Less Sugar / Less Salt / Can It Be ???

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Yesterday I treated Pablo to lunch at a regionally popular restaurant featuring authentic Oaxaquenan food. Any place that lists chapulines is authentic.

Cafe de La Olla and eggs oaxaca style.

What's this? The cafe was totally unsweetened? This is a first.

"Oh si" the waitress replied. It's because of customer request for no sugar. So we bring azsucar mascabado (traditional brown sugar) sweet and low, and Stevia. separate".

Well I will be damned.

I almost fell out of my chair.

Mexico is a changing...

[MEXICOWANDERER]

Another meal I learned is cucarachas del rio (river lobster) head off, shelled. Cooked in an olla. With the meat of a young coconut. Outrageous. Bitter ice cold tuba on a hot day tuba is the fermented sap of the coconut palm. With a touch of canela (cinnamon) with a thick layer of cacahuates (peanuts) floating on top.

Any receta this side of the Rio Bravo is worth trying out. Even Palomitas with grated queso cotija (popcorn topped with grated dry cotija cheese). A friend tried to teach me his Zapoteco language of Oaxaca I couldn't make it past the word "broom" phonetically sounded like XCOBA. He "painted" with tiny needle size reeds thousands of which were glued to a board. Around 8 or so colors. He made a huge 12 x 20 Quetzal for me.

[navegator]

Any fish cooked over coals or wood is delicious, I cook salmon on hard wood planks, it is an art to be able to eat all the meal with only the tortillas as a utencil, you should try it I wonder were I can get some fresh banana leafs.

Maybe we should all try to post some Mexican food recetas not gringo or Texmex or adapted to Mexican tastes but the native version, I will ask our friends, the mother still grinds corn on a metate and had makes the best tortillas this side of the Rio Grande, they know good food, they bring me the chapulines "crickets" and the sweetest tunas so far, they are teaching me the Otomi language, so I will ask then for food recetas.

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[MEXICOWANDERER]

Pescado Tatemado

Fashion a bunch of rocks into as flat a bed as you can.

Have tomato and onion ready and a stack of tortillas.

Burn enough hardwood to get the rocks blazing hot.

Lay entire uncut fish atop the rocks and remaining charcoal and then flip to other side when the cooked side is soft.

Remove fish from fire and lay on a banana plant leaf. Brush off coals.

Hold the tortilla with one hand and pinch off flesh but leave the skeleton intact.

Consume the tortilla and fish.

Then one at a time take a bite of tomato and then onion.

This "receta" is said to be "Pre Columbian" Fish tastes different when cooked intact. Anything under the skeleton is left alone but with huge fish the cheeks is reported to be outrageously delicious.

[navegator]

Rock soup

Caldo de pierda

Made in Oaxaca with hot rocks normally by the side of a river in a rok depression, today it is made in a earthen pot "hoya de barro cosido" it has fish and shrimp, tomas and herbs, heat rocks with a wood fire meantime prepare the fish, and shrimp, "langostino" the herbs and when the rocks are hot place one rock in the water with the ingredients and begin to cook, you will see the fish and langoxtino change color as it cooks.

This is what I remember from long ago, havent had it in many moons.

Provecho y a comer caldo de piedra!, pasen buenas noches.

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[Talleyho69]

Please tell us more! We have spent a lot of time there and haven't run across it. Sounds great, like the childrens book that we both grew up with!

[iguana07]

Try the rock soup in Oaxaca!

[navegator]

I went to the supermarket to get some groceries and one item was getting sugar, I was told to get the "azucar moscabada" by the time I was looking for it one of the stoking clerks came over and asked what I was looking for, of course I could not remember the correct name for the azucar, so I told him I was looking for a product called "mosca acabada" he cracked up in laughter and took him some time to compose himself as he motioned me to follow, he then got the bag of azucar for me.

Mosca acabada means finished or worn out fly in Spanish so now you know if you can not remember the name remember the fly.

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