What About That Mexican Food!

Here in Mexico, buying and selling food seems to be much like it was in the US before the big packaging craze. Bulk is very much in fashion. I pass by little stores with large burlap bags open to display the various beans available. Even dog food is sold in the same fashion but in cardboard barrels. I see five gallon plastic containers selling several different fruits in their juice, I assume, in stores as well as in the carts of street vendors. Fruit and veggies are sold by weight. Today I saw a man unloading a pickup truck full of broccoli, none of it bagged.

There are many food vendors around. Many of them cook meat right there and serve it in tortillas. Some make some kind of corn masa thing dipped in chili, not shaped like a tamale but flat and round, without the corn husks. There is one around the corner that even has ice cream in little metal containers just sitting on the ground. I usually stay away from the carts but meant to try the ice cream and forgot.

The markets are the place to go for food. Not only do they make it there but it is authentic and cheap. After trying huevos Mexicana scrambled with pepper, onion, tomato but no chili; huevos rancheros on a fresh tortilla with a tangy but not hot greens salsa made mostly of tomatillas; and enchiladas in very mild green salsa, I made the market my home. The restaurant meals cost between 40 and 70 pesos. Now I wake up in the morning and head to the market for atole that is sold in plastic buckets on a folding table. Atole is a thick drink made chiefly of masa harina and sweetend.They sell arroz con leche, atole blanco, atole chocolate and a couple others I haven't tried. I pay six pesos for a plastic drinking glass of warm atole and usually buy another for the little old lady who sat on the stairs wrapped in shawls.

In the afternoon I go for a midday meal that costs me between 30 and 40 pesos. I've had chili rellenos stuffed with a mild farmer's cheese served with beans, rice, tortillas and a side of red chili that was so day-glo red I thought surely it would make smoke come from my ears. It didn't. Though jalapenos are served, hot food doesn't seem to be standard fare. Another market meal was nopales, those big flat cactus leaves that are sliced, stewed with potatoes in a chili broth...yum! There was the usual side of beans, Spanish rice and tortillas. I even got brave and had a bowl of menudo.

I am really a sucker for the very little kids that sell food. I bought napoles sliced and ready for cooking from a boy who needed his slightly older sister to help complete the sale. Then I gave them to a girl I bought a shoulder bag from. Another little fellow comes by the hostel with bags of avacados, three for 10 pesos. He knows a soft touch when he sees one. Imagine paying less than a dollar for three avacados!

A window display of exotic sweets in Guanajuato.

He put a ball of masa in the press, pressed it, then flipped it onto the griddle like a big frisbee while she flipped them and moved the in time for the next. These two were absolutely amazing to watch. Here the camera caught one in mid-air.

He stuffed the casings to make what seemed like miles of chorizo. His partner hung it on the racks above him.