The previous column on immigrant cooking in Mexico dealt with the Mennonites of Chihuahua, a group that brought Northern and Eastern European culinary traditions to their new country. A far different cuisine came with the Italians, who largely migrated during the Porfiriato, in the last part of the 19th century. The great wave of migration from Europe during the […]
Continue ReadingMany years ago, two young students of mine in California went on a family trip to visit their grandparents in Mexico. When they returned, they couldn’t wait to tell me the funniest word they’d heard: “cacahuates.” Those four catchy syllables really made an impression on them, possibly because of the incessant cry of the peanut vendor at […]
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Chocolate comes from roasting and processing the bean which grows on the cocoa tree. The cocoa tree is harvested in the rain forests of the tropics, notably in Mexico, Brazil, and Ghana. Our global community owes chocolate to none less than the Aztecs, who populated what is now Mexico. In fact, the word chocolate comes […]
Continue ReadingAs discussed in last month’s column, wild game played an important culinary role in pre-Hispanic Mexico. Although the Aztecs, Maya and other Mesoamerican people relied on corn as the staple food, along with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, the carbohydrate-rich diet was supplemented by animal protein. The Aztecs had only five domesticated animals, […]
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Coffee, that fragrant morning eye-opener, is considered a daily necessity by millions of people. The degree of that necessity is reflected in the fact that coffee is the second largest legally traded commodity in the world, after oil. The United States is its biggest consumer, downing a whopping twenty percent of all coffee sold in […]
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Western Mexico: A Traveler’s Treasury, 4th edition By Tony Burton Sombrero Books, 2013 Available from Amazon Books: Paperback For anyone who lives or travels in western Mexico, Tony Burton’s Western Mexico: A Traveler’s Treasury is a “must have.” I own a well travelled copy of the third edition (2001) but I was delighted to see a fourth edition […]
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José María Narváez (1768-1840) is one of Mexico’s forgotten heroes. Captain George Vancouver is usually given the credit for exploring the Georgia Strait and discovering the site of the city that now bears his name, but actually José María Narváez y Gervete was the first European to sail and chart those waters a full year […]
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A young couple who became famous artists pioneered the San Miguel de Allende foreign community. San Miguel de Allende’s vibrant art and music scene is deservedly famous. Among the early pioneers responsible for this are two Canadian artists: Leonard and Reva Brooks. John Virtue’s book about the couple, subtitled Artists in Exile in San Miguel […]
Continue ReadingAfter the Conquest, Spanish settlers introduced numerous Old World species into the New World. The most pernicious introductions were human-borne diseases, which led to the rapid and tragic decimation of the indigenous population. However, most of the introductions were deliberate, made with the intention of increasing the diversity of available food and resources. Among the […]
Continue ReadingThe first Whitbread Round-The-World yacht race was won by a Mexican. Most people do not associate Mexico and Mexicans with yachting, but it’s a fact that the first Whitbread Round-The-World Yacht Race, in 1973-4, was won by the Mexican ketch Sayula II, skippered by Ramón Carlin, a Mexican businessman who made his money from washing […]
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