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Not close to the real thing though... dry-ish, harder... just not the same. Creameries in Mexico and the US have tried to industrialize Oaxaca cheese production for decades, but resuts are incredibly underwhelming.
Nothing compares to the Oaxaca cheese sold in the "Productos Oaxaqueños" trucks in Mexico.
Not close to the real thing though... dry-ish, harder... just not the same. Creameries in Mexico and the US have tried to industrialize Oaxaca cheese production for decades, but resuts are incredibly underwhelming.
Nothing compares to the Oaxaca cheese sold in the "Productos Oaxaqueños" trucks in Mexico.
Southern Mexico is supposed to be highly impoverished. How do they eat so well?
Southern Mexico is supposed to be highly impoverished. How do they eat so well?
Some of the greatest foods on earth have come out of developing regions. It doesn't have to mean anything. Remember that ingredients only cost what the local market dictates. Lobster used to be considered peasant food. Limes, avocado, cilantro, and tropical fruit are rather expensive, yet in Mexico (or elsewhere) they are a dime a dozen. Cheese is dairy and is sustainable if you grow up in a rural culture, as is the case in Oaxaca.
Another thing to consider is that there are virtually no food taboos in Mexico. You'll see any part of any animal being used for something. They've figured out a taste for everything. Here it's considered trash or 'gross' all too often.
Southern Mexico is supposed to be highly impoverished. How do they eat so well?
This is a good question--and I really like PacoMartin's follow-up question. I can only speak for south/central Mexico (D.F., Pueblo, Toluca, Morelos, for example)---yes, you do see poverty. But the folks I know eat pretty well despite not having a lot of dinero. People still cook at home--pretty much every day--using fresh ingredients from the open markets. There are more fruit, vegetables, bean varieties, chiles, etc. that you can shake a stick at! And it's so affordable compared to American prices. I really hope the mercado/tianguis tradition never fades away down there.... probaby will though given the agressiveness of WalMart in Mexico. WalMart is even trying replicate the "look" of a mercado in their stores down there. Sneaky snakes.
This is a good question--and I really like PacoMartin's follow-up question.
I think I was eating a wonderful meal at a gas station in Italy, with fresh baked bread and tantalizing vegetables when it really hit me how some people have never changed their expectations about what they should eat.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TotallyTam
People still cook at home--pretty much every day--using fresh ingredients from the open markets. There are more fruit, vegetables, bean varieties, chiles, etc. that you can shake a stick at!
Part of it is simple time. There is a much higher percentage of people's time in a rural population devoted to food transport, production, and cooking than in a highly mechanized culture. If you have a lot of money in the USA you can eat cuisine from every country in the world. As a result I grew up thinking that Mexican's ate the same monotonous diet every single day. While they are less likely to go get Vietnamese pho for lunch, they tend to eat a more varied diet than ordinary American food.
Mechanization tends to reduce the variety of your food, and as a result you depend more on artificial flavors. While the agricultural revolution has allowed the world to feed a far bigger population than anyone dreamed of in the 18th century, it has also exposed us to the possibility of the greatest famine ever seen if a few key crops are decimated by blight.
To people who study such things, the devotion to diversity is astonishing.
The Leningrad seedbank was diligently preserved through the 28-month Siege of Leningrad. While the Soviets had ordered the evacuation of art from the Hermitage, they had not evacuated the 250,000 samples of seeds, roots, and fruits stored in what was then the world's largest seedbank. So a group of scientists at the Vavilov Institute boxed up a cross section of seeds, moved them to the basement, and took shifts protecting them. Those guarding the seedbank refused to eat its contents, even though by the end of the siege in the spring of 1944, nine of them had died of starvation.
Also, you have to get used to eating food that is not wrapped in plastic all the time. It can be shocking to gringos to see food exposed to the elements, but you can get used to it.
How common is it for tacos to be topped with pico de gallo?
It's not uncommon. Most of the places where I've bought/eaten tacos in Mexico are served without toppings/salsas and there are a variety of salsas from which I can choose to add. There's pico de gallo, salsa verde, a salsa with avocado as a key ingredient, salsa rojo, etc., and then there are containers of onions, cilantro and jalapeno's. I find the same set-up where I purchase tacos in the USA.
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