Abuela's House

On Sunday August 1st I had the pleasure to attend a family lunch at my buddy Emilio’s grandmother’s house. I had been to her house a couple of times during my stay here in Mexico City and she has always made me feel like part of the family. So I was especially excited to sit down and break bread with her and some of Emilio’s other family members.

The house where abuela (Spanish for grandmother) lives is located in the beautiful San Angel neighborhood. This is an old neighborhood filled with large trees that provide a nice shade over cobblestone streets. Abuela’s house is an impressive open aired piece of architecture that is as elegant as it is stylish. Think of the houses that you might see on telenovelas (Mexican soap operas)minus the gaudiness.

The first time I went to abuela’s, house her and I inevitably began to start talking about food at which point she promised to cook me some pollo en mole. Living up to her promise on Sunday around one o’clock Emilio, his sister Magdelena, Magadelena’s fiancé Jorge, Emilio’s dad and I all headed to the house.

Before we sat down to eat, we first went to the patio for drinks and appetizers. I had a Corona (Mexican beer) while Emilio’s father and uncle were sipping on some Jose Cuervo Tradicional (tequila). To whet our appetites we were served Zacahuil as an appetizer. This dish, Zacahuil, in its complete form looks like a very large tamale (which I guess it is). It comes from the Northern part of Mexico and is common

in abuela’s home state of San Luis Potosi.

Emilio’s uncle explained to me that Zacahuil is made in a big pot where they cover the bottom with masa de maize (corn dough) then fill it with cheese/meat/vegetables followed by covering it again with the masa de maize. The end result is a really big, tasty tamale that is then cut and served like one would a casserole. I had to try and not fill up on this dish because I knew that this was just the beginning.

After drinks and appetizers on the patio we went inside and sat d

own for lunch. A quick word about lunch. Lunch here in Mexico is more like dinner in the states. It is the most important meal of the day where one usually eats the most food in one setting and it can last from one to two hours.

The main dish was pollo en mole, but before we get to that I have to mention one of the side dishes. I do not remember what Emilio’s aunt called this dish but it looked like a hot pocket however tasted nothing like one. Emilio’s aunt explained to me how she made these “pockets.” She used mashed banana mixed with egg as dough. She then used this dough to cover a mixture of cheese and meat. These

pockets were lightly fried then put into the oven to bake. I couldn’t get over how well the fried banana went with the cheese. Moreover, the taste reminded me of a type of omelet my mom used to make for me when I was a kid: banana omelet. I know it sounds weird, but it was really good because she would put a little sugar in the egg batter. Hey, every family has there own special tradition and think about yours before you judge mine.

Back to the meal, the appetizers and side dishes were all just precursors to the main event, which was the pollo en mole. I can’t describe the sensation I felt when I went into the kitchen and looked inside the “olla” (pot). In the olla there was this sauce, dark as oil, with a smell that took hold of my nose and taste buds. The concotion smelled sweet and bitter at the same time, with hints of pumpkin. In this sauce there was a whole chicken bathing in the mixture. It looked amazing and tasted even better. I decided that I had to have a caballito (pony)* of tequila as well as a glass of “agua fresca de guayaba” to go with this truly inspiring home cooked meal. Now, my mother has always taught me to be polite at the dinner table and mind my manners, but I couldn’t help but licking my fingers a couple of times and going back for seconds and thirds. They were all impressed with my ability to eat such a large quantity, but what they didn’t know is that I was actually full, but couldn’t bear to waste this golden opportunity to eat such good food.

After eating, we sat around talking for a couple of hours. Everyone told stories and jokes about such subjects as living in the United States or funny sayings in Spanish. The conversation was a lot of fun and after a while they brought out these little half-cups of blue bell ice cream. I had to go and turn the light switch on and off to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.** In what world was I in that such good food was to be followed by a throwback to the deliciousness that is Blue Bell ice cream from when I was a kid. It was the perfect cap to a very special meal.

