The Finn's First Impressions of ¡México! (PART II)

Last time I started a series about my first impression of Mexico (you can read PART I here). This is the second part of that series and, this time, I'm going to talk more about Mexican food.

So, here goes:

Observation 6: Your life has never been spicier

If you like spicy food, Mexico is the place for you! Every meal (including breakfast) is likely a spicy one, as are lots of candies, chips, and what-have-yous in the country (more about that in PART I). Basically, it seems Mexicans can't eat anything without breathing fire!

Breakfast eggs with red salsa and corn tortillas

However, it's important to remember that Mexican spicy is not global spicy. Mexican spicy is another level! If you live in, say, Northern Europe and in your local restaurant you always order that one meal that's described on the menu with three whole chili pepper icons (wow), congratulations - that's the starting level in Mexico.

Also, the spiciness scale in Mexico is not from one chili pepper to three chili peppers. It's from "Wow, this is spicy," and "Help, my mouth is on fire!" and "Water! Water! Wait...why is this getting worse?" and "Are you insane?!?" all the way to "Joven? Dónde está el baño, por favor?"

The spiciness scale at El Farolito taqueria

So. If you're planning to eat in an authentic Mexican restaurant, here are a few pro tips that might come in handy:

a) It's inadvisable to ask the waiter, "Is this meal spicy?" They'll just tell you it's not, although by your standards, it probably is. Rather, you should ask, "Tiene chile?" ("Does it have peppers?"). That way you'll have some idea whether or not you can handle it.

b) If you are served a spicy sauce, for Heaven's sake, try it a little before you drench your whole meal in it! Remember, it's always easier to add more spices than try to scrape them off of your food that's already soaked them up like a vindictive spicy sponge.

c) The so-called Moctezuma's revenge (traveler's diarrhea) is not caused by spices but rather by bacteria in the water to which the locals have developed immunity but you have not (NB! I strongly urge you to research what you should and shouldn't consume before visiting Mexico). However, before you decide to order your habanero on habanero meal, please know your stomach and how it reacts to spices. And if you have a particularly sensitive stomach, don't try to be a hero (you'll regret it later)!

d) If you fail a and/or b (do NOT fail c!) but you want to avoid being laughed at by the locals (because laugh they will), first take a deep breath because this is going to be no walk in the park (I bet you wish you were at a park right now). Then just go for it. Take teeny tiny bites of your food (don't eat too fast), have rice water (horchata) if available (if not, tortillas), and when your Mexican friend asks you with that infuriatingly knowing grin on his/her face, "Sooo... how is it?" play it cool, nod, smile (as much as you can without making a weird face that might give away your rookieness), and say, "It's delicious, thanks so much." You don't need to finish all of your food but take at least a few bites (so as not to look suspicious) before you claim to be full. You can do it, I believe in you (you can cry later).

Observation 7: Tacos come in many different forms

If you are lucky enough to know Mexican people, then you know that there's one thing you can never ever ever ever do in their presence: blurt out how much you enjoy hard-shell tacos (for the record, I don't!). If you do that, well... all I can say is I hope you're a fast runner because staying where you are would be a very, very bad idea (I exaggerate only ever-so-slightly).

However, turns out there is a loophole to that rule: flautas!

You guessed it - flautas

Flautas a.k.a tacos dorados are basically filled tortillas that are fried crispy. Now, to a non-Mexican, it may seem that they meet the two main criteria of a hard-shell taco because a) they are tacos and b) they have a hard shell. And yet, Mexicans act as if flautas and hard-shell tacos were two completely different things, and, if you are smart, you'll play along.

However, everybody's allowed their occasional moments of non-smartness, aren't they? So, one day, when I was feeling particularly not smart, I decided to live on the edge and ask my fiancé this potentially fatal question, "Sooooo, honey? How are flautas different from hard-shell tacos again?"

But instead of getting defensive or upset, my fiancé just gave me a pitying glance and then looked up, as if trying to figure out how to explain bees and birds to a six-year-old. Finally, he said, "Because... they are just different."

