A Word On Food

Most people in the US love mexican food.  A seemingly unlimited way of combining tortillas, meat, and beans and smothering it in cheese and sour cream.  I don't know what part of Mexico this food originated from, but it is definitely not Mexico City where Jose was born and raised.  It's hard to describe the difference.  In Mexico City, there seems to be a much wider variety of food, but it seems more simply put together than your typical mexican restaurant in the US.  Meaning its just a couple ingredients and salsa instead of being smothered in cheese and sour cream.

In Mexico City, there are people making food in stands on the side of the road.  It is very inexpensive to eat in there.  You can get 5 small tacos for less than two dollars.  The traditional taco is made with meat, onion, and cilantro.  But many stands have a rather large selection of different types of meat in different marinades and fixings.  And they don't just call beef "beef" or pork "pork."  It seems to be named after the cut of the cow or pig.  It always amazes me that Jose knows exactly what part of the cow the meat we are eating came from.  Of course, they don't just use the meat of the animal.  You can get a tongue taco.  Or a soup with pancita (stomach) with tripe and tendons.  You can buy an entire pig's head at the market.  Something I can't get over is chicharron.  I'm not entirely sure I understand what it is exactly.  Jose has described it as the fat underneath the pig's skin.  If there were a food shortage, I could understand eating the fat of an animal.  But when you can buy meat, I don't understand eating chicharron.  I once told Jose that we weren't poor so we didn't have to eat these kinds of foods.  He got mad and said that in some restaurants pancita costs more than a meat dish.  I'll have to trust him on that.

Chicharron is often puffed with air so that it is crunchy.  If you have ever eaten pork rinds, then you have eaten chicharron.  A food that I associate closely with chicharron is this dish.  Jose says it is called cueritos de puerco.  Although the base kinda looks like chicharron, Jose says it is actually made of flour.  I have seen Jose's family eat this more as a snack, bought from a street vendor when we were out.  I've never seen them prepare it.  It is topped with lettuce, a red sauce, sour cream, maybe some avocado, and this transparent meat.  I think it is just the fat of a pig.  But Jose says that it is the skin of the pig.  I can't understand why it is transparent.  The other day, at a convenience store, I saw little packages of that transparent meat swimming in a red sauce (I'm assuming a spicy sauce).  So I guess  it is pretty popular.

Obviously, this is all very different from what I grew up with.  So it can be strange and hard to get used to.  But there is a lot of food in Mexico that I do like.  Pozole, huaraches, tamales, tortas, carne asada, quesadillas, and tostadas.  We live a few blocks from a bakery and I love just walking by it because it smells so good.

But we haven't been out to eat much since I've been here, so I don't know how Tijuana food compares.  Jose has been doing most of the cooking over the past few weeks.  He made this really great soup last night with ground beef, carrots, potatoes, and chipotle chilis.  He has made several creamy soups.  Cream of spinach, cream of carrot, cream of pinto bean.  He has made a vegetable stew.  I guess a lot of the stuff he makes end up being soup like.  But we have had tortillas at every single meal.  You really can't beat a fresh corn tortilla. Jose and his brother have been kind and have made their salsas on the side.  I have a hard time with spicy food.  Jose also makes really good crepes.  And we put cream cheese and strawberry jelly on them.

Jose has only made one thing so far that I refused to eat.  He made a chicken soup with vegetables and a broth.  But he used the lungs, heart, and throat of the chicken instead of the meat.  He had bought a package of it at the grocery store.  You gotta give them credit for not being wasteful.

After that episode, he said that I needed to start making dinner.  So the next night, I made spaghetti and meat sauce with a side salad.  I bought the spaghetti sauce from the store, but added ground beef, onion, and garlic.  It was a bit different from the spaghetti they normally do in Mexico.  Jose's brother, Luis, took one bite and decided that it needed salt and lime.  I couldn't believe he put lime on spaghetti!  They love their lime down here.  The next day, they mixed the leftovers with lime flavored mayonnaise.  They also love mayonnaise.  I also made a curry quinoa stew and a "Mexican" pinto bean stew and those went over better.

Another big difference is the grocery store.  I had always suspected that we were spoiled in Chicago with low food prices.  And now I know.  It seems like everything at the grocery store here is a lot more expensive.  You can't get a gallon of milk for less than $4.  And there are certain "staples" that they don't seem to have here. I couldn't find coconut milk or kidney beans for my curry stew.  I have to get some red and white wine vinegars tomorrow.  I hope they have them.

They also have this thing called Nutri LecheNutri Leche, we buy milk.  From what I get from the package, they have removed the natural fat and replaced it with vegetable oil.  I found something online that said it is milk concentrate mixed with vegetable oil and water.  I find this just as unsettling (and as poor tasting) as using margarine instead of real butter.  And if you haven't seen the documentary Fat Head, you should go to YouTube and check it out.  Jose likes real milk better anyway, so it wasn't too hard to get him to switch.

Overall we've been eating pretty well.  Jose and Luis like sweets almost as much as I do.  There are even a couple of places that sell cans of Dr. Pepper close to our apt.  I bought a 12-pack in San Diego.  But it was pretty expensive and Jose and I go through it too fast.  California charges an extra 5 cents as a deposit so you will recycle the cans to get the 5 cents back.  I hope they will accept cans from out of state because I plan on getting more than that 60 cents back.