Through the Looking Glass

Lion and Lamb

Moctezuma doesn't often take revenge on his own people, but every now and then, I suppose his spirit does come back to haunt the European genes in the mix. Patricio himself, who boasts a stomach of steel, is only now recovering from that old Aztec's wrath, after a week of frequent visits to the powder room. Originally placing the blame on a bad batch of chilaquiles he'd brunched on at a hole in the wall place, he discovered the truth a few days later. Stopping by to see his brother, Alberto, his laments turned out to be shared. And having shared the same meal the previous Sunday, their suspicions were corroborated by the words of our little nephew, spoken with innocent foreshadowing before we gathered around his family's table for the hours-in-preparation barbacoa.

"What's the occasion we're celebrating?" Patricio asked little Eder, knowing that we're usually invited out to the small ranch in Tenopalco to celebrate a birthday or the town's Saint Day in October.

"Nothing," he replied. "It's just that one of grandma's sheep died. So we're going to eat it."

We laughed, heedlessly trooping out into the patio surrounded by the extended family's homes, where the tables were set and the salsa laid out.

Perhaps it wasn't Moctezuma after all. Only a sad little sheep, gone before its time. Note to selves, we later said, though: don't be too quick to celebrate the death of grandma's livestock. Even stomachs of steel may become lions defeated by the lamb.

A Word to Paint a Thousand Pictures

The conundrum of writing when multitudes of special things happen;

This is where I stand, making haiku to gather up image and thoughts.

***

Madcap high-schooler, mooning traffic-slowed cars from his school bus window:

What more, besides a timely cellphone call, can make Saturdays such fun?

***

Applying for my Mexican driver's license was easy as pie.

A visa and a payment, a sitting before the camera. Done.

***

A postponed tour of an art patron's frenzied world bore a small world tale:

The kind woman to my right knows a good friend of mine down New Zealand way.

***

Dear friend, Rachel, lands in the City for a week of adventuring.

Next day, my Matrix is towed from Condesa's streets (parking anarchy).

Two rescuing souls in button-up shirts and ties banish fear with help.

***

Taking a taxi to Bellas Artes palace, our thoughts leaned toward dance.

Shen Wei's company left us breathless after their second performance.

***

Matrix, freed from the lot, rolls us up into green, mountainous glory:

Temoaya, where we watched the clouds and listened to clear water running,

And voices speaking Otomi carried themselves across stone and town.

***

Bar Chon: where ant eggs and chrysanthemum petals are served up for lunch.

Simply a good start, for the evening held promise of lucha libre:

A universe of masks, sparks, raised fists and popcorn--nothing, if not fun.

***

Slow, coffee morning preceded night, and my face smeared with birthday cake.

Tradition let me plant a frosting kiss on the cheek of the culprit.

***

A gorgeous day through canals in Xochimilco meant celebration.

I had turned 30, with a thriving sense of wonder still intact.

***

Palm Sunday having passed, we walked through the streets of Villa del Carbón.

Buying fine leather boots, I hoped for miles to go before I should sleep.

Free Range

It wasn't often that I gave much thought to chickens when living in the U.S. I'm sure fond of eggs cooked enough to make the yolks run messy over a slice of toast. And it doesn't take much for the thought of chicken enchiladas in salsa verde to make my mouth water. That said, it's clear that unless I was thinking of chicken as a metaphor for fits of fearfulness, I usually thought of chicken in terms of something to stick in my mouth. Chicken, the bird, was a feathery shadow of abstraction. A time or two, the words "free-range" would come up, conjuring visions of bobbing heads and leathery-claw feet in the tall grass of, say, Nebraska. But free-range talk always happened with a fork near my left hand, transferring the "c" word quickly back from the bird category to the food one.

But the world has turned, and has left me where a rooster lives on the other side of the Shrek-colored stream bank. More often seen than heard, he hurls out his curdled call with a force an opera singer would likely envy. He particularly enjoys crowing out his pre-dawn sets, but an afternoon can just as easily find him bestowing a vocal moment upon the neighbors. And the house catty-corner behind us has their own hen. Less predictable than the rooster usually is, she clucks loud and clear when she's laid another egg. 

