I am from the north and sour is a an aquired taste from "up there". I like sour and some mexican salsas feature a sour flavor but fruit in Mexico must be sweet or it is considered "bien agria" Aside from the special status of the sour lime, in Mexico, which by the way is not eaten but "added" , when people eat a piece of fruit that is the slightest bit sour
they wince and resemble chayotes.
Me, I'm just thinking this is soo good, not like the
rutabagas that substituted for papayas in the north. I believe that is one reason why
Coca Cola has an enormous market share here. They have exploited the mexican
love of sweet to make a fortune and meanwhile everyone's teeth are rotting.
I have been thinking about Chilapa, Guerrero lately given all the problems in that state with insecurity. It deserves a mention. A couple of years ago we went to Chilapa to visit a virgin to which my wife
is devoted. It's a Virgin from Germany called the
Virgin of Schoenstatt. This virgin, which I call the snob virgin, is whiter than the Virgin of Guadalupe. You be the judge:
My wife has been praying to this virgin for the last 6 years to help solve some family problems,, which were recently cleared up. It is natural to visit your favorite saint or virgin and give thanks for a favor.
Our trip took place on a sunday so we
also took advantage of the extended market-tianguis for which Chilapa is famous. They make a
million things from palm, corn husks, and ixtle, which is the fiber of a cactus.
Hats, baskets, placemats, animals, virgins, angels, nativity scenes. The market sells fruits and vegetables and even live aphids to
grind into a salsa. The selection is not as vast as Tenancingo but their lamb barbecue is equisite and a delicious pozole de frijole is quite unusual.
My wife has been praying to this virgin for the last 6 years to help solve some family problems,, which were recently cleared up. It is natural to visit your favorite saint or virgin and give thanks for a favor.
Our trip took place on a sunday so we
also took advantage of the extended market-tianguis for which Chilapa is famous. They make a
million things from palm, corn husks, and ixtle, which is the fiber of a cactus.
Hats, baskets, placemats, animals, virgins, angels, nativity scenes. The market sells fruits and vegetables and even live aphids to
grind into a salsa. The selection is not as vast as Tenancingo but their lamb barbecue is equisite and a delicious pozole de frijole is quite unusual.
We wound our way up the moon scape road to the small chapel. The day was very hot and the dusty road and hard looking banks along it were white the dirt chalky in color. The landscape is mottled with short spiney acacias and extremely spiney nopales, an indication that this is a dry zone. The small chapel is set among one type of those spiney acacia trees laden with a type of huaje that is sweet to the taste. At the small chapel for the virgin there were some people
selling "antojos" (mexican food whims). I bought a peeled fresh cucumber
sprinkled with chile piquin and salt. The day was hot,, and that
cucumber tasted so very delicious. I "relished" the flavor eating it slowly and allowing the freshness to cool my throat.
Chilapa Market:
In Mexico superstitions and folk wisdoms are woven into conversations. Some seem strange to me. The damage done by drinking cold water one is often mentioned here. I love cold water and I don't believe it has hurt me at all. They say mezcal which is a cactus based hard liquor (49 proof) is natural and good for you, but cold water damages. They also say exposing yourself to sudden changes in temperature bring on sickness. Perhaps,,, I drink una copa de mezcal almost every day, and I am rarely sick. I defy the cold air rule though, as I exit the bedroom in the morning in a light shirt when the temperature drops to 45 degrees and less while people here are all bundled in sweaters and coughing up phlegm. I am not pooh poohing folk wisdom for there is truth to be found in these folk medicines.Others just seem illogical. I just heard of one today, that drinking diluted clorox is a cure for arthritis. It's just that,,, like religion,, folk wisdom has picked up alot of baggage over the years and doesn't always wash. Do you believe garlic protects from vampires? They say there are no vampires in Italian Legends,, perhaps all the Italians reek of garlic. Does that mean that vampires really exist? For some reason I love the folk tales that are oft repeated. They are a connection to another time called B.C. (Before Cellphones) that is, and mass ignorance on another greater scale,, that comes with the infection of consumerism. There is one myth about the Tecolote. A tecolote is the aztec word for any owl. I saw something the other night at about 2:00 in the morning. The sky was clear without a lot of moon and I saw this bird passing with an enormous wingspan,, like a black ghost against an azure sky. I was reminded of those pictures of pteradactyls. It seemed to fly stiffly like I imagined a pteradactyl might. By the next morning I thought I must have been dreaming so I kept it to myself. Then last saturday, during a conversation, I mentioned it to the mother of little Sara, named Juana. Sara is a three year old who is a handful. When she was insupportable I recounted the story of the bird I saw the night before and that it comes to take away bad children. The eyes of Sara enlarged and she shut up. Juana asked me if it was a tecolote. At that time I didn't know what a tecolote was so I asked. She began to explain and after some charades we established that a tecolote was an owl. Tecolote, however, in Latin America means any owl. The one I saw was not some tiny screech owl but something much larger. I started to investigate and found that the largest owl in Mexico is the Great Horned Owl. I have seen them in up north,, yet the bird I saw in the night sky seemed even bigger than the Great Horned owls I had seen up north. The largest owl in the world is The Great Gray Owl but it doesn't get below Northern California. Maybe the owl I saw was chubby and oversized from eating the fat of all those bad little girls.
The Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) or Tecolote (sometimes called lechuzo here) has special significance in Mesoamerican cultures, and because it is nocturnal it is considered by indigenous cultures to be related to the underworld. Furthermore it is attributed to have the power to charm people, and see what was hidden because of its ability to see in the dark. They also thought it was a bird of ill omen, predicting the future, and it was a messenger from the underworld. In Mexico there is a popular saying: "When the owl sings, the Indian dies." Another saying is "When the owl sings to you death is near." Among some indigenous peoples the popular belief is that when an owl sings near a house, a family member must scold him and ask him to leave with a prayer to avoid someone's death. In popular culture and folklore in most of the Mexican territory, it is believed that witches, through nahualismo have the ability to transform into owls overnight to "ensure the dream of the witch's victims". Ironically, and I didn't know this fact when I was trying to scare Sara, that these owls are believed to turn into witches and kidnap children.
In Mexico superstitions and folk wisdoms are woven into conversations. Some seem strange to me. The damage done by drinking cold water one is often mentioned here. I love cold water and I don't believe it has hurt me at all. They say mezcal which is a cactus based hard liquor (49 proof) is natural and good for you, but cold water damages. They also say exposing yourself to sudden changes in temperature bring on sickness. Perhaps,,, I drink una copa de mezcal almost every day, and I am rarely sick. I defy the cold air rule though, as I exit the bedroom in the morning in a light shirt when the temperature drops to 45 degrees and less while people here are all bundled in sweaters and coughing up phlegm. I am not pooh poohing folk wisdom for there is truth to be found in these folk medicines.Others just seem illogical. I just heard of one today, that drinking diluted clorox is a cure for arthritis. It's just that,,, like religion,, folk wisdom has picked up alot of baggage over the years and doesn't always wash. Do you believe garlic protects from vampires? They say there are no vampires in Italian Legends,, perhaps all the Italians reek of garlic. Does that mean that vampires really exist? For some reason I love the folk tales that are oft repeated. They are a connection to another time called B.C. (Before Cellphones) that is, and mass ignorance on another greater scale,, that comes with the infection of consumerism. There is one myth about the Tecolote. A tecolote is the aztec word for any owl. I saw something the other night at about 2:00 in the morning. The sky was clear without a lot of moon and I saw this bird passing with an enormous wingspan,, like a black ghost against an azure sky. I was reminded of those pictures of pteradactyls. It seemed to fly stiffly like I imagined a pteradactyl might. By the next morning I thought I must have been dreaming so I kept it to myself. Then last saturday, during a conversation, I mentioned it to the mother of little Sara, named Juana. Sara is a three year old who is a handful. When she was insupportable I recounted the story of the bird I saw the night before and that it comes to take away bad children. The eyes of Sara enlarged and she shut up. Juana asked me if it was a tecolote. At that time I didn't know what a tecolote was so I asked. She began to explain and after some charades we established that a tecolote was an owl. Tecolote, however, in Latin America means any owl. The one I saw was not some tiny screech owl but something much larger. I started to investigate and found that the largest owl in Mexico is the Great Horned Owl. I have seen them in up north,, yet the bird I saw in the night sky seemed even bigger than the Great Horned owls I had seen up north. The largest owl in the world is The Great Gray Owl but it doesn't get below Northern California. Maybe the owl I saw was chubby and oversized from eating the fat of all those bad little girls.
The Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus) or Tecolote (sometimes called lechuzo here) has special significance in Mesoamerican cultures, and because it is nocturnal it is considered by indigenous cultures to be related to the underworld. Furthermore it is attributed to have the power to charm people, and see what was hidden because of its ability to see in the dark. They also thought it was a bird of ill omen, predicting the future, and it was a messenger from the underworld. In Mexico there is a popular saying: "When the owl sings, the Indian dies." Another saying is "When the owl sings to you death is near." Among some indigenous peoples the popular belief is that when an owl sings near a house, a family member must scold him and ask him to leave with a prayer to avoid someone's death. In popular culture and folklore in most of the Mexican territory, it is believed that witches, through nahualismo have the ability to transform into owls overnight to "ensure the dream of the witch's victims". Ironically, and I didn't know this fact when I was trying to scare Sara, that these owls are believed to turn into witches and kidnap children.
Those jumiles sure look like plain old stinkbugs to me. Do people eat them?
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