MexConnect.com Forums: Specific Focus: Mexican Kitchen: Missing Little Things from Home: Page 2

Re: [MG Rabon] Missing Little Things from Home

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When I buy beef, I go to the central market and buy filet mignon. That's the only part that is consistently good. You can cut it with a fork. Never had a problem. Paying 100 pesos a kilo and that includes the butcher trimming all the junk. I usuually buy the whole thing which runs about 2 to 3 kilo's.

Mar 18, 2005, 10:02 PM

Post #27 of 42 (1494 views)

Re: [Esteban] Missing Little Things from Home

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Since we are fulltime RVers (which means our RV is our only home) plus we live in Mexico half the year, I thought I'd share what I buy first thing when I cross the border - both ways.

I'm not much for fast food burgers but once a year we head for the nearest Burger King when we cross into the US. It's a tradition and so far in 5 years, 100% of the time we get the runs a few hours after that Whopper and fries.

This year we stopped at the first Safeway we saw because US customs had taken our unopened bag of dog food and the pooches had to eat. While there, I cruised the aisles looking for anything that struck my eye. What else did I buy?

1. white and whole wheat flour, it's one of the few things I don't like in Mexico and usually I stock up at whatever import food place we may be around when SOB. I've decided it's the type of wheat they use, you just can't beat that Montana winter wheat for flour.

2. Pringles. Mimi loves them and she says they aren't the same in Mexico

3. a couple of expensive dog squeeky toys. I know, we spoil them but they had a rough first 9 months in the jungles of the Yucatan.

4. replaced the stuff they took at the border, dog food & eggs. I hid the avocados and the limons and they didn't care about the huge stalk of manzanas (the small bananas) I had hanging from the closet door.

That's it. I wanted nothing else from a huge US grocery store. Now, I admit that when we got to California my first shopping stop was at Trader Joe's and I bought a lot more stuff there. Mostly wine, low carb candy and vitamins to tell you the truth.

So, what do I buy when we hit that first Gigante or Soriana after crossing into Mexico?

1. Lala coconut yogurt. God! I love that stuff. Can't find anything decent made from coconut in the US, it all has pineapple in it and is labeled Piña Colada.

2. Chicken. I don't understand those that don't like mexican chicken. I think it is way more flavorful, juicy and just plain wonderful.

3. another shocker I guess. Butter. I also love mexican butter. I think it has less salt and to me it tastes richer and more like a milk product.

4. Clight and Jello sugar free jello in flavors I can't find NOB, like jamaica, te y mente, mandarina, papaya, guayaba. I love jello any flavor but I like the tropical flavors best.

5. Media Crema in a box. It's the best in my coffee in the morning and I can buy lots of boxes so I never run out. Actually, every year I bring more boxes of media crema back with us and I still haven't hit the magic number where I don't run out. I also buy a lot of Lala milk in a box, it is so convenient to carry and not have to refrigerate that I can't understand why it isn't all over the US. Must be the dairy union.

6. fresh bolillos if we haven't already stopped at the first panaderia we saw.

7. boxes of Doña Chonita sauces, any or all types they have. You can always make something good if you have the sauce.

I admit that it can be a challenge to find some things I like in Mexico. Coffee is always something we are looking for wherever we are. If we find a good source we buy 4 or 5 lbs and freeze it. I will NEVER adjust to the taste of Nescafe in the morning, hot milk or not.

Beef, I think that mexican cows get too much exercise and they don't hang around long enough after they are dead. CostCo has the best beef I've found SOB, when I am in one I stock the freezer. BTW, there is NO comparison between the food that is in CostCo and in Sams. Sams is good for some stuff but not food. CostCo also has the best tomatoes, it can be impossible to find anything but roma tomatoes in much of mexico. I'm not making any spaghetti sauce and I don't like roma tomatoes for anything but sauce.

That's about it, it used to be hard to find chedder cheese or feta or goat cheeses but I see them all the time now in the big groceries all over the country. It used to be part of the thrill when we would go to Belize for a couple weeks, we could buy really sharp cheddar, cheese curds, and lots of european cheeses. Of course, the rest of the food in Belize is bloody awful unless you like a steady diet of stew beans.