And that’s what eating together is all about isn’t it? Creating these special moments around food. I’ve been studying food for a while now, and I always find it remarkable how defensive people sometimes get about their ideas about food. But, going to this dinner reminded me about how intense of a bond can be formed in moments when we eat with other people. Eating together is an intimate experience. It stands to reason then that we should want to defend the sanctity of this event. Therefore, when I discuss food with other people, it may seem like “food” is the subject matter, but in actuality people are usually talking about something so much more than just what we put in our mouths to feed our bodies.

* Pony is a word that I've often used, but not until I came to Mexico did I do some online (wikipedia and such) research on the word due to its relation with the spanish word caballito. Here is what i've found:

-"Pony" can be used to refer to an amount such as "that drink contains a pony of gin" where "pony" is being used to describe a shot/jigger/1 oz of alcohol. This usage is a little "old timey" but relevant nonetheless.

-I've also heard "pony" used to refer to settling debts such as "it's time for you to pony up."

-I have often used the phrase "let's pony up to the bar," in this case meaning to "belly up" or head over to the bar, but have found no evidence that can tell me where this comes from. However, if you do a little google search, you can find many instances when this phrase is used.

From what I've found "pony," literally a small horse, is used to refer to small things, such as a pony keg of beer which is smaller than a regular size keg. Or in the case from above a pony of alcohol meaning a small amount. The thing I discovered here in Mexico is that the word "caballito," (little horse) is used to refer to a shot of alcohol (almost exclusively referring to tequila). It took me a while to connect the dots caballito is a small horse like a pony, oh yeah we use pony to refer to small amount of liquor AHA! Caballito!

**In Richard Linklater's movie Waking Life there is a scene in which the main character is told that to figure out if you're dreaming you should go to a light switch and turn it on and off. Apparently in dreams we are unable to register light changes. Here's a link to the scene which I highly recommend watching all the way through, but if you don't have six minutes and twenty two seconds then just watch the first conversation and then skip to minute 4:30. Waking Life

World Cup/Mexican Snacks

I watched the World Cup final at my friend Alejandro Maroto’s house. We had a great time watching Spain win the honors of “Best in the World.” This event gave me more insight into my new interest, soccer, but the day was not without some culinary observations. Before I talk about soccer, let’s talk about Mexican snacks.

Whoa Rick. What do you mean Mexican snacks? I thought you were all about shared borders and not forcing labels onto bits of culture that can easily be found on both sides of the border.

Well “imaginary voice,” I can’t find these snacks in the U.S. so therefore I refer to them as Mexican. Shall we take a look.

Let’s start with the chips. Ruffles makes these amazing Queso chips through a Mexican company called Sabritas. They have the same rigid texture like regular Ruffles Potato Chips, but these have a strong cheese flavor combined with a hint of lime. Delicious.

On that note, I’m starting to think that Mexico’s chips are far better than the U.S.’s chips. Now I know that the U.S. has the market cornered on fancy chips. All the kettle-cooked stuff we have is great. But, when it comes to just “good ole “ fashion junk food chips, I think Mexico wins hands down.

Next, the beer. We had Indio which is made by the Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma Brewing Company. Cuauhtémoc also makes other beers such as Dos Equis, Sol, Tecate and Bohemia. I first had this beer in 2005 in Guanajuato and I have to admit that I didn’t like it. I'm starting to think that this past dislike was probably due to a dirty keg connection because the Indios I hade at Maroto’s hit the spot. Indio is a dark beer, but does not have an overly strong flavor, which makes it go down very easy. I like my beers to go down easy during a sporting event so Indio won me over.

Along with our snacks, Maroto also made some fajitas. Fajitas can of course be found in the U.S., but the corn tortillas that accompanied the fajitas cannot. I cannot get over how much better and more abundant corn tortillas are here in D.F. Honestly, most of the food I’ve tried has a somewhat close equivalent in the U.S., but not the corn tortillas. I guess this perfection is the result of over 10,000 years of practice.

This is Maroto and Mayra.

I had a really good time watching the game and hanging out with my new found friends in Mexico City. After the game, we all were standing in a circle and I watched these guys argue over who is the best soccer player then they all started making fun of each other using various inside jokes (Bariloche?).

I laughed at what I understood, and enjoyed the rest simply by being there. I put the fajitas on my corn tortilla, squirted some lime on the meat, added some salsa and devoured my taco. After my first bite, I took a big pull of Indio. This may not be how everybody in Mexico watches soccer, but it will forever be the way I picture it.

