Part 1 - The Taste of the Grasshopper by Michal

Ola amigos!

(michal) As I promised some time ago, I will try to give you a small overview of the Mexican food that sort of impressed me on our way throughout Mexico.
So forget about nachos, enchiladas, quesadillas and other typical TexMex crap. My stomach has adjusted to the local food, so I am into the real culinary experience: Here comes the highlight of the week: the grasshoppers.

(michal) By the way - I think I would have never expected that I would ever eat insects on this trip – but it happened, and it was not such a scary experience as I expected before!

Chapulines con guacamole – thats how the dish is called, usually the grasshoppers served here are fried together with onion, garlic and spicy pepper, that is how mine was served too.
Here how the dish looks like: View image

How do we eat it? :you take a tortilla , put inside around 20 grasshoppers mix it together with guacamole, wrap the whole tortilla, and take a huge bite ! (mniam-mniam!) View image

(michal) My impressions: well I got a bit scared when I took a first bite, they are quite crispy and spicy, if anybody in his childhood swallowed a fly, well it is the same line of taste. Negative side: It takes some time to remove the grasshoppers legs from in-between your teeth afterwards. By the way today I also tried (and bought) dried grasshoppers, offered as a snack, not bad! I was trying to convince Silvy to try at least one but it was simply impossible to convince her! :(((

Tamales Oaxaquenios: On the previous picture you also saw a huge chunk of green stuff – yes, yes, this was one and only tipical Mexican: Tamales. I wouldn’t say that I am a huge fan of tamales – they are however cheap and one is enough to quench your hunger, that is how they look like when you buy them, you dont see what you are going to actually eat, only banana leaves that are used for wrapping it: View image

After you get your tamal (you can very often get them from the street for as little as 0.30 $) you just eat what is inside, usually it is corn flower (sort of mamaliga) with chicken or sauce. You don’t eat the banana leaf that they were wrapped in!!! That is how they look once you unwrap them, delicious, no? View image

Mole Poblano – In case you don’t know, mole is in a broad meaning a sauce: there are plenty of different sauces served across the whole Mexico but they say that the one and only and the best of all moles is the Mole Poblano, from Pueabla, the king of all moles! Of course we couldn’t miss the chance to try this great food!

(michal) Mole Poblano is usually served with chicken: View image This amazing sauce although looks black is made up 50 different ingredients, among them 7 different chillis, chockolate and banana. This was actually a great taste sensation – it was sweet, spicy, bitter, and chocolate at the same time!
This dish has a huge tradition, it has been around for a few centuries as an invention of one of the local nuns. The most amazing thing was that it is so difficult to eat it! You get stuffed with it, after first three bites! Even though I tried 2 times to eat it with an empty stomach and wolfs hunger, it was like a sweet torture to make it till the end! But - be careful! Not every Mole is so tasty, for example Mole de Panza, that I tried in Puebla too, turned up to be a culinary disaster! Some chunks of intestines floating on the unedible hot soup! Brrr!!

(michal) This entry wouldn’t be full without Mezcal – one of the most famous drinks in Mexico (right after tequila of course) A glass of Mezcal looks like that: View image

Mezcal that is very similar in taste to tequila is made of Maguey plant (Tequila is made of agaves by the way) and Oaxaca, the place where we are right now is the heart of the worlds Mezcal production.
The interesting thing about Mezcal is the role of El Gusano - a worm that lives in the plant that Mezcal is produced from, and added also to the bottles! Thanks to them Mezcal gets its interesting taste. It is also usual that the last person who gets a shot from the bottle has an honour to eat the worm.
I have not tried the worm from the bottle yet, but yesterday when I was served a Mezcal, the waiter brought it together with lemons and two kinds of salt! - here on the close up: View image (the way you drink Mezcal is the same as the way you drink tequila, you lik the salt from your hand, take a shot and bite a lime) One was white and the second brown, of course, curious me, went for the brown one, it tasted good! How surprised I was when I learnt today that the famous brown Oaxaca salt is a combination of dried warms, chillis and salt ground together!