When I crossed back NOB I also had a freezer stuffed with big shrimp from Mazatlán and a storage bin with coconut candy from Nayarit alongside all the box milk, cream and Doña Chonita sauces.

I feel it is the best of both worlds traveling between the two countries. I will return to Mexico this year with frozen Dungeness Crab and salmon that we are hoping to catch in Oregon and Washington this summer.

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán

Mar 18, 2005, 10:55 PM

Post #28 of 42 (1490 views)

Re: [sfmacaws] Missing Little Things from Home

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CARROTS!!! I forgot carrots! I always buy carrots as soon as I get into Mexico. There is nothing that tastes as good as a mexican carrot.

I tested this by buying some really expensive designer carrots at Whole Foods this week hoping they would actually taste like carrot instead of orange cardboard. Nope. They were just as bad as the Safeway variety. I don't know whether it is the heat, the longer time before harvest, the variety or what but mexican carrots are just incredible.

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán

Esteban

Mar 19, 2005, 6:04 AM

Post #29 of 42 (1488 views)

Re: [sfmacaws] Missing Little Things from Home

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Back in the sixties, you couldn't buy burgers in Mexico so like you guys, as soon as I crossed at Nogales, I headed straight for whatever burger joint was there. Now, at least in Mazatlan, there are MANY burger joints including Burger King , McDonalds and Dairy Queen not to speak of a few gourmet burger joints. But those chain burger places cost an arm and a leg. From Bambinos Pizzaria, I can have delivered a family size pizza with two ingredients of which we find chorizo and pina to be our favorite. Not bad for 45 pesos and 10 tip.

We don't worry about flour because we don't have an oven . Recently, at an obscure colonia, after making friends there, we discovered the most delicious tortillas I've ever had. All hand made, no salt and no lard. We also had marinated domestic rabbit that could have passed for gourmet full of the flavor of carbon.

All in all, we are striving to alleviate the imported stuff and stick with fruits and veggies in season.

However, I have to admit, I do miss TraderJoes. They have come a long way.

Mar 19, 2005, 11:42 AM

Post #30 of 42 (1469 views)

Re: [MG Rabon] Missing Little Things from Home

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I'm not going to try to help Rabon. His posts make it clear that my decision to avoid retiring in or near Acapulco was not only a wise decision based on the terrible summer climate and crowds of arrogant Capitalenos but the awful food selection as well. I do want to let others among you know that some of the information he has posted about Susazon is misleading and you should not be put off by his comments.

Susazon is a chain of retail outlets and restaurants located in a number of cities in Mexico. These outlets vary in products offered and it sounds as though the one in Acapulco is small and, perhaps, unsuccessful. I believe that at least some of the stores are franchises owned by franchisees in at least some communities.

The Susazon outlet in Ajijic, Jalisco offers a number of cuts of beef as well as chicken and fish. The store also sells some other "gourmet" food products and has a coffee and espresso bar serving up a wide range of fancy coffee drinks made with the excellent coffees roasted by Cafe Martinique in Guadalajara. They also serve meals and specialize in some of the best arrachera (marinated flank steak) in all of Mexico.

It is true that all of their meat is frozen but that does not detract from the quality of the product. I often buy their arrachera to BBQ at home and it is supurb. I also buy T-Bone, Rib Eye, New York and their specialty cut called a Cowboy Steak. All of these cuts can be very good but their arrachera is the star. I have also tried their marinated frozen chicken and their salmon trout both of which are quite good and I normally avoid frozen fish.

If one is so inclined, one can enjoy coffee drinks or meals at Susazon in Ajijic on their attractive terrace overlooking the lake.

As for prices, I just returned from there with rib eyes at $165 Pesos a kilo and marinated arrachera for $119 Pesos a kilo. That's $7.35USD and $5.30USD a pound respectively. Expensive by Mexican standards but not by American standards. The prices quoted by Rabon are outrageous. Don't expect that at the Ajijic store.