Their sound is a daily, if almost constant presence. I can't help but envision them--solid, feathered struttingness and all, because I always see the likes of them with every drive through town, up into the northern reaches of the municipality, like Cahuacán. Pecking about in their animal-cropped yards, and sometimes venturing toward the edges of the packed-dirt roads, they might not be in Nebraska, but they're as free-range as they come.

Chicken means "bird" to me now, as much as it does "main dish," their presence as unsurprising as a tractor driving down a small town's main street. Still, in the enjoyment of chicken or egg, it's the latter that certainly comes first. María, lovely neighbor that she is, sent a dozen huevos de rancho (ranch eggs) our way last week, and their runny yolks have been the crown jewels of my toast. I'd be lying if I said I could taste a real difference; had I not cracked them myself, I'd believe they came in a store-bought carton.

But it's their uneven sizes and their rosy earth colored shells that make me think of them as more than just food. I remember the early morning rooster, and the happy, maternal afternoon hen. And chicken becomes something more. Something real. Something to really think about.

Deseos

Beginning with grapes, a lot of wishes are made and sent upward here between New Year's Eve and Epiphany. Twelve seconds before midnight of this new 2007, Patricio and I began stuffing those large purple globes into our mouths, making silent wishes for the twelve months to come, a hope expressed for each of the twelve sweet and seedy grapes. Having gone in for the loveliness of their shape, we'd forgotten to take into account their size; midnight rang out with the explosion of fireworks in the street, and with full mouths, we still had two or three to go. Believing in good luck for ourselves, in spite of our post-midnight bites, we sent our last desires up and out into the air, hopeful and even confident in another year of fine things from the future.

In the week that followed, children's wishes became tangible references, written into letters and sent skyward on the string of a Three Kings balloon. An environmental bugbear of a tradition, it's still a whimsical rite of touching innocence, where desire hasn't quite yet crossed the border to greed. Santa isn't the only fellow to tackle a sudden onslaught of holiday season missives; the Magi also collaborate on judging a little one's year of behavior against a letter that details what they want for being good. In recent decades, Santa has been making deliveries in Mexico, too, but those wise men have been kings of the gifting realm for many more.

In anticipation of their arrival on the eve of January 6, children pour out their hearts on paper to the Tres Reyes Magos--the Three Magi Kings--Gaspar, Melchor and Baltazar*, then tie their letters tight onto that special helium-filled courier service, full of faith in the mysteries of air mail. Knowing that Jesus received nothing less than gold, frankincense and myrrh from those men, it's hard not to trust in the arrival of something wonderful when they wake up early on the Día de los Reyes, the Kings' Day.

Many may have given a preview to their letters' content when meeting the Magi, their chance to stand or sit for a minute with them in front of a camera. Dressed in elaborate costumes of satins, baubles, trimming and beads, their appearance represents more than what Matthew recorded as their origins "from the east." Perhaps because they have been viewed as symbols of Noah's sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, who tradition holds as having peopled Asia, Africa and Europe, respectively, or perhaps due to the Moorish influence in Spain, the Magi often include a turbaned king of African descent. Always, though, like Santa, they include an aura that makes kids' eyes light up most often with delight--and occasional terror--in their physical presence.

And whether or not their Día de los Reyes wishes fully come true, most will still end the day with a sweet taste on their tongues. Rich, oval rosca de reyes bread, with candied fruits crowning the sugar-glazed top, draws the whole family to the dinner table. Secretly, each one wishes they won't serve themselves a slice with the baby figurine tucked deep inside.

If they do, they'll be bearing the gift of a tamale dinner for everyone come Candlemas on February 2. And I'm sure the tamalero was wishing that plenty of babies made the cut, so to speak. It would make for a sweet way to begin these twelve months of the year, a lot like glutting on those hope-laden grapes.

*For those of you, like me, who enjoy a little irreverence now and then, the Magi's alter egos, otherwise known as the Tres Reyes Vagos are dubbed Malgastar, Malhechor and Vaaasaltar.

(The Three Good-for-Nothing Kings: Waste, Hooligan and He's-Going-to-Mug--a perfect example of humor oh, so lost in translation...)

Maguey's Feast

When we lived in Wichita Falls, my brother was a tiny young mite of a boy with a Gerber Baby face and a penchant for discovery. His curiosity was insatiable, guiding his hands to do things like smashig new piggy banks in the driveway. What better way for a toddler to say "Thank you!" than to let it fall to bits, watching to see what the fabulous thing is made of? Perhaps simply saying "Thanks" might be, but it certainly wasn't for Tim. He refused to believe that what he saw was all there was to get.

