Thanks to Susan Mills, I learned that today is Alexander Von Humboldt's birthday. Von Humboldt was what we might call a Renaissance man. He didn't follow a single, narrow field like geology, but rather looked for connections across the natural world. I don't know why he isn't famous in the United States as other 19th century pioneering scientists, like Darwin, are. Maybe teachers want their students to specialize and are afraid of wakening too much curiosity! Just joking.
Anyway, here is a link to a short biography from a blog at the Library of Congress. In it, the Port of Veracruz is mistakenly located in the west, not the east of Mexico.
Today is Mexico's Independence Day so here are a few photos to show our local celebrations. They seem muted this year. Few houses had decorations, and, more noticeable, there were no cohetes -- fireworks -- last night.
The left hand photo is of the tail-end of the Independence Day parade in our Colonia. It's put on by all the schools here.It is a big parade with drums and horns and dancers. Chedraui, the supermarket, brought dancers from Ballet Folklorico de Coatepec to their lobby yesterday. The dancers were excellent, my photos not so much. Three groups performed traditional Jarocho dances. They were not only exellent, but they radiated joy and energy. I am really disappointed that I don't have more to show! A couples dance was especialy charming, but my photos are very blurry so I left it out. You have to imagine the men in fringed leather jackets and cowboy hats and jeans and the women in gorgeous, brightly colored skirts with almost off the shoulder peasant blouses, swirling and stomping and flirting a bit. The right hand photo shows one chile en nogada. This is the traditional Independence Day dish: poblano peppers stuffed with shredded meat: beef and pork and chopped fruit drenched in a creamy sauce which includes ground walnuts.It's sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and maybe some parsley. It's a sweet dish and I love it. Dessert as a main course! It is traditionally said to have been created by a group of Augustine or Clarisa nuns in Puebla to honor Agustine de Iturbide after he signed the treaty ending the Mexican Revolution giving independence to Mexico. Chiles en Nogada are only prepared in August and September not only to mark Independence but because this is the season when pomagranates are ripe.
The only thing this post has to unify it is the fact that the pictures were all taken the same day at roughly the same time after Jim had picked me up from the singing group.
Bougainvillea and a yellow flower whose name I don't know tumble over the wall of a house.
The flowers close up.
Below are views of a house in the fraccionamiento (subdivision) called Las Matas (I think) in Coatepec. It looks as if it might have been designed by Ricardo Legorreta Vilchis who is famous for his use of geometric forms. His distinctive buildings can be seen all over Mexico and in the southwestern United States and in Nicaragua and El Salvador and Qatar among other places. The San Antonio, TX public library, also known as the Big Enchilada is his.
The front door:
Looking at the other side of the house from across the street.
More bougainvillea, this time sculpted.
We went to the Coatepec market and bought maracuya (passion fruit) below. In the photo, some of Jim's chiles surround it.
I made an agua from them. I used a receta that suggested one maracuya for each glass of water, then blend. That recipe was so sour that i had to unglue my cheeks from each other and put my eyes back in. I diluted it down to one maracuya to about three glasses of water plus a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and then blend it, seeds and all. after it sat for awhile, I strained it. Quite good and very much resembling agua de guayaba in flavor.
The brilliant red peppers are habaneros from Jim's plants. All the plants suffered from a plant- and leaf curling malady but still were hot and flavorful.
Resting on top of a turned-off burner on our stove is a hongo de chonote, or muchroom from the chonote tree, according to Guillermo.
What you see is a single scalloped, wrinkly .mushroom, perhaps 8 inches by si7 inches.
I am not a mushroom connoisseur. I can't honestly tell you I know the difference in flavor from one muxhroom to another. I can tell you thatt his is a bit more dense in texture than a regular mushroom. And maybe because of that the flavor is a bit stronger than the button mushrooms of supermarket fame.
We stopped at Chedraui on the way home. They already have their temporary tent-building set up in the parking lot for Christmas.