Except for the arrachera, Susazon's steaks cannot hold a candle to the filet and New York strips at Costco in Guadalajara. Also the New Zealand rack of lamb at Costco is absolutely restaurant quality.

The lesson in all of this if you believe Rabon. If you must move to Acapulco, buy a freezer and plan on a periodic run up the autopista to DF for your care packages. If you can't find fine foods there then you ain't trying.

By the way, Rabon keeps looking for the word "gourmet" as a guideline for fine food stores in Mexico. If the reader is looking for stores selling high quality foods and ingredients for the home, I recommend looking under "delikatessen" with a further slogan such as "Alta Calidad en Productos". Nothing beats reading the local press on Fridays and Sundays when these types of stores advertise in sections devoted to cooking, dining and entertainment.

While I'm at it, I have to agree with SFMacaws. We love Mexican chicken, especially the yellow, marigold fed, variety. We can get the white chicken in Ajijic but always opt for the yellow. For us, the best chicken on earth comes from France where there are numerous varieties some very expensive but chickens in Mexico are great and beat the hell out of supermarket chicken in the U.S. I also enjoy the Mexican butter as does she, even though it can be a bit strong for some people.

One thing, SF, as Esteban says, no need to go to the U.S. for burgers. There are lots of Burger King places all over Mexico along with McDonalds, Carls, Jr., Dairy Queen and so forth. Bubba is addicted to Cheese Whoppers and will drive the 70 kilometers or so to Guadalajara just to eat one. One caveat: the Burger King at the Guadalajara airport is not only really expensive but their burgers are not up to the standard. Let this be a warning.

(This post was edited by Bubba on Mar 19, 2005, 11:58 AM)

MG Rabon

Mar 19, 2005, 1:53 PM

Post #31 of 42 (1459 views)

Re: [Bubba] Missing Little Things from Home

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Thanks for the heads-up that not all the SuSazon' outlets are like this one, it really wasn't what I expected to find after visiting the Web site. We'll try them again in a few months when we summer outside of Morelia to escape the summer heat of Acapulco. I sure didn't see an attractive terrace here, much less chicken, fish, or coffee. They aren't exactly in a good location and I rather doubt they sell much of anything. To be fair, I understand that franchisees may not always have the same vision of product and service as those of the parent company, and my comments are based only on my one visit to this one location.

I'm trying the orange chicken again, now that I know why it is orange - seeing as most places just have chickens kinda stacked in the middle of the isle in a big pyramid I really thought they might be (in gringo terms) BAD. The only orange chicken I ate was the least orange one I could find and I thought it had an off taste. I experienced a near fatal case of food poisoning once (in the good ole USA) and have been slightly paranoid about my food ever since.

Someone suggested the smoked pork chops.
Many thanks Cynthia! Those will substitute nicely for ham in every application save for sandwiches, and I may even try them that way too.

Someone else up the thread mentioned looking for a gourmet store and I sort of picked that up. I assure you that gourmet is not usually part of my vocabulary but I did think that perhaps basic American food was considered gourmet down in these parts, as someone had mentioned it.

The beef I got from Sam's is pretty good. I still have yet to attempt the run to Costco, Holy week traffic is ramping up and they are still doing road construction on the hill east of town I'll have to cross.

Compórtate bien, y si no puedes, invítame!
MG Rabon

Mar 19, 2005, 3:45 PM

Post #32 of 42 (1443 views)

Re: [MG Rabon] Missing Little Things from Home

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Rabon:

I got curious about the yellow chicken thing. In Ajijic, I buy almost all of my chicken from an outfit called Puritan Poultry in Riberas del Pilar. The owner of that store has his freshly killed chickens delivered every morning from a producer in Guanajauto State and one pays more there but is absolutely assured of the finest quality and freshest poultry available. He sells both white and yellow chickens and marigolds have nothing to do with it at his place. The yellow chickens are fed corn andthe white chickens are fed regular chicken feed. He contends that, in a blind tasting, there is no way to tell the difference.