And that is what led me to stare at him from the grass in the back yard, as if time had slowed to an eternal few seconds, as he raised a hand to his mouth one afternoon when he was almost two. He had managed to catch a cricket, pinching it between his fingers and contemplating it for awhile. A slow-motion "Nooo" never even left my lips, most likely because I secretly wanted to gauge his inevitable reaction. I watched as he pushed the cricket through his lips, and then bit down, crunching it's black body clean in half.

Perhaps it wasn't his first experience in entomophagy; he was just curious enough to have done the same with other unsuspecting back yard bugs. What I do know is that it wasn't his last, because Patricio and I made sure it wouldn't be while he was here. We took him to try pulque at El Tinacal, perhaps the oldest existing pulquería in Tlalnepantla, lining up tall glasses of its thickness, the kind made sweeter, called curados, with the flavors of the day: pecan, piñon, mango, guava, pineapple, coconut, tomato and strawberry. And then we ordered more to work our jaws around than simple cucumber and carrots with chile and lime. Escamoles were no longer in season, and chapulines didn't make the menu of specialties. But the waiter offered to bring out fried white maguey worms, and that's exactly what we had him do.

Rolling their mostly-hollow bodies into tacos with seasoned corn, salsa and nopales, we ate every last stub-footed one of them: one doesn't have to be two to let curiosity lead to chewing on an insect. Or two.

A Rum Bunch

Bus stop adds all over the city have recently popped up red. A silver disco ball hangs in the corner with mistletoe-looking greens, like a funked-up tree ornament of a globe, nestling behind greeting card wishes for the city's die-hard partiers and enthusiasts of la conbebencia (read: play on the word convivencia).

"Feliz Guadalupe Reyes!" it reads.

And the sentiments are brought to us by Antillano rum, the brand that's been marketing to the urban, alternative pop-cultured twenty-something crowd with billboards featuring scruffy guys (and a few femmes) caught with picaresque looks on their faces and quoted with witty irreverences like "A man's best friend is a cow," (the equivalent in English of a kitty, or pitch-in's), "I'm waiting for the girl of my dreams; she's bringing the ice," and "Every woman has something of beauty, even if it's a distant cousin."

You get the idea. And the catch phrase for them all is "Soy antillano y que?" I'm Antillano, so what? It's a pretty successful campaign, that's what. The company's PR department has managed to tap into an enormous marketing target, sponsoring six concerts in December alone at two of the most popular clubs in the city, with acts coming straight off the play list of the huge alternative radio station, Reactor 105.

And now they're wishing everyone not a Merry Christmas or a Happy New Year, but a Happy Guadalupe Reyes, the holiday that's really a season, and the name of legendary drinking marathon that begins with the festivities of December 12 (Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe), and stretching on to January 6 (Día de Reyes, or Three Kings Day). It's the "Let's see if I'm really invincible" version of the long holiday season Mexico luxuriates in, a season that encompasses both Christmas and the New Year within its wide limits. If ever there were an excuse for a good liver-pickling, Guadalupe Reyes must surely be it.

And if you find yourself inclined to celebrate the season with a glass in hand, Antillano sure wishes you a happy one. Just let me know if you're as successful as their add campaign.

Sweet, Sweet Morelia

I am my mother's daughter. She who possesses the power to leave a box of french chocolate mints empty over the course of a conversation begot she who has a tooth so sweet that a bag of Oreos will beg for its last rights under her mischievous gaze. I'm a unyielding sucker for sweets. I even love suckers themselves, especially the fittingly-named, strokes of Catalán genius that are Chupa Chups. Sugar is surely one of living's best perks.

And living in Mexico can be a sweet-lover's dream; the merengue vendor just passed by our house, his basket balanced on his head as he called out the word like a cello-voiced tropical bird. The variety of sweets savored in this country poses a particularly delicious challenge, since trying them all could be a life-long endeavor. Capitalizing on a remarkable wealth of fruits, nuts, milks, chocolates, grains, chiles, spices and sugars, Mexican confectioners bless taste buds with the likes of ates and alegrías, cajetas and cocadas, palanquetas and pan dulce, and tamarindo and turrones. No list can possibly be exhaustive. Trying to create such a list would be exhausting.