Some of you might be also wondering what was Silvy doing while I was eating bugs and other crap – in addition of doing this (reading books etc.): View image I have to say she did pretty good, discovering chilles rellenos (stuffed peppers) that are just as the same as Bulgarian “pulneni chushki” ! ;)

Part 2 Art and Culture in Puebla and Oaxaca by Silvy

Hi guys!

(silvena) Today our entries will clearly show what each of us finds most fascinating and spends their money on during our trip. So i will be posting pictures of our many and varied acquaintances with Mexican pre-historic and modern art and culture.

(silvena) Every day is colorful in Merida but the Sunday market in the main square (the zocalo) is particularly lively. On this picture you see one of the many many stalls adorned with hand made dresses and other textiles. The white long dresses with extremely varied and colorful had embroideries are by the way what most women (especially middle aged and up) in Merida wear. View image

(silvena) The Artisans Markets are one of the places that we visit in every town, even if we don’t buy anything (something that I find so hard to do and invariably makes me sad but our backpacks are heavy enough and we do try to limit ourselvesJ A picture of El Parian Crafts Market in Puebla. View image

(silvena) Going from crafts to somewhat higher art, one thing which is impressive all over Mexico is the number and impeccable shape and delightful exhibitions in their museums. One of the finest we have seen is the Museo Amparo in Puebla. The building itself in which it is placed is a colonial house all beautifully painted in bright colors. One wing housed the pre-Hispanic art section with some artifacts like this one, View image and the other wing, in addition to colonial pieces from all over Mexico, had two guest expositions of a modern sculptor ( Javier Marin), and some pieces of Alejandro Colunga which held us for quite some time :) Please see for yourself. View image

(silvena) Constantly looking for strange things and excitement, we went to visit the Templo de San Francisco in Puebla, where the body of a Spaniard who came to Mexico in the 1550s and planned many of Mexico’s roads, is kept in a glass chamber and many Mexicans are said to come and worship him. Well, this somehow did not appeal to me for a picture but in front of this church we had our several minutes of fame with the local kids coming out of school and saw the school orchestra practicing. View image

(silvena) Puebla, although on a much smaller scale than Oaxaca also had its corner for artists and since i am always looking for a local painting to buy, we went to visit the Barrio del Artista where artists each have their small open studio at one of the plazas. View image

(silvena) Another form of art in Mexico is the nature. On our 4.5 hour bus trip from Puebla to Oaxaca yesterday, the scenery around us changed dramatically several times and each new view was somewhat more unusual than the other. At one point we were somewhere high in the mountains (around 3000m) but since mountains here do not have almost any vegetation, you feel as if you are among HUGE hills. Of course the plant that we saw most often in all kinds of shapes or forms was the cactus. Some of these cacti were SO huge. Another thing which I found so mesmerizing was that there were some of these mountains ALL covered with cacti (like single sticks), just like trees, or more like just the trunks of trees I could not capture the beauty of those sceneries well because the bus never stopped and the pictures from the moving bus did not turn up so good....But here is a feel of it... View image

(silvena) Oaxaca won me even before we came, just reading about it in the books, but yesterday after a few hours of walking around, we both loved it. Just as Puebla has more churches per head than i have ever seem elsewhere, Oaxaca seems to have just as many galleries. It has quite a few cultural events too and last night we saw some dance festival where groups from different parts of the country competed. The boys on this picture seemed to carry their hats easily when we were looking at them from the other end of the street but when we came closer, i saw poor guys really suffering with the wind trying to take their heads together with those hats while they were performing their jumps. View image

(silvena) Well, this is all from me for today. Last but not least, when we heard that a Million Dollar Baby won an Oscar the other night and we saw that it was playing in the local cinema, we hurried to buy tickets in advance for the evening show, since i was convinced they might be sold out. It is a great and touching movie. We were alone in the movie theatre...

Bye bye!