It's interesting how all of us are swayed by the appearance of raw chicken products in the cooler as we shop. Most of the chicken for sale around Lake Chapala is bright yellow, even orange as Rabon says. I have gotten used to that and that is what I expect a raw chicken in the market to look like. When I was shopping in Playa del Carmen and Tulum supermarkets while on vacation last fall, I noted that the standard chickens on the shelf in that part of Quintana Roo were a sickly pale white with shades of blue and pink and I was really put off by their look. I bought anyway as I was determined to make some of the Yucatan style chicken dishes at my rental condo for which that region is so famous. Of course, once I added the requisite Seville oranges, lime juice, habanero chiles, onions, garlic, achiote paste, and cilantro to my stew to make the wonderful pollo pibil, that chicken could have been purple for all I cared. Serve that up with some plantains fried in olive oil with garlic cloves and XX Lager and all is right with the world.

Speaking of plantains, I have rarely seen them in Jalisco. What they call a platano macho here is sweet and not the same thing at all. Plantains for cooking as served around the Caribbean are often fried as a staple when either green or between green and ripe stages. Has anyone had better luck finding non-sweet plantains?

Damn I miss Yucatecan cuisine but I sure as hell don't miss that godawful climate.

(This post was edited by Bubba on Mar 19, 2005, 4:14 PM)

Mar 23, 2005, 12:02 AM

Post #33 of 42 (1403 views)

Re: [Bubba] Missing Little Things from Home

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About hamburgers, I lived in DF in the mid 1970's for a year and when I got homesick I would go to Sanborns for a burger and to speak english to the tourists. I have a strong memory of how awful those hamburgers were, bleh! At the time, being a SoCal brat I thought that LA was the center of the universe and used to say I knew that because it was the location of the best hamburger in the world. Ah youth, so sure of yourself and so righteous about it. I don't think I've eaten a hamburger in Mexico since then, perhaps they are better now? I don't much like eating mystery meat even in the US but I very much doubt I would buy anything in Mexico made of ground meat of unknown origen. I have to like the "idea" of a food, not just the taste and a hamburger in Mexico doesn't pass the "idea" test.

Yes, Bubba, the plantains in the south are wonderful but they qualify more as the starch of a meal like a potato or rice than as a fruit. I haven't tried them in Jalisco, maybe they let them ripen too much? or they are a different variety?

The Chedraui in Playa del Carmen tends to have white chickens, but the San Francisco has the usual yellow ones. I haven't been down since the new Sam's club opened, if indeed it has opened. The CostCo in Cancun still had the best meat and chicken and tomatoes on the coast.

What is it with tomatoes in Mexico? As soon as you cross the border into Belize they have huge, wonderful beefsteak tomatoes. I know they grow them in Mexico for export and you can buy them in CostCo but the local stores never have any decent tomatoes. I think those Romas are the pits, no flavor and dry, but they are all locals seem to want to buy.

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán

Carol Schmidt

Mar 23, 2005, 1:39 PM

Post #34 of 42 (1379 views)

Re: [sfmacaws] Missing Little Things from Home

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>What is it with tomatoes in Mexico? As soon as you cross the border into Belize they have huge, wonderful beefsteak tomatoes. I know they grow them in Mexico for export and you can buy them in CostCo but the local stores never have any decent tomatoes. I think those Romas are the pits, no flavor and dry, but they are all locals seem to want to buy.>

I was wandering through San Juan de Dias market yestrday and came across a woman selling huge Beefsteak type ripe tomatoes, whcih I promptly scooped up. She was licking her lips as she described making a tomato sandwich on a bolillo from the huge ripe tomatoes you do sometimes find in San Miguel, even at Tuesday Market. I grew up on Beefsteaks from our garden sliced thick and slathered with Hellman's/Real Food mayonnaise on basic white bread. That's still heaven to me.

Actually Roma tomatoes are excellent for many dishes--in many cuisines they specify whcih kind of tomato to use, and Romas are best for cooking and for salsa, I think. You have to buy them ripe when you can, but the harder ones do just fine in many dishes. When I was growing up Mom used what she called plum tomatoes or Italian tomatoes in dishes like chili and spaghetti sauce, but those huge beefsteaks went into fresh salads and on sandwiches.

