- 100% – Comida corrida. $3-$4 for a full homemade meal at a family restaurant with soup, rice, main dish, dessert and a fresh fruit drink. I will miss lunch in Mexico.
- 95% – Salsa & limes as the only condiments. Even for salad dressing.
- 89% – Bones in meat. I chew more carefully here because I like my mouth.
- 95% – Different fruits & veggies. Chayote, zapote, guanabana, mamay, nances, tejocote, nopal, ciruela amarilla, xoconostle, granadilla, chirimoya, platano pera, … oh, and jicama (thanks for the reminder, Theron)
- 78% – Not drinking the water. I’m accustomed to using garafones (big water cooler jugs) and my old Nalgene, but the FIRST thing I do when I return to the US – even before clearing customs in the Houston airport – will be to drink from a public water fountain.
- 100% – Cheese & blackberry flavored ice cream. Don’t wrinkle your nose. You like cheesecake, right?
- 93% – Corn tortillas. Being from Kansas, I was staunchly in the flour tortilla camp. But, I now realize all the corn tortillas up north are flavorless or worse … when they need not be. Fresh and made right they’re excellent.
- 30% – Food contradictions. Sopa seca (dry soup) … quesadillas without cheese … these things exist!
- 68% – Lack of concern / awareness / belief in food refrigeration. First, meat and dairy – they understand that it needs to be refrigerated to keep it for a longer time … which means meat that’s refrigerated could be older … and older = less fresh. So, meat and cheese that’s never been frozen and is sitting out is a sign that it’s fresh (assuming it’s not detectably rotting). I can see some logic in that. Then there are the condiments – I see things like opened mayo sitting out unrefrigerated all the time … sometimes in the sun. It says “Refrigerate After Opening” … in Spanish even.
- 85% – Tacos. They’re ubiquitous so it’s best not to fight it. I have a particularly soft spot (gut) for Puebla’s tacos arabes. But if I ever want late night food that’s not just meat, I’m pretty much out of luck.
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Friends in Colombia couldn’t believe me when I told them the first time I ate a Mexican tamale, well, I ate the whole thing and left nothing on the plate. I grew to like the family restaurant fare in Mexico City which suited my means just fine. Not only that, it was really, really good. Oh, you said nothing about jicama. You can find it nowhere else but in Mexico. It’s called a Mexican potato, but it tastes sweet and sort of lemony. Texture is firm like an apple’s.
I would do just about anything for cheese ice cream right about now. I think I had some almost every day for the last couple days I was there. So good!