Other thoughts:

We had a fun day watching the game, but my favorite part came after the game when all the guys went outside to play a pick-up game, or as it’s called here a cascara. I believe a cascara can refer to any game that is not a “league game” or does not involve referees.

Here are some pics of the guys playing soccer on the street.

I Pronounce it S-O-C-C-E-R

Every four years, countless U.S. citizens decide to jump on the bandwagon that is international soccer. Plenty of the U.S. sites I read, such as Bill Simmon’s sports blog, Sports Guy’s World, have given their opinion on a sport the majority of U.S. citizens know little about, for an example check out Bill Simmon’s 2009 article on Mexican soccer. Others people have noticed this trend as well, such as The Onion’s website Stuff White People Like which has humorously come up with reasons why people in the U.S. say they like soccer, for a quick and funny example of this I refer you to #80 The Idea of Soccer.

This sudden “soccer mania” is heightened every four years, during World Cup, when just about anyone with a computer feels like they can just rant about a sport they know nothing about. With that said: Here are some thoughts I’ve had on soccer.

Let’s just start off with a very basic statement. I enjoy the World Cup. I enjoy the atmosphere it creates, I enjoy the conversations that it produces and I really enjoy the ridiculously over-nationalistic sentiments it inspires. This has little to do with my relationship to the game. I’ve never really played soccer all that seriously, and I could probably go the rest of my life without doing so. However, I really like cheering for a team.

For example, when I was 21 years old my buddy Mike Graham played bass for a band called Satellite Season. They were cool. Well more like decent. Actually, I would probably have hated them if I wasn’t friends with Mike. Satellite Season was a depressed grungy rock band that came a few years too late to the party that was grunge rock.

But you couldn’t tell me that they weren’t the bee’s knees. If they weren’t all that great then why did I become their super-fan? Well, it’s because I like cheering for a team.

This sentiment towards wanting to cheer for a team, is compounded when you add it to the fact that I’m also an awfully loyal guy. Of the teams I root for: 1) Texas Longhorns, 2) Houston Rockets, 3) Tina Fey, 4) Chicago Bulls, 5) Tennessee Titans, 6) Houston Texans, 7) Houston Astros, 8) Texas Rap, 9) Speedy Gonzalez, 10) People that are 5”8 ¾, 11) Lindsay Lohan, I could probably knock off the last six if it weren’t for loyalty. I’ve been sticking with Lindsay Lohan since 2004 simply because she came out in Mean Girls, a movie that Tina Fey wrote. That is quite a stretch, however that is how my mind operates.

Which brings me to U.S. soccer. I have become a super-fan of U.S. soccer because I have plenty of reason to be loyal to this team and therefore can really enjoy rooting for them.

What I liked most about our team this year is that we were tough. This characteristic is especially noticeable in a sport where there is a lot of… hmm, what word should I use? There is a lot of “acting” going on during play. Due to the prevalence of this un-attractive quality, I have come to view “toughness,” above many other characteristics (ball control, defense, attacks), as the main thing I look for in my favorite soccer teams.

I came to this realization a couple of years ago while watching an English Premier League game. I can’t remember the exact details, but the match featured Manchester United versus some other team. I remember seeing Wayne Rooney get slide tackled hard, but instead of grabbing his ankle and trying to draw a foul, he quickly popped up, and tried to keep playing. The whistle blew because the foul was obvious. And while the referees were assessing what happened the camera quickly panned over to Wayne Rooney, who was un-phased waiting to see what was about to happen with blood coming down his knee. This guy is tough and that to me was the way I thought soccer should be played.

From then on I began to have this dream about U.S. soccer. I figured we weren’t going to be the best any time soon. We don’t have a good enough league, and all though more players are starting to go over seas to play, we still don’t have enough people playing against the best in order to bring U.S. soccer up to that next level. But, what we could become, is soccer’s blue-collar team.

This actually was very much how the U.S. played. In almost every game, Clint Dempsey was being killed, but he didn’t dive. I found further evidence on the U.S.’s toughness when this interview aired on U.S. coach Bradley’s views on diving.