Now in season:
Zapote Negra.
About the size of an apple. The very black pulp is shiny, custardy and mild. Six or so smooth brown seeds nest in it. This is the first year we've eaten them. When we asked at the Coatepec market what to do with them, people looked at us in surprise. "Why you just break them open and eat them. Delicioius!" One woman gave us a recipe. Mix the flesh with pieces of orange and honey: muy dulce. As with much of the fruit here, zapotes negras are seasonal: here today, gone tomorrow.
I can see a relationship with mamey zapotes in the smooth, hard, oval seeds. But otherwise mamey zapotes seem quite different. They are larger, sort of football-shaped, with a rough tan skin and sweet- potato textured and colored pulp that in fact tastes a bit like sweet potatoes. It is both sweet and at times a little bit bitter. Mamey Zapotes seeds, though similar looking to zapotes negras, are much larger, and there is only one in each fruit.
My friend Judith who now lives in western mexico but who used to live in Xico wrote the following regarding gasparitos ( see my previous post):
"The GASPARITO you showed looks a lot like what I knew in Xico as EQUIMITE, a tree flower. We had [an equimite tree] in our yard in our first house there. I saw it sold on the street in Xico in season. My taste experience of it was of a very delicate flavor but one not perceptible, I imagine, if you boil.. it. Try a gentle saute and by all means don't take the center stalk out. It is not bitter."
At this time of year, when many deciduous trees here are bare, and the landscape is cloaked in dryer, more wintry colors, the gasparitos, which indeed are the same flower Judith remembers, are brilliant against gray branches. You can find pictures of them on the web. I looked up equimite, which is one of the tree's names as well as a name for the the flower, and found two other names for the tree as well: zompantle and colorin. If you read Spanish, this site has lots of useful information. It is apparently a plant of Mexican origin. Don't eat the seeds! They are toxic.
Below is a picture of purslane, or, as it's called here and elsewhere in Latin America, verdolaga or berdolaga (b's and v's are often indistinguishable in sound so the letters often get transposed in everyday writing.)
When we first moved into our house almost five years ago, verdolaga was growing in one of the flower beds. Guillermo, our gardener asked whether he should pull it. At least that's what I think he asked. Back in those olden days, I didn't understand much of what Guillermo or other Spanish speakers said. I gathered that the previous owners had told him to pull it because it was a weed. I went along with that.
Much to my surprise, a bit later our friend and vegetable lady came around SELLING the stuff. "But it's a WEED," I said. She was truly offended. "It certainly isn't," she said. "It's very good for you and very tasty and you can eat it all kinds of ways." So I bought a bunch, and as with the gasparitos, that bunch and numerous others slowly died in my refrigerator.
Finally, at this late date, we, or at least I -- Jim has a very strong, possibly genetically-determined aversion to greens I think and only eats them because he acknowledges the importance of their nutrients -- have been eating them. They have a tangy, sourish flavor which is quite pleasing. They can be eaten raw or cooked by themselves or stirred into any number of dishes.
When I first decided to give verlaga a try, I asked Doña Vicky across the street what to do with it. Once again she said, "Boil it before you eat it." I can hear Judith say, "No, no, no...." And in fact you don't have to. BUT I think the advice is good for a lot of people around here, at least to start with. Since it is definitely not confined to sterile (hah hah) garden spaces and easily available along roads and so forth, you don't know what animals have made use of it for one thing or another. Furthermore, the water supply itself is a bit unreliable as far as cleanliness goes. So BOILING makes sense especially if you can't treat the water you're washing the stuff in.
So verlaga is another one of those extremely nourishing plants that exists all around us and is FREE. Weed? I don't think so.
As purslane, verlaga now has champions in the US. Here is a link to a page with information on it. As you can see, it is full of nutrients and is the numero uno (apparently) source of omega 3 fatty acid in plants.
