genuinely approached its study with a pure heart, and open mind, and neither a marketing nor a pr firm in sight.

Mexicans write Mexican food guides for foreigners to Mexico so they won't be afraid to eat outside their foreign hotel chain.

That being said, Marco Buenrostro and Cristina Barros have a weekly column, 'Itacate' in La Jornada, an excellent Mexican daily that is also available on the web.

Book series on the Mexican kitchen such as those put out by CONACULTA (Concilio Nacional de Cultura y Arte - www.librosyarte.mx.com, or Ediciones de Fonda Economica - EFC). Search by subjet through Howard Karno Books' collections (www.karnobooks.com).

Of what's available in English that is worthwhile, well, Diana, Bayless, and to a large extent Zarela and Trilling. Jim Peyton has some solid books on the kitchens of the Frontera. And that's about it. The rest - Two Hot Tamales, Star Canyon, Coyote, Lobster Tacos, and gloppy tortilla soup at $14/bottle without the chicken, avocado, cheese, or tortilla strips are all highly successful marketing and pr events. Doesn't mean they aren't tasty to eat; doesn't mean they don't utilize some 'traditional' or 'authentic' ingredients; but they simply are not mexicano del mero corazon.

The true Mexican food guides are ... Mexicans. Like my friend Fernando the mad hunter who knows every crease and fold in the geography of Mexico. He hasn't a clue as to which is the business end of a can opener ... but he is an brilliant eater, and knows every real place in every town and burg where you can eat wonderful things, old things, new flights of fancy from someone well grounded in the tradtional. The best tacos and quesadillas to be had in all of the City of Puebla are found at lunchtime only in a mechanic's taller on the north edge of the centro historico. They may heat them on the various exposed manifolds in the shop - I don't know and who the hell cares? They are a complete education in Mx gastronomical history. Which of the market ladies are good and which aren't and why.

I have been very lucky in finding guides: not only Fernando, but Francesca who comforted me and taught me when the Pobre Coche was on its deathbed in Ixtlahuaco, Hidalgo early last October. The 'pig stand' family at the Friday market in Acuitlapilco, Tlax. who explained more than I ever wanted to know about pig slaughter, cleaning, and processing. Etc. Etc.

Maybe Nick, you and Shelora and I should eat together in a selection of places to get to know where we line up vis a vis regional foods of Mx, and then the three of us take pen in hand and give it a go. I don't know if a real guide could be written - that is, one that would satisfy us. But there is lots of room for one ... especially one that remembers to photograph the food and the location, not the eater, or the digital detritus left behind by a food stylist. The way that we speak of 'white tablecloth restaurants' sounds like our version of the Gault or the Michelin. The cuisine must be deserving, and another discussion seeks in vain for 'white tablecloth' Mx restaurants. Maybe that is part of the problem. Maybe we need to learn that while a well made mole merits a 5 in the world of white tablecloth ratings, it just looks damned silly sitting on one???

Selora, you name the date and place for our tamalada, and I'm there with my big, fat Mx cornhusks, my vaporeras, and my big frog molcajete!!! Nick, you coming?

Theabroma

[shelora]

I'm in!

I agree Mexican culinary guides are so personal, and it has to be written with fearlessness in mind. So many travellers are afraid to eat in the markets and on the street. I realize there are some precautions to take - take a little look around the premises, the crowd or lack thereof, etc.

But to eat like the people, you gotta eat with the people.

I just remember a place in Puebla, near the university downtown, a woman makes the most amazing tamales only in the morning. A breakfast tamale, very sweet, a pinkish colour.

A woman stands beside her and squeezes fresh orange and grapefruit juice. Who needs to eat in a hotel?!

I've just been so excited about Mexican food this last week. Last night, i made those stuffed jalapenos I was talking about and my hands won't stop burning. I've washed them with soap and water, washed them with a sliced tomatoe and then soap and water.

Any other cures, you know about?

S

[theabroma]

Omigod, Shelora! That's right where my hotel (Colonial) is! I have photos of that tamale lady and the orange juicer!! That tamalera also serves atole. That's where I saw the guy in the Beamer stop off on the way to work for a power breakfast - they're the ones I wrote about in my Mexico 'blog! I can't believe it!

And when you go down the street between the University buildings, do you remember the man who sells sliced fruits and vegetables in little bags with lime and chile? And are you a fool for those potato chips with Salsa Valentina and lime? Man, I gotta stop this. I'm gonna be in tears soon.

When do you think you'll be going back? I know I'll be in Chihuahua in August, and then in Tlaxcala and Puebla towards the end of August.