[a moment of deafening silence]

Unsurprisingly, as charming as this response was, it did little to answer my question (like, at all). So, I kept on pestering, until finally Fiancé offered this response: "Well, it's like the difference between watching a Marvel movie in IMAX vs. watching a Spider-Man impersonator at a kids' party."

Okay. Whatever that means, I have no clue, but I'm guessing hard-shell tacos are NOT that Marvel movie in this analogy. However, I found there's another way to explain the difference between flautas and hard-shell tacos: flautas are rolled tacos, whereas hard-shell tacos are... well, I don't know what they are, but rolled they are not.

There are also other things that look like tacos but are not called tacos (such as enchiladas and quesadillas), but more about them another time.

Observation 8: Beer is not beer

Having lived in Belgium for three years, I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know about beer. After all, Belgium is not only famous for its beer but also has a vast variety of options. Surely, I'd tried every type of beer worth trying by now... right?

Turns out I was wrong. Once again, Mexicans have managed to take another food (well, drink) item and spice it up (both figuratively and literally).

Let's begin with the inconvenient truth: Mexican beer by itself is nothing special (sorry, Mexicans). According to my fiancé, it's something cold you drink on a very hot day, but Belgian beer it is not.

However.

If you want to experience beer like you've never experienced it before, you should try something called a michelada. Just as a taco, a michelada can come in many different forms: at its simplest, it's just a beer with lime juice and salt, but it's not unusual to add peppers and/or some sauce - e.g. soy sauce, Worcester sauce, Clamato (clam + tomato juice), or Maggi sauce - into the mix as well.

Now, if you want to fully step into the dark side, I warmly recommend my (so far) favorite michelada place in Mexico City - Michelas (just to be clear, I'm not being paid anything to recommend their business)!

My michelada on the left, Fiancé's on the right

Michelas (situated in Condesa) is a bar where you make your own michelada (NB! The following description is based on the "full michelada experience," which is a bit more expensive than the simpler option): First you dip your cup into chili or tamarind syrup so that the rim gets sticky. Then, you dip it into one of the (Miguelito-type) candy powder options available. After that, you can pour more powder (either sweet or spicy) into your cup along with different juices such as lime juice. Then you proceed to the candy part - there's about a dozen different types to choose from, for example tamarind sticks and gummy bears as demonstrated in the picture above. Finally, your cup will be filled to the brim with the beer of your choice (I believe there are three different ones to choose from).

And there you have it! Now, I'm aware this all may sound kind of weird, but I still urge you not to knock it 'till you try it. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Observation 9: Jesus truly does appear in food (in 3D)

While Christians everywhere are waiting for Jesus Christ's second coming, Jesus himself seems to have taken a liking to appearing in various food items around the world (I'm sure we've all read the news about Jesus's face appearing in a loaf of bread, chai tea latte, mozzarella cheese, and what-have-you). However, in Mexico, Jesus's food appearances seem particularly frequent, but in a different way. It looks like Mexicans have taken it upon themselves (probably aware of Jesus's busy "food appearance" schedule) to make sure that cake-lovers everywhere in the country have an equal opportunity to find Jesus. This they've ensured by inserting a plastic baby Jesus in each rosca de reyes. 

If you've never heard of rosca de reyes before, suffice it to say it's a cake (or sweet bread) eaten as part of the Three Kings' Day celebration (January 6th). According to tradition, whoever finds Jesus has to throw a tamale party in February.

Where art thou, Jesus?

Intrigued by this tradition, I decided to try my hand at finding Jesus in my mother-in-law's rosca de reyes. Before I started, though, I needed to get a few facts straight:

Q: Is it possible to accidentally cut baby Jesus in half with a knife?
A: No. Baby Jesus is very resilient (plastic).

Q: Is it possible to accidentally eat baby Jesus?
A: No. Baby Jesus is actually less of a baby Jesus and more of a toddler Jesus (google images). That's why, if you eat him, you'll notice.

Q: Is it possible to choke on baby Jesus?
A: Again, the answer is no. However, I wouldn't introduce baby Jesus to children under the age of three.