But trying new sweets certainly isn't, which is why Patricio and I made a pilgrimage of sorts to the colonial city of Morelia, known for its architectural eye-candy as well as a tradition of homemade sweets, passed into the community centuries ago by Dominica nuns whose kitchen fires turned a profusion of recipes into fruit-infused delights. Walking the criss-cross of the centro's streets on Saturday night, we stepped into the entryway of an old colonial house, the place where families have set up shop to sell their sweets for so many generations. The soft-spoken, silver-haired woman behind the counter bagged up a half kilo of crystallized figs for us. And then convinced us that the bricks of guava ate, the happy combination of fruits cooked down with sugar, were as fresh as could be and worth every peso we spent.

Her simple shop was one of countless that the city has seen, and we wanted to know more about them. That's why, sitting snugly between stone buildings along what some still call the Calle Real, the Museo del Dulce, or Sweets Museum, was our weekend's principal destination. Entering the small museum means walking through the front building's sweet shop, covered floor to ceiling with--among books and traditional crafts--beautifully-packaged candies and flavored varieties of the egg-based liqueur, ronpope.

The museum itself is a series of rooms surrounding a lovely courtyard, recreating a colonial kitchen and offering models and photographs of Morelia's sweet-making trajectory. Incorporating ingredients used in indigenous recipes, such as native fruits, nuts and honeys, the nuns arriving from Spain brought and expanded upon traditional Spanish recipes. Initially prepared for the reception of dignitaries in the region, the popularity of the sweets grew to proportions that prompted the nuns to develop their business skills, too, selling the sweets through a lazy-susan like torno, allowing the nuns to take and fulfill an order without showing their faces to the outside world.

Bubbling in the kitchen in an earthenware pot was the makings of quince ate (now the term for any fruit paste prepared by cooking it with sugar, it is really a suffix as it is in English, meaning "a derivative of"--think "aluminate"--and was applied to any fruit, hence a quince ate, or ate de membrillo, was once simply called a membrillate). Spooned into small cups for us to try, it became terribly tempting to spirit away one of the ates setting in wax-lined molds on the windowsill.

We left the museum and Morelia on Sunday, with a back seat taken by a healthy mound of sweets and the front seats taken by the two of us, wiser in the ways and stories of our sugary fascinations, and the suspicion that we'd make my mom's mouth water with the news.

Jumping Back into the Past

"Well, they sure do taste like protein, don't they?" said Trini, as she crunched a few more times for good measure. She balanced a fifteen-peso bag of dark red morsels in one hand, the other making slight gestures in the air that meant, "I am eating something my son might consider good material for Fear Factor."

After emerging from the tunnels excavated through the great Tonacalli pyramid complex at Cholula, the last thing my sister-in-law and I had on our minds was a snack. Instead, our cravings leaned more toward knowledge, our appetites whetted by the labyrinth of passages that revealed layers of ancient steps, a matryoshka doll of pyramids that were constructed one on top of the other. Most of it still lies beneath the earth's surface, making a sizable hill upon which sits the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios. Fittingly, it is also known in Náhuatl as Machihualtepec, or "hill made by hand." It both fueled our imaginations and piqued our curiosity, raising uncountable questions about this largest pyramid in the world.

But snacks were soon to be had, since as with most places in Mexico often frequented by the public, a patient and parasol-shaded woman sat on nearby steps to offer something tempting and toothsome to the visitors who passed on to other excavated areas. Trini and I stopped to see what might finally convince us, and the woman held out a pepita to try. But our attention was soon focused on something we can't come by up North. The bag was an irresistible invitation into a little entomophagy, a crunchy bulk of chapulines, ready to crackle in all it's flavor-fried, protein-of-grasshopper glory.

Patricio, arriving the next day in Puebla for our weekend of travel and adventure, popped a few back to satisfy a mid-morning appetite. Chewing carefully, he avoided the nuisance of getting a leg or two stuck in between a molar. And we were reminded that though more questions than answers will always surround those ancient people who built their beautiful pyramids, we can taste tiny bits of their world once in awhile. Grasshoppers have been eaten in Mexico for at least three thousand years. We were happy to be part of what we hope to be the next three thousand more.