Theabroma

[ExtraMSG]

I've been real tempted to buy a professional quality digital video camera on ebay and go to Mexico and shoot a Globetrekker style guide to food there. Imagine a print with video guide. There's so much great food and it amazes me how scared people are to eat it. I was the only one to speak up on a recent Chowhound post where everyone was telling someone not to eat the street food in Mexico. You might as well just not go to Mexico, imo, if you're going to avoid street foods. But I think if you could show people how to order a huarache topped with nopales at the fondas in Mercado Merced or show people how to order a pescado zarandeado in the western resort towns and show them what it looks like and why it's so fabulous, it could make a difference. I was amazed how many backpackers, even, eat at the "safe" places.

I'm game for anything though. Mexico is such a great food country and I am always disappointed how many people go to places like Puerto Vallarta and eat at Fajita Republic food they could have gotten at Chili's back home for about the same price. Ugh! I don't know that I'm truly qualified but I'm willing to make myself so.

PS I wash my hands with acidulated water for chiles, usually lemon or lime juice. Only thing that works for me.

Edited June 4, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[theabroma]

It used to frustrate me a lot: hearing the received wisdom of the "don't drink the water/don't touch the food" crowd. Always wanted to shout the question "Then why in the hell did you come here?"

I've seen American kitchens in action, including the fine establishments stocked with culinary school grads should know better, and where 'out of sight, out of mind' is a mantra. Bourdain picked only some of the stuff ... the stuff that would get the biggest laughs.

So everyone feels safe eating in their hotel in Mexico, and will smugly tell you that you are shortly to be damned for eating off the carts, and sucking up those tamales with a cup of atole on the street corner. I have never gotten sick (I have had some Beowulfian hangovers, though) eating in Mexico, many I know who only eat "in the hotel" have ended up quite ill. Eating from the 'out of sight out of mind', time & temperature abusing, if it's smell rivals a durian, brine it, 10 second rule using, behind closed doors kitchens will get smug sorts what they probably deserve. Anywhere in the world, including the US. Maybe more especially the US. A lot of our food, especially animal flesh, is 'hot' by the time it enters the kitchen's receiving dock.

Common sense and good hygiene - the cook's and the diner's - will go far towards protecting you anywhere. Again, 'anywhere' includes here.

I think I mentioned the market taquito lady in Acuitlapilco, whose young daughter took the orders, and whose husband, the money. She wouldn't touch either thing - because all she did was wash her hands and prepared the food. When we get to that market with a camera, we should shoot extra footage of her, and turn it into a sanitation training film!

I realize that this has a rantesque quality, however ... it is, frankly, a racist thing to be so ignorant of what Mexico is (or any of a number of non-Western European countries, for that matter), and yet bound about quite confidently playing at being a cultural Dementor. Open the eyes, and open the mouth (but only to eat the proffered delicacy), then let that open the mind, and, should there be one, the heart.

Theabroma

PS: a solution of 1 pt of cool water to 1TBSP of household bleach (eg: Clorox) as a hand dip is usually sufficient to disarm the capsaicin in a chile.

[ExtraMSG]

One of the scariest looking street vendors in Puerto Vallarta that my wife wouldn't touch was one of my last eatings there. My wife was sick and hanging out while I went around and ate at many of the places I had wanted to but had avoided for her sake. She got sick from fruit, I believe, on a boat trip we made -- fruit I avoided because it looked like it had been sitting there a while. (But we paid lots of money, it must be safe, right?) Meanwhile, I went to the "rico pozole" vendor where several fabulous stews were bubbling away. Everything was being washed with a big jug of Cielo. I happily ate some of the best guisados I'll probably ever had and had a wonderful Spanglish conversation with a Portuguese fella. The owners were supremely nice and hygienic and proved to me you can judge a kitchen by the price of its cookware.

[shelora]

Freshly made potato chips in Puebla - oh yeah, I remember them well.

Puerto Vallarta - the best food I had there were the camarones on a skewer cooked over coals and sold on the beach.

The market in Zihuatanejo - the most amazing tortitas de papa. And the sea salt from that area is outstanding! And the salsas made in the well worn molcajetes. I miss it so much.

Yeah, I think this type of food guide - with video camera or still images - would be well received. By me, anyway!

But really, if the real food tours currently on television are any indication, this type of program could fly.

It could begin like something similar to the airline food website, where people take a photo of their meal, with airline flight, time, first class or economy and menu with their comments. I don't know if it still around, but it was curious.

I've gotta tell you this, on a recent return flight from Mexico, a woman was telling another passenger, that her Mother was so afraid of getting sick, she wouldn't even drink the coffee!!

At first, I was stunned and then it struck me as the funniest thing I'd ever heard. Isn't that too much?!

Looks like we are going back to Mexico around Christmas, unless a wonderful seat sale comes our way before then. In dire need of a break.

Over and out.

Shelora

[ExtraMSG]

If she was that nervous, probably a good thing she stayed away from the coffee.