Now, when trying to find baby Jesus in rosca de reyes, you have to a) ask thyself, "Where would Jesus go?" b) cut the cake accordingly, and c) keep cutting and eating the cake until you find him.

Unfortunately, I only had one piece and didn't find Jesus.

Sadly, this piece was not worthy of Jesus

I was just about to accept defeat, when my fiancé shouted, "Look, you got it!" (Apparently, if Jesus sticks out of either one of the parts that you cut, you can claim to have found him.) And before I knew it, Fiancé was poking Jesus with a knife to get him out 😲! However, it soon turned out not to be Jesus after all, but a piece of walnut (I know. The two are so easily confused).

Sadly, after that one try, my mother-in-law took the cake to her office, so my chances of finding Jesus this year were lost. Oh well... something to look forward to in 2020, I guess.

Closing Words

And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed the read (you can let me know what you thought in the comments). There's more than enough material for a longer series here, so let me know if you'd like to read more about my observations on Mexico :). Until then...

Hasta luego!

The Finn's First Impressions of ¡México!

It's the beginning of a new year and I find myself in a new country - my fiancé's native Mexico! 

Our stay here is planned to be temporary, but whether that means two months or two years remains to be seen. Things are brewing (I will keep you posted)... 

Until I know more, though, I want to see and experience as much as I can while I'm here. In this post, I'll list some of my observations about Mexico so far. As there are bound to be a lot of things to talk about, I'll make this a two-part series. 

So. Without further ado, let's get to it: 

Observation 1: Padre good, madre bad 

Whatever deep-rooted mother issues Mexicans have, they seem to be reflected in the lingo. Here's an example: one super commonly used phrase that's very specific to Mexican Spanish is "Que padre." The literal meaning of this phrase is "How father," and it basically means "How cool!" Now, the interesting part is that the opposite of que padre is que madre, which translates to "How mother" and means something like "How bad" or "Such bad luck" (I'm sure Freud would have a field day over this). 

Que madre is, however, by no means the only time "mother" makes a questionable appearance in Mexican Spanish. In fact, the word madre ("mother") can also be equivalent to 

a) crap ("Que es esta madre?" = "What is this crap?"), 

b) pain ("Me parti la madre" = "I hurt myself"), 

c) worthlessness ("Me vale madres" = "It's worth nothing to me"),

and it even works as a single curse word all by itself ("Madres!" = *expletive*)!

Seriously, Mexicans! Who hurt you?

In addition to these examples, I've noticed that the attitude towards mothers can sometimes present itself in more subtle ways: Let's say there are two brothers (who share a mother) that are having a conversation (this is a totally hypothetical situation, by the way). At some point Brother A says to Brother B: "So guess what your mother (tu madre) said to me yesterday." Brother A then proceeds to explain what his mother said, and Brother B says, with a sigh, "Well, you know how your mother (tu madre) gets sometimes."

Excuse me, but does it seem odd to anybody else that nobody wants to take ownership of poor mother here? Wouldn't you say, "our mother" or just "Mom" instead of "your mother" since you are, after all, brothers from the same mother? By saying "your mother" it almost seems like you're trying to pass the blame. To be fair to mothers, though, it appears that all mutual family members get the same treatment (e.g. "Your uncle said...," "Your sister said...," Your cousin said...," etc.). However, when you try to point out this oddity to a Mexican, s/he finds it perfectly normal and cannot fathom how you could ever see anything strange in it. 

Observation 2: It's a sweet trap!

Whatever makes Mexicans think that you cannot have the pleasure of sugar without the pain of chili pepper is one of the great mysteries of life. Everywhere you go in this country you find candy that's covered with chili powder or some other spicy surprise.

To be fair, as a Finn, I'm used to odd candy flavors, such as salmiakki (sort of like salted licorice) that the rest of the world (minus the Dutch) seems to abhor. However, Mexican candy is some serious next level stuff!!

Just one question: Why?

I repeat: Why?