Remember

Michael Bywater, in the prologue to his book Lost Worlds, said that "damned or not, memory is stronger than oblivion." Día de los Muertos--really the two whole days it spans--seems one of memory's best seasons. Memorial days in the most intimate vein, invoking the essence--literally or figuratively--of those we love and can no longer touch, it's a chance to remember them and the small things they loved.

A visit to the cemetery isn't always a possibility, where hours can be spent making grave sites lovely with flowers, candles, a good sweeping and the family's shared company. And it's the altars at home, the ofrendas or offerings, that pay the closest tribute to those gone. The purpose and symbolism of elements in the ofrenda is well-described here, and I highly suggest taking the time to have a look.*

Patricio and I began last week to assemble our own little altar, collecting our calaveras--skulls made of sugar, chocolate or amaranth grain--representing the relatives we most miss: His grandmother, mother of twelve and strong as a tower steel. His uncle Lupe, who called him mi vida, and who left a large hole in his heart. Mimi and Papa, those grandparents of mine whose lives were a gift to the world. And Denny, mom's brother, who I know would have been an exceptional uncle Lupe of our own.

We left them a small dish with water and salt. Mona's peach pie and chocolate. Sweet pan de muerto, and amaranth just in case. As the clouds of copal fill the house with heavy scent, Patricio is bubbling up cola de res, a sort of oxtail soup stewed in adobo deliciously thick . And if the need arises, there's a shot of strong mezcal to keep a chilly spirit warm. The figure of a sheep, fanciful and sugar-sweet, stands watch over the spread, accompanied by a quiet, cowled monk and a swanked-out Catrina--company for memories, good souls, and even ourselves.

Memory may eventually be damned, but never these well-loved souls. Remembering them and their place in our worlds makes the root sense of 'holiday' real. These are holy days, for sure. This remembrance is sacred. A happy Dia de Muertos to you all.

*Out and about in the Centro tomorrow, I won't be blogging for the day. If you're interested in digging a little deeper, consider it time to take a look at all the links.

The Upper Crust

When it comes to enjoying a bite of this or that, buttery mashed potatoes, a beet and grapefruit salad, or a pinchful of prepared chapulines, my palate soon becomes a very a happy place to be. I'm not particularly picky, until a dish arrives full of baby corns. Or gizzards. And if I have to, I'll quit breathing through my nose as I swallow. But I'll eat them, not yet ready to believe that I'll never develop a taste. Patricio loves gizzards--mollejas cooked up in a pungent sauce of chiles--so why shouldn't I? I'll leave it up to time.

I've been so intent on learning to like eating any sort of food, that it's come as a surprise to learn that I've slowly been making myself comfortable with a widely assumed practice of not eating something. And the strangest part lies in that I once loved the very thing I'm no longer savoring as much. In a way, I feel like I'm playing a slight act of betrayal on my cafeteria-dining, middle school self. The highlight of any meal, with portions plunked into those five-compartment, polycarbonate cafeteria trays, was always the roll--the roll that was a cube of dense, buttery dough, which one could compact into a tight ball and enjoy as a small token from the beneficent gods who understood the hardships of being twelve.

I never considered not eating the inside of any roll, be it long, short, fat or crusty or square. It was the soft, tender prize after conquering the crust. And then I moved on to Mexico, and oh, what a year and a few hundred bolillos can do to one's innocent view of bread. From the first day I sat across from Patricio at VIPS, dunking bites of bolillos into cups of Mexican salsa, I was told I had full permission, for the first time in my life, to not like eating part of my food. "You really do like the migajón he asked?" as he tore the insides of the crusty roll out of their superior shell. "You know the fat guy in Molotov's song, Cerdo? He's the only one I've heard of who eats bolillos and the migajón." He said it with a teasing glint in his eyes, and I glinted back saying, "Well, that Cerdo knew what was up."

But I admit to having tried the aforethought sacrilege of pulling the migajón out before piling the crust up with salsa, or beans, fish soup or apricot jelly. And I've done it enough that, beneficent middle school gods forgive me, I prefer it that way now. I suppose that's what happens when a culturally-broad license to be picky about certain things gains the palate-pleasing, knowing upper hand. I'll be leaving that migajón next to my mostly-finished plate of chicken gizzards, and getting a general nod approval for it, too.