Speaking of nutrients, there is a book called The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas Campbell (father and son) based on, guess what, a project called The China Study in which Cornell University and Oxford University participated. They studied rural Chinese diets and came up with the conclusion that plant-based diets were better for health than meat- and dairy-based diets. What's really interesting, is that the authors say that nutrition science has been merrily galloping down the wrong path by studying individual nutrients instead of the effects of whole FOODS (not the store) on human health. Thus, we read that omega 3 fatty acid is good and race to the store to buy whatever has added it. Or we buy capsules. And junk food flourishes with its labels of vitamin-enriched, fiber-enriched, etc. And people aren't getting healthier. Meanwhile, free food that grows in our neighborhood is abandoned by the better-off and plastic wrappers from all manner of junk food dance along the streets (well, not in the colonia. It's kept pretty clean. But along the roads outside it.)
Now just for fun, here is a plant I picked while it was in the process of making what will be tiny purplish to lavender colored lantern-shaped blossoms:
The leaves are also quite charming, being around three or so inches long and rounded with delicately scalloped edges and light veins. Unfortunately they are the first part to whither upon picking. But here is a picture of one anyway:
And finally, our neighbor, Ingrid, who lives right across the street made hundreds of chains of beautiful, vivid flowers out of foam and glitter this past December. They hung in dazzling array along two of her walls. People bought them to decorate their altars for the Fiesta de la Virgen de Guadalupe. I bought two of them, too. After Christmas, I couldn't bear to put them away so I draped them on a candelabra. Here is a picture which doesn't really do them justice:
We have a friend here in Xico, a Mexican. I say Mexican for my USA readers who might not realize just how aware of environmental issues a lot of people here are. Anyway, he's a really smart guy who has worked in the area of tourism, natural resources and environmental stuff for a lot of years. His current gig is pushing solar ovens to lessen deforestation of our gorgeous, naturally tree-filled bosque de nieblas which suffers mightily from this.
But I have been thinking. Environmentalists, Mexican and USAers and others, tend to think maybe TOO naturally. And tend to want to have people who are less well-off go for more "natural" solutions than they might be interested in. I think some people (rich earth lovers, say) might use solar ovens, but I don't know why we should expect less well-off people to. Just makes life harder again. Solar ovens don't do what a modern stove does, or what a wood fire does. (I can hear our friend arguing with me.) They are limited by what they can cook, how they can cook it, and the weather. Especially here, the weather.
So I'm wondering. Why can't we, in the name of sustainable development, promote the use of GOOD,energy-efficient technology that also makes people's lives easier instead of harder? Many people in our area, including in our rural areas, have electricity. There are very energy efficient slow cookers and microwave ovens which do NOT need a stove top at all, and then, for those who have stove tops, there are pressure cookers. These all use less energy than a gas stove top which uses more than an electric one. As I understand it, wood costs about the same amount as gas for cooking. So any of these appliances I've mentioned would be useful in developing a sustainable economy and cutting back on deforestation.
If anyone knows of any organization that would be willing to fund the use of such cooking technology, please let me know!
Yesterday, Monday, May 10, was Mother's Day here in our neck of the woods. We went to Coatepec to buy a cake to take to our friends in Xico for comida. The sidewalks and streets were packed with people of all ages buying flowers and cakes for their mamís. Our friends had for the meal an enormous pot of caldo con camarones y jaibas -- shrimp and crabs -- in a delicious and very picante broth. The shrimp and crab are cooked whole, and after everyone washed their hands, we dove in, breaking shells off, cracking claws and sucking the meat from them and just generally pigging out. Shells and napkins piled up. It was a quieter meal than we normally have: someone said it was because it was more work to eat! Things got noisier with dessert: two yummy and creamy cakes. Somehow the conversation turned to talk of ghosts and our experiences with them. Jim was as always the reasonable skeptic, but the rest of us shuddered deliciously at each other's tales.
We also noticed that everybody had lost some weight, except Doña Gloria who doesn't need to. They were doing it as a family. The Mother's Day desserts were exceptions to their diets, just for that special day.