Carol Schmidt

Mar 23, 2005, 2:05 PM

Post #35 of 42 (1375 views)

Re: [Carol Schmidt] Missing Little Things from Home

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Yes, I think you are right about the reason for all those Roma's. They are the best for cooked sauces and they are also probably good for salsa since there is less liquid. Personally, I prefer the beefsteaks in salsa too as they taste better.

Eating raw tomatoes doesn't seem to be a big part of mexican cuisine although they always seem to put shredded iceberg lettuce and sliced roma tomatoes on the plate. I think of it like parsley, just decoration.

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán

jennifer rose

Mar 23, 2005, 2:10 PM

Post #36 of 42 (1374 views)

Re: [sfmacaws] Missing Little Things from Home

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I'm in heaven, because the Roma tomatoes are the only kind that I'd ever consider eating raw. I like them, because they're nice and dry instead oozing tomato water all over the place. And they seem meatier.

(This post was edited by jennifer rose on Mar 23, 2005, 2:10 PM)

Mar 23, 2005, 4:44 PM

Post #37 of 42 (1360 views)

Re: [Carol Schmidt] Missing Little Things from Home

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The plantains I am used to I usually serve with a couple of Caribbean spicy stews and, you are right, they are a staple more akin to potatoes than bananas. I fry green plantains or plantains that show a tiny bit of yellow from ripening which makes them softer with a hint of sweetness. Another poster insists elsewhere that green plantains can be found in Jalisco in the Guadalajara abastos but I have yet to look for them there. I do know that I have searched for them in supermarket after supermarket in the Guadalajara area without success. When I have found what looked like what I call plantains and are called platanos machos around here, I have found the end product after frying to be too sweet for my taste.

If you can find true green plantains, fry them in olive oil with whole garlic cloves for a treat accompanying Haitian Griots, Yucatecan Pollo Pibil or other similar dishes.

As for tomatoes, it is a shame that people can be born and raised in Mexico spending their entire lives without ever having eaten a truly great heirloom tomato. Imagine growing up thinking that the relatively tasteless and pedestrian Roma stewing tomato represents an example of the best of this wonderful fruit. It's not that Mexico doesn't have a huge commercial tomato crop; it's simply that the best tomatoes are grown for export - especially to the United States. I understand that in Jalisco state alone, which produced 88,140 tons of tomatoes last year, about 65% of the commercial tomato crop was exported and that that portion that was exported was the cream of the crop leaving us in Mexico with the left overs. It is as likely as not that that good looking beefsteak tomato spotted in Belize came from Mexico as do most of those beautiful greenhouse tomatoes one sees in the finer markets in the U.S.

Now, don't get me wrong, the Roma tomato can be quite good and is especially suited for cooking. I make some really good salsas with Romas. What I am decrying is the loss of the truly sweet and juicy tomato picked in the garden on a warm summer's day that had an incomparable flavor essential to that BLT. You can now duplicate that experience in California supermarkets in August and September each year but not here. That's OK. I'll stay here, thank you.

Fortunately, at lake Chapala and such outlets as Costco in Guadalajara, beefsteaks and the greenhouse tomatoes-on-the-vine have started to become available quite often. These are certainly not heirloom quality but they are a vast improvement over what was available a few years ago. Since there seems to be little or no interest in the Mexican market for anything but Romas, some of the Mexican superstores still market only these mediocre fruits.

That's life.

(This post was edited by Bubba on Mar 24, 2005, 6:36 AM)

esperanza

Mar 23, 2005, 5:52 PM

Post #38 of 42 (1353 views)

Re: [Bubba] Missing Little Things from Home

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Hmmm...I've bought green plantains at the tianguis in Ajijic, at the Abastos, at Mercado San Juan de Dios, and at the local tianguis around the corner from where I live now. Here in Mexico, we use plátanos machos while they're still green to make tostones, a savory/salty chip. Once the plátano macho is ripe--called a maduro, once it's black on the outside and soft on the inside--we slice and fry them to make the sweet fried bananas that are seen so often in southern Mexico and the entire Carribean. A bowl of white rice topped with black beans and salsa cruda and accompanied by a plate of fried bananas: food for the gods.

