Beginning in mid-October, and lasting for a month, a five-hundred-year-old ritual encompassing history, tradition and cuisine takes place in the valley of Tehuacan, in the Mixteca Poblana region of southern Puebla. Traveling through this rocky, hardscrabble land, one wonders how the inhabitants have sustained themselves for thousands of years and marvels at the fact that […]
Continue ReadingMention vanilla, and people are apt to think of the ice-cream flavor they select when confronted with a mind-boggling choice involving everything from chirimoya to cheesecake: “just plain vanilla.” What started out as one of the most exotic flavors to be introduced to the European palate has come to be equated with blandness. Even more […]
Continue ReadingThis is the time of year when outdoor entertaining gets into full swing, and one of the staples of this casual kind of dining is salsa. It is served with chips or crudités, or as an accompaniment to grilled meat, chicken or fish, and is indispensable with tacos. The word salsa means “sauce”, and includes […]
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One of the oldest printing presses still in operation anywhere in the world is in Tacámbaro, Michoacán. Juan Pascoe lives on a remote ex-hacienda outside Tacámbaro, Michoacán. Visitors invited to view his work often think they’ve lost their way in the surrounding sugar-cane fields, but then suddenly catch their first glimpse of the former Great […]
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Tony Burton’s Mexican Kaleidoscope is a whirlwind trip through some of the underpinnings of Mexican culture, told with humour, affection and well-documented facts. This readable compendium of little known stories made me want to revisit many places I’d already seen. How much richer my experiences would have been had I been able to take this user-friendly and […]
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History of Oaxaca Part 2 – Colonial Era See, also: Part 1 Pre-hispanic Era Part 3 Modern Era Welcome to the continuation of an overview of life in Oaxaca, past and recent. In this article, we will look at Oaxaca in the colonial period from 1521 to 1821, when Mexico received its independence from Spain. […]
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While paintings interpret reality, film and photography give us a vivid look at the past. What was Mexico like in 1935? The Revolution over, Lazaro Cardenas was president. Feelings of nationalism ran high and would make possible the expropriation of Mexico’s vast oil reserves in 1938. Movies focused on social themes and historical events along with the melodramas […]
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There wouldn’t be many Irish people in the United States if it wasn’t for a Mexican fungus. The census of 1841 in Ireland recorded a population of about 8 million. This figure was a staggering 300% more than sixty years earlier. The staple Irish food at that time was the humble potato and Ireland’s rapid […]
Continue ReadingThousands of dinosaur bones have been found in northern Mexico. Bones literally litter the ground. Here’s a femur; there’s a tibia; vertebrae, ribs, skulls… Dozens of dinosaurs, including the world’s cheapest, have been unearthed in a broad belt across northern Mexico, from Baja California and Sonora in the west, through Chihuahua, and Coahuila to Nuevo […]
Continue Readingby Martin Auer, translated by Kim Martin Metzger In the introduction to these stories, the author compares “Star Snake” with another story, “Arobanai,” and says, “These two stories contrast one of the most peaceful and loving societies that has ever lived on this planet with one of the most cruel and war-like.” “How is it […]
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