Overall, we had a really good tournament. And I know that even though I knew a lot less about the game than a lot of my friends, they had to agree with me that the U.S. looked pretty good this year.

Sample Conversation:

Friend: “Ricky, you know nothing about soccer.”

Me: “Yeah, dawg I know, but did you see Landon Donavon’s goal against Algeria? Tell me that wasn’t good soccer.

Friend: “Whatever man.”

You see, if Friend hadn’t agreed with me, he would have kept arguing. This dismissal felt like a win for me.

McPatatas?

Yes, I am in Mexico City studying food. And yes, I took a trip to McDonalds. You see friends, in order to understand the whole of Mexico City you have to explore everything from the smallest street stand to the "Arches de orro."

There were a few differences in McDonalds in D.F. and McDonalds in the states. First of all, one has the option to order McPatatas instead of the regular fries when ordering a combo meal. McPatatas are like wedge fries in the U.S. Larger and thicker than normal fries.

Also, you always get jalepenos, that come in the same kind of container that you would normally get ketchup in. These jalapenos, that have more of a relish consistency, were my favorite part.

The one thing I was sad about was that my drink did not come with ice, but that's a small concession. Otherwise the quarter-pounder I ate was pretty much the same as the one I have had in the states. I promise not to go back here for the rest of my visit.

The Place Where No One Knows My Name

So like every new place I go to, I like to find the community watering hole, where I can go and rub elbows with the people of the area. I found the establishment I was looking for in the centro de Tlalpan and it is called La Jalisciense.

La Jalisciense is a shot-gun bar with about 7 four person tables, and one big table where 10 people can sit towards the back. There is a little kitchen area connected to the entrance on the bar side where there will usually be a big pot with a soup or rice for the customers. There is also a comal to do some small cooking of meats and veggies. Like many other cantinas, when you come to this place and drink you will usually be offered a little snack (botanas) like raw veggies (carrots, cucumbers) with lime and ground chile or some chicharrones (pork rinds). Even when I don’t think I’m in the mood, I almost always end up eating this stuff.

I have recently commented on the lack of bar-service places in Mexico City where one can go up to the bar and drink. Though the tables are much more common, in La Jalisciense there is indeed counter service. The rub here is that there are no stools, so if you want to order at the bar you had to stand. I was cool with this minor inconvenience, because I figured if I didn’t drink at the bar, I would pass the whole night without saying a word to a single soul.

So, I ponyed up to the bar and order a Negra Modelo. This is one of my favorite Mexican beers because it has some flavor, but still retains that quality of a lighter beer. This beer is just what I needed after doing a whole lot of reading all day.

I drank my first beer and noticed that the guy next to me was eating some hot wings. I asked the bartender if they were serving food, and he said they had a nice “sopa de camaron” (shrimp soup) if I was hungry. I really wanted the hot wings, so I tried not to look too disappointed and politely declined the soup. Maybe noticing my disappointment or putting my accent together with the inclination of Americans and their hot-wings, he quickly offered me the wings which he thought were second rate compared to the soup. I said “yes” with all the excitement that the fat kid inside me (or outside depending on if you're cool or not) was trying to contain.

The next move was to order a nice tequila. I’d only had one since I’d been in Mexico City, and felt this was a shame. I ordered my usual Don Julio reposado and asked the bartender if he could do it bandera style. Having worked for a while on the other side of the bar, I know this can be a pain, but I waited for a calm moment, and order it only after I’d seen him make one earlier.

Bandera is probably my favorite way to drink tequila slowly. What you get with this preparation is a shot of limejuice a shot of the tequila of your choice, and a shot of sangrita. Sangrita can be made in different ways. Here at La Jalisciense, they used clamato, salt, pepper, jugo Maggie, and hot sauce. The three shots, lime (green), tequila (white) and sangrita (red) combine to form the colors of the Mexican flag, thus the name bandera.

There are many ways to drink this multi-coursed spirit. Here’s mine. First, you take a sip of the lime juice to awaken the palette; then, take a drink of the tequila, swashing it over the different taste buds then swallowing; finally, when you feel the warmth of the tequila going down your throat take a swallow of the sangrita. The sangrita is not supposed to act as a chaser, but rather more like a “re-setter” to get you and your palette ready for the next cycle of this process. The cool thing about drinking tequila this way is that by the end of the shot (or second or third) you are taking less of the lime and sangrita and just enjoying the tequila.