Bubba, the plátano macho in its green (i.e., yellow peel) state is available everywhere and is definitely the kind of starch you mention.

http://www.mexicocooks.typepad.com

Cynthia7

Mar 23, 2005, 8:07 PM

Post #39 of 42 (1345 views)

Re: [esperanza] Missing Little Things from Home

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When I first came here 19 years ago Roma tomatoes were the only tomato in this area. It was thought because the canning plants made catsup, tomato sauce and a few canned tomatoes. Same thing with sweet onions-now we can get yellow ones sometimes for cooking soups, sauces, etc. And where are the lemons in the bajio?? Lots of key limes and persian limes but no lemons...They import apples but where are the baking potatoes - russets? You in cities of millions probably have these items but 10,000 NOB folk here don't.

Carol Schmidt

Mar 23, 2005, 9:12 PM

Post #40 of 42 (1337 views)

Re: [Cynthia7] Missing Little Things from Home

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Where are the lemons in San Miguel? We missed them terribly too but now they are often for sale in the stalls between the covered area of Ramirez market and the artisans alley, and there are some women who have learned that gringos like lemons and they sell them on the streets if you pay attention. Gigante has them sometimes, as does Barbeque Bob's organic veggie store. We also always have a bottle ot Real Lemon juice from Carey's on hand just in case.

Carol Schmidt

Mar 24, 2005, 1:24 AM

Post #41 of 42 (1324 views)

Re: [Carol Schmidt] Missing Little Things from Home

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Strange I suppose for a Californian, but I don't miss lemons at all when I am in Mexico. Maybe the really strange thing is that I do still like lemons. I grew up in the middle of a lemon orchard and one of my worst jobs ever was working at a lemon packing plant when I was a teenager. There is no describing how disgusting the bottom of the railroad boxcars were that we hosed out before the next batch of lemons went in.

I do go out of my way to find the small mexican limes though when I am in the US. I much prefer the flavor of lime over that of lemon. I like both, but prefer the sweeter taste of lime. Actually, the limes I like best remind me slightly of the taste of graham crackers. In the south of Mexico, I find these small limes labeled Colima limes, in Colima and Jalisco they are simply called limon and in the US they are often called Key Limes or Mexican limes. I don't think they are true Key Limes but that is how they are often labeled.

I have a lime tree that grew on my winter porch in Marin and that I used to make Key Lime pie. It now is at my friends house in Cathedral City and flourishing. When I bought it 10 years ago the label said Rangpoor Lime, it doesn't taste like the Colima limes but has even more of that graham cracker taste that I like. The closest taste I've found to it has been the limes in Belize, which may be true key limes.

My friend here also has a regular lemon tree, not Meyers, and it was loaded with fruit when we got here. She doesn't like lemon and so another friend and I spent an afternoon manually squeezing dozens of the lemons. We froze the juice and I now have a big bag of lemon juice ice cubes that I don't know what I'll use for but I figure will come in handy. If nothing else, I suppose they will make nice gifts for my lemon deprived friends in Mexico.

re: tomatoes. I don't know Jennifer, I can't imagine eating a roma tomato raw and liking it. For me, they just have no real taste. I agree with Bubba that the heirloom tomatoes are a taste of heaven and a vine ripened beefsteak of any variety is pretty close to nirvana. For many years I avoided eating raw tomatoes in Mexico because they aren't peeled and they always struck me as a source of many peoples tourista problems. I don't worry about it so much now although I still don't eat salsa or other forms of raw tomato in dubious establishments. It is a habit now to skip the raw lettuce and tomato at roadside restaurants and taco stands. I have no idea if it has helped or not, I rarely get any kind of stomach disorder, but I also have other habits that probably contribute to my immunity. I do commonly eat on the street and count some of the best meals I've had from street taco stands. I also eat in truck stops and other roadside food joints and while I may eat the cooked stuff there, rarely eat anything raw and pass on the pico de gallo.

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán

Mar 24, 2005, 6:54 AM

Post #42 of 42 (1313 views)