Since today is thanksgiving, I thought that food might be an appropriate topic.First of all, I'd like to clear up the fact that everyone seems to think we are eating mexican food. I can understand why one might think this, seeings how we are living in Mexico and all, but actually we live in the yucatan. Yucatacans do not consider themselves mexican or even part of mexico. They are Mayan and their food is very different. Almost every restaurant or little storefront cocina serves mayan food.They all have the same menu...panuchos, enchilada suissa (this is a chicken enchilada with a green sauce topped with swiss cheese), salbutes (sp?) which is sort of like an enchilada but is stuffed with boiled egg and has a sauce made out of pumpkin seeds.mmmmm.. The only exceptions are a couple of really bad ( so I'm told ) chinese food places and a couple of pizza joints ( don't order the lasagna...it resembles a batch of bad dog food and came in a disposable foil pan). Keep in mind there are many places here, we just haven't been to them.We went to a couple of good Argentine places......steak lovers rejoice! ( I had a nice salad). All in all, vegetables are sorely lacking. This is reflected by a number of bow legged people...my gramas people suffered from rickets...lack of vegetables. They do have something called Chaya though. Its a green leafy plant, bush actually, that is used like spinach and evidently has many health benefits though I can't actually tell you specifically what they are but hey, its dark green and leafy. They even have juice bars where they mix up fruity drinks with chaya in a blender. Whole familys slug down pitchers of it. I also can't find a sweet potatoe but can easily buy (for a price!) a Washington state apple. Oranges can be purchased for next to nothing. I was visiting a friend the other day when a truck slowly rolled by. The driver was shouting ( I have found out this is a regular occurance for people announcing the sale of anything from propane to water) oranges 40 for 20 pesos ( the peso is around 11-12 to the dollar right now) . "Wanna go halves?" my friend asked. She grabbed her coin purse and we ran to catch him. We stood at the back of the truck with her large plastic washtub while he loaded us up with green orbs. " They take long to ripen up?" I asked. "they're ripe' she informed me "that's the color they are".The next morning I pulled out my plastic juicer we had purchased the week before and whipped up two glorious, sweet glasses of unadulterated orange juice. My half will last us three days....for less than a dollar.
So far I have not found any burritos, enchiladas with red sauce, tacos or empanadas. Panuchos are everywhere, which is what i had for my thanksgiving dinner. A saucer sized corn tortilla (crispy) covered with a smear of refried black beans then topped with shredded turkey, either an avacado slice or cucumber slice,tomatoe and shredds of purple pickled onion (don't knock it till you try it!). I got 4 of these for 50 pesos. No way could I eat all that but in true thanksgiving tradition, I gorged myself and ate three with a bowl sized glass of fresh mango juice.John does not care for these and wasn't hungry at the time so later he dined on a bag of pork rinds, two coconut cookies and a couple of yogurt drinks. Oh. and a Coka Light....Coke is everywhere here...any little tiny closet sized tienda in the living room of a house in a crossroad in the middle of nowhere has coke...thats explains why the diabetes rate is so high here....
So, onion, cucumber, tomatoe and avacado are your vegies...and chaya. Chicken, fish ( we live at the beach remember) and turkey-lots of turkey-shredded. Not like slices of turkey breast. Not many potatoes and forget trying to find a good loaf of wheat bread. I made spaghetti last week-what a challenge! I felt like I was on a scavenger hunt looking for italian seasonings and the tomatoe sauce wasn't much easier. I finally found some basil and oregano and a packet of what was being sold as spaghetti seasoning but what I smelled when I opened it did not conjor any images of tuscan hillsides , gondolas or , for that matter, anything I had ever smelled before. I threw it away...
Our diets have changed considerably since moving here. Lots and lots of yogurt, granola, corn flakes (often all mixed together in a big bowl), something I never had at home-cup-o-noodles-there's some vegies! Those microscopic cubes of carrot with two peas and three kernels of corn. Sometimes a tuna sandwhich-witch?wich? my standard-torchiditos- like Cheetos but with a little kick, and John's favorite, little pastries that are made by a lovely local lady. They come in all different shapes but have the same taste-pie dough. I don't care for them. Scrambled eggs and refried black beans.....thats about it. I occasionally cook but not every day. Its hot and we just aren't that hungry.
So, my turkey panuchos today with the fresh mango juice were a real treat. Today was thanksgiving and I did that. I gave thanks for being healthy, being with my husband of thirty years, knowing my kids are OK, being warm, for the ability to eat anything at all and have a bed to rest my weary head on at night. For the opportunity to live an adventure instead of fighting for survival. For not having to eat that dog food lasagna again........
No comments:
Post a Comment