Speaking of tequila, I love tequila. It is a wonderful drink that I have always thought is quite magical in that it is a depressant, yet can stimulate the mind, body and conversation while at the same time loosening the moral constraints that we sometimes find ourselves in. However, tequila was not the only Mexican spirit I wanted to imbibe on this night. The Mezcal in the bar was calling my name.

Mezcal also originates from this wonderful country and it is a whole different animal. In trying to think of the difference between tequila and mezcal I could only, in my limited vocabulary, find the word “gamey” as an accurate adjective to describe the difference. Mezcal is more "gamey" than tequila. The same way one can taste a steak made of beef and a steak made of bison and know there is something very similar yet very different, I think one can similarly compare tequila and a lot of mezcals and differentiate them in the same way. Mezcal to me just has something a little wilder, less refined about it. This is not at all a judgment on quality. There are plenty of expensive, well-made mezcals, and to tell you the truth, I don’t know enough about this particular spirit to tell the difference. But there is something a little more “gamey” about this liquor.

The mezcal I had was “de la casa” (house mezcal) and I can’t quite remember the name, nor make out what it is from this photo. All I know is that I drank it a lot more slowly than I did the tequila and afterwards I felt like I had a little more “gitty-up” in my step.

By the time I had gotten to this hard liquor portion of the night, the bar had become packed with a variety of people old and young. I got up to chatting with a fellow who worked at U.N.A.M. With him, was his girlfriend/wife, who had just gotten back from doing some work in Europe. They asked me where I was from, what I was doing and the like. I told them about my project on food and how I was interested in the cultural differences between Mexican Americans and Mexicans. They seemed at first distant towards me, which I found odd because they were the ones that started talking to me first. I later figured out that they were in some sort of lover’s spat and I guess I was serving as a middle-man, keeping the peace and what not. I thought it entertaining the way they would give each other quick nasty glares, then turn to me, contrasting their emotions dramatically with a big smile and start making polite conversation with me asking me questions about my life and the such. I didn’t really mind because I was just happy to be talking to someone.

I left around midnight and walked home with a confident strut that came from the magic of the tequila and mezcal. On a “heavy” night like this one I had on Friday it is always nice when I get to the top of the hill where I am staying and see the gates to my casa in Mexico. When I see this picture I am assured that I’ve made it home, which in this huge, exciting city is always a bit of an accomplishment.

La Selva

I found a home where I can go to and enjoy a coffee while I sit and do some people watching in the center of Tlalpan. The place is called La Selva and it sits on the corner of the neighborhood’s plaza. For about a buck fifty I can get a coffee with two refills. If I’m in a more “Emilioy (my buddy from D.F. who I swear has a pretentious Frenchmen lurking somewhere inside him)" mood I’ll go for an espresso corta (macchiato [espresso with a little milk]).

The first day I went I was not feeling so good so I ordered a hot tea. The server asked me what flavor, so I went with manzana con canela (apple flavor with tea and cinnamon). To my surprise the tea came garnished with walnuts and pomegranates. I love the presentation of both of these drinks.

Covadonga

My tour of D.F.’s hip bar scene continued on Friday night when I spent an evening at Covadonga, a Spanish style restaurant that’s basement turns into a full-on bar at night. From what I’ve read and heard about Covadonga it’s one of those places that many claim they “used to go to before it got popular.” However, from what I saw, Covadonga still seems like a pretty cool place to be as wellas a cool place to be seen.

My buddy Emilio and I arrived to this bar around 8pm and decided to get a little food. The restaurant is Spanish but like any establishment its environment is evident in everything. I looked at the menu and saw what I thought to be Spanish dishes. My rationale went something like this “Well all these words are in Spanish, but I don’t recognize any of them so it must be Spanish.” The Spanish dish we ended up getting was called Chistorra. This is a Spanish style sausage, and it is available in a white cheese (I think Panela).