Just look at these pictures above. Somewhere under that thick layer of chili powder, there is an innocent piece of mango or watermelon-flavored candy that just wants to be loved. You can't see it, though - you just have to trust that it's there.

I'll admit there's something almost symbolic (Symbolic or masochistic? Quien sabe) about having to first struggle through the chili powder before you finally get to the sweet prize. But despite this beautiful metaphor of life, personally (and as a product of the culture of instant gratification), I'd just rather get the pleasure without the pain, please. Is that really too much to ask?

A few days ago, as I was pondering on these deep deep thoughts out loud, my fiancé looked at me, shook his head, disappointed, and told me almost defensively, "Come on, not ALL the candy here is spicy."

Yes, honey, you're right. They're not all spicy. And to prove your point, in the picture below, I've circled ALL the candy options at a Mexican convenience store that are NOT spicy. See if you can find them: 

Where's non-spicy Waldo?

So, to put it in other words: While not ALL candy in Mexico is spicy, could we just agree that the vast majority is? 

Observation 3: You've been drinking tequila all wrong

Ladies and gentlemen, you've been lied to. Remember those movies where that poor unsuspecting small-town girl goes to Mexico for spring break and has her first experience with a shot of tequila, salt, and lime? Remember when you did the same in your country and were convinced this is the way Mexicans do it?

Lies, lies, all lies!

While it's possible that some touristic places in Mexico still encourage this illusion, the sad truth is that tequila is not "shot," but rather sipped slowly like, say, whiskey. Moreover, it's not uncommon to wash the drink down with something called sangrita, which is basically semi-spicy tomato juice (kind of like alcohol-free Bloody Mary) and designed to cleanse your palate. Sangre actually means blood, and its diminutive sangrita is like its cute cousin (it translates to "little blood," though the word "little" doesn't do much to make the idea of drinking blood any more appetizing to me.) 

Glass of tequila on the left, sangrita on the right. Lime optional.

So, while we're at it, let's burst another tequila bubble, too: The tequila that you have in your hometown (unless you live in Mexico) is probably NOT tequila (PLOT TWIST!!). The real stuff could originally only come from a town called Tequila - hence the name (although later the rules have relaxed a bit).

Here's a hot tip: if your tequila bottle doesn't read "100% agave," it's not what it's claiming to be. I'm not saying that it can't be drinkable alcohol, but tequila it is not (or so I've been instructed). 

The real deal

Observation 4: Driving is like a box of chocolates

On my second week in Mexico, my sister-in-law gave me this great tip : "Only plan to do one thing a day in Mexico City. That way you won't frustrate yourself if you are not able to cross things off of your to-do list.

What she was talking about was of course the city's traffic, which is not for the faint of heart. Mexico City is famously the most traffic-congested city in the world. However, each day and each hour (and each minute) is different. Driving a short distance can either take ten minutes or two hours. You never know what kind of cards you'll be dealt on any given day, which - I suppose - keeps things interesting.

This could be your view for an undetermined time period

So, when you make plans to meet a friend at, say, your favorite café, do yourself and them a favor and leave for your destination wayyyyyyyyyy ahead of time. This way you won't be late. Of course, there's a chance your friend might not be as far-sighted as you, so one way or another, you might still end up in a holding pattern. 

Observation 5: Half of your taco is missing

If you, like me, are used to European supermarket tortillas the size of a human head, the first time you're served authentic Mexican tacos you might feel like you've been cheated (especially if you only ordered one single taco, you poor soul). That, or that you've just entered a parallel dimension where they only serve miniature food. 

Hello mini-tacos (al pastor)!

But these tacos that you see in the picture above represent, in fact, normal-sized tacos in Mexico. Because of the reduced size, you might have to adjust the way you fold them up (I've written a post about this topic, which you can read here) but regardless of the size, the taste is great and, in my opinion, real Mexican tacos are quite simply the best food in the world! 

Closing words

And that's all for now! I'll leave the rest for PART II and if there's interest, I might go for a PART III, as well. We'll see. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post! If you have questions or comments, you can e-mail me, tweet me, or use the comment section below! 😊

Adiós!