Which leads me to bring up the following article appearing in today's Diario de Xalapa. Problems with obesity are obvious in our area. They are starting to get attention, which is a good thing.
The picture below is captioned, "Obesity has become 'the mother of all pathologies'."
The article, on the front page of the online edition, is headlined, "A Crisis of Health Looms Because of Obesity"
Written by Miguel Zalazar, it says among other things, that "resources will be insufficient for treating hypertensives and diabetics within fifteen years. Our state, Veracruz, will be one of the most seriously affected because of its dense and large population.
The article quoted Pedro Antonio Lara Ruiz, head of a branch of the Health Department's program for adults and seniors. He pointed out that the problem can easily be reversed if and when people take it seriously. He pointed out that the two major approaches are not expensive but very necessary: "a break with a sedentary lifestyle and adoption of a healthy diet." He also pointed out that diabetes and hypertension were more and more frequently recognized early because of increased medical knowledge and attention to public health.
In Veracruz there are now policies which provide public education to people, which, according to the Sr. Lara Ruiz, is the best approach. He urged these policies be strengthened and extended.
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I don't know if I know the culture in our area well enough to say this for sure, but it seems to me that people here don't rebel against such information, they don't feel that it is somehow treading on their individualism. They tend to take it to heart, at least believing it's true, though finding junk food a hard habit to break. Just as in the states, junk food is omnipresent and very cheap and easy for hard-working parents to provide for their kids. It's also, I think, seen as somehow fancier and better than the fruit which often falls to the ground uneaten in the countryside within a short walk from our house, and even in neighbors' yards. I am always reminded of the tragedy we watched unfold when we were in the Peace Corps many years ago: the school's bursar and his wife had a new baby that got sick. The baby's parents had succumbed to the advertising of Nestle and had bought powdered formula instead of having the baby nurse. The water used for the powdered formula probably was contaminated. The parents thought that orange soda, bottled and expensive, must be better for the baby than something made from local ingredients as a treatment. The baby died, at least in part, from malnutrition.
I notice that in the article, Lara Ruiz emphasizes that obesity can be combated with low cost diet. I hope people recognize that this means the complete protein provided by tortillas and beans, the vitamins and minerals and more protein in the fruits that hang on the trees and in the vegetables, fruits and fish and chicken easy to obtain in local markets.
As ex-pats, we and others like us recognize that by following local guidelines for a good diet, we eat better for less than many of us ever have.
Yesterday we went up to visit Don A and Doña J and their daughter in Xico for comida, the main meal of the day, which people customarily eat sometime between 2 and 4. There was a whole bunch of guests already there sitting around two long tables that had been pushed together and covered with tablecloths and placemats. As happens here in our area more than any place I've lived since I was a kid in the Bronx, I feel the same rush of warmth I used to feel going into my grandmother's house for big family meals.
The tables were already laden with piles of tortillas and bowls of beans and bean broth and guacomole and bottles of Fresca and tequila and alcohol de caña. The men were, at the moment, clustered at one end while the women bustled in the kitchen which opened onto the dining room. Introductions all around: Three sisters of Doña J, two of their adult children, one ten year old, two husbands, and one husband's brothers. A little later, a goddaughter came with her two kids, a couple of other friends, and Doña J's and Don A's son and his novia and her mother, Doña G., whom we know pretty well. People brought more chairs, shifted seats. Everyone fit.
The meal was prepared from a recently slaughtered pig: the bean caldo being broth, big hunks of boiled meat wrapped in hoja santa, pork blood cooked into a kind of dark porridgy concoction called morunga seasoned with onions and chiles and spices, and large wavy sheets of chicharrón. Everything tasted wonderful, though I had a hard time having more than a taste of the morunga even though the taste was good. Blood sausage and blood pudding were not so rare in NYC. My mom and dad would eat it in German restaurants. But some things I'm not good at. My parents used to eat lung stew and my mom tried to get me to eat that to no avail, and tripe, here served in a soup called menudo. Still can't do it. Liver I like.