Chistorra may sound exotic, but in the end it is exactly what it sounds like, sausage in melted white cheese. It was good, but because I rarely get to do this, I have to say that I believe this Spanish food was quite “Mexicanized."* This Mexicanized Spanish dish came with a red salsa and tortillas (Mexican style not Spanish). These sides, tortillas and salsa, I’m pretty sure, are not characteristic of Spanish food. However this lack of adherence to authenticity did not stop Emilio and I from devouring this dish because it was good and we were hungry. The food came with white bread that we dipped into the salsa, and later in the meal we got some beer nuts.

Halfway through our night we got a Spanish style tortilla which is kind of like a quiche. Ordering this dish created the awkward moment where the Mexican tortilla was next to the Spanish tortilla as if they had mistimed their appearances and ended up at the same place. This reminded me of the first time Emilio (the “real” Mexican) and I (the “real” Mexican in my group of friend) first met, and I had to become the Tejano in the group. Maybe the Spanish style tortilla and Mexican tortilla will go on to be good friends too. Moving on from the food.

Covadonga is a good example of one of the big differences that I have begun to notice between D.F. bars and the one’s I am used to frequenting in the U.S. This difference is based in the popularity of “table service” over “bar service” in the choice of community watering holes.In my well researched experiences in the U.S. bar culture I have noticed that most places in the U.S. have a bar that one can go to, sit and get a beverage alone with regularity.** This is not so in Mexico City. In D.F. it is much more common in a cantina (bar) to sit down at a table. In fact I have yet to see a place with a bar that people are occupying. The actual “bar” part of the bar is used more for functionality and rarely has stools.

These “barless bars” have both their advantages and disadvantages. One point for the Mexico City style bars is that conversation among big groups is much more manageable. Anyone who has ever sat at a bar knows how getting stuck next to someone you don’t want to talk to, can make for a bad experience. In a Mexico City bar one can navigate amongst many conversations, or just have one big conversation (except if you’re on the end, then tough luck).

On the other hand, the beauty of bar service is that you always know there will be at least one person that you can talk to… the bartender. Servers rarely are able to offer the same kind of conversation that a bartender can offer which makes sitting at a table alone as lonely an experience as it looks. Luckily, my experiences in Mexico City have so far always been with other people making this a moot point, however I’m sure soon enough I will make an awkward move and pony up to a bar by myself and see what happens.

Back to Covadonga. The large room with neon lights and large tables, some adorned with white table cloths, reminded me of a High School cafeteria. Although, this particular cafeteria was way cooler and had much more alcohol flowing through it than my high school, it still had this “clique-ish” feeling. At one table you could see all the “emo” kids with their piercings, tight jeans and framed glasses; across from them were the old men playing dominoes; and at another table you saw the business types getting stoned on their tonic and gin.

However, where in high school this all combined for an uncomfortable feeling, here it mixed into a really exciting place to drink. The myriad of people created a feeling of community within the large room. The countless conversations in the room combined to form a pub like soundtrack in a bar that was absent of music. I was happy to be here and my company made it better.

The people I was sitting with were my buddy Emilio’s friends from college. They were good examples of the type of people you might run into in Covadonga. They had all gone to the important D.F. college Colegio de Mexico (COLMEX) with the exception of Paul, who went to U.N.A.M arguably the most important university in the country.

As I talked to this group in my accented Spanish, I learned that they came from a variety of jobs. In the group there were government workers, freelance writers, artists, graphic designers and students. What’s more is that they all had something interesting to say about everything. We talked about food, the U.S., Haiti, World Cup, violence in Peru as well as Paul the octopus.

I took it all in, and by the time it was 2:30 am my body was buzzed, my Spanish was broken and I was ready to leave the bar. We got into a cab to take us home. As we drove down Insurgentes I could see one of Mexico City’s multiple business districts with tall buildings, and countless stores. Along the street I sawpanaderias (bakeries) taco restaurants, Pizza Hut and Starbucks, malls, banks, and much more all packed side by side. But it seemed neither Mexican nor American but rather something altogether unique. And as we drove home that night I couldn’t help but feel like I was in the future. A place that had gotten so big so fast, that modernity and tradition were struggling to fit together side-by-side. Or maybe I just had a few too many beers.