Doña J and her family originally were from the state of Guerrero. A number of years ago, one sister married a man from Xico. Later, more siblings, including Doña J and her husband, Don A who is from the state of Michoacán, followed. Some family still remains in Guerrero. Two of the brothers have worked over the years in the US, one still does and is married to a white woman (as he says) from the States and lives quite legally in a Michigan where he owns a house and some land and is a foreman. He has been in the States with a few breaks for over forty years. For eighteen of them he worked in the heat of Florida summers as well as through the winters sowing and harvesting. He has had a green card for many years, but cannot become a citizen because he cannot read English sufficiently well for the test. He is a jovial man, kind of the life of the party. He was home on a visit. We asked him how life was these days for an immigrant. He said it has gotten much worse in recent years, much more prejudice and overt hatred, many more immigrants, legal as well as illegal, picked up and thrown into privately-owned jails without cause being given. It sounded as if his life in his town was okay because he was well-established there.
When we were all at the table together, the bantering began: I don't remember what started it, but there we women were, united in praise of ourselves, our intelligence, our quickness to learn, etc. etc. The men had no defense except that they were stronger. Of course we women laughed at that. And there was some discussion over who was really the boss of the family. The men told lots of jokes, including some immigrant jokes and lots of jokes at the expense of women. We women laughed at them, too, and had some comebacks, of course. Some of the jokes were over Jim's and my head. It's often really hard to translate jokes from one language to another, and lots of Mexican jokes involve puns, making it harder. One joke was about confusion between a border guard and a hungry inmigrante, centered on an armadillo. It went past me completely. Although I did get that the word chicharron was also slang for breasts.
We talked about a lot of stuff. Of course we compared countries and experiences from driving to prices to public manners to Social Security benefits to living apart from one's family and living in a foreign country: when does it start to feel like home? At around 4:00 the television went on: Football. Soccer, that is, a World Cup game between Mexico and El Salvador. Unlike in the US, only one person went over to sit and watch it deliberately. The sound of the game wove in an out of the talk around the table.
We finally left as people drifted from the table to the kitchen, to the living room, and to go home. As usual I ate too much. I am still feeling the consequences. I think I will avoid eating much today.
It is called Orangette. Molly and Brandon have just opened a restaurant. It is like reading a novel, sort of, and the recipes are fabulous.
Here.
This is not just a blog of recipes but of history and culture and joie de vivre. Excuse the French.
A sampling from a recent post:
Dichos Mexicanos Relativos a la Cocina
• "A comer y a la cama, una vez se llama"
• "A falta de pan, tortillas"
• "Al mejor cocinero se le va un jitomate entero"
• "Las cuentas claras y el chocolate espeso"
• "Del plato a la boca se cae la sopa"
• "A comer y a misa, una vez se avisa"
• "Donde no hay harina, todo es ruina"
• "Las penas con pan son menos"
• "Barriga llena, corazón contento"
• "Entre menos burros, más olotes"
• "Para todo mal, mezcal. Para todo bien, también"
• "Cuando como no conozco"
• "Primero mis dientes, luego mis parientes"
• "A los hombres por el estomago se les conquista"
It is indeed in Spanish, but that shouldn't hold you back!
The above sayings -- some of them I'm not sure how to translate.
You only need to call someone to eat and to bed once.
If you don't have bread, eat tortillas.
To the best cook goes a whole tomato.
Telling it like it is and thick chocolate. Hmmmm. Help!
On the way from the dish to the mouth the soup falls.
To go to eat and to mass, you are advised once...
You get the idea.
Your translations would be much appreciated! Do them instead of worrying about the election.
At the top of Cocinando con los Sentidos, you will always find this "cartel."
Mexicans are sad and so angry at the violence that narcotráfico is visiting on this beautiful country and the people in it.