Let's talk about Mexico

[sugardaddy]

 

 

Anthony Bourdain wrote:

 

"Americans love Mexican food. We consume nachos, tacos, burritos, tortas, enchiladas, tamales and anything resembling Mexican in enormous quantities. We love Mexican beverages, happily knocking back huge amounts of tequila, mezcal, and Mexican beer every year. We love Mexican people—we sure employ a lot of them. Despite our ridiculously hypocritical attitudes towards immigration, we demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our lawns, wash our dishes, and look after our children. As any chef will tell you, our entire service economy—the restaurant business as we know it—in most American cities, would collapse overnight without Mexican workers. Some, of course, like to claim that Mexicans are “stealing American jobs.” But in two decades as a chef and employer, I never had ONE American kid walk in my door and apply for a dishwashing job, a porter’s position—or even a job as a prep cook. Mexicans do much of the work in this country that Americans, probably, simply won’t do.

 

We love Mexican drugs. Maybe not you personally, but “we”, as a nation, certainly consume titanic amounts of them—and go to extraordinary lengths and expense to acquire them. We love Mexican music, Mexican beaches, Mexican architecture, interior design, Mexican films.

 

So, why don’t we love Mexico?

 

We throw up our hands and shrug at what happens and what is happening just across the border. Maybe we are embarrassed. Mexico, after all, has always been there for us, to service our darkest needs and desires. Whether it’s dress up like fools and get passed-out drunk and sunburned on spring break in Cancun, throw pesos at strippers in Tijuana, or get toasted on Mexican drugs, we are seldom on our best behavior in Mexico. They have seen many of us at our worst. They know our darkest desires.

 

In the service of our appetites, we spend billions and billions of dollars each year on Mexican drugs—while at the same time spending billions and billions more trying to prevent those drugs from reaching us. The effect on our society is everywhere to be seen. Whether it’s kids nodding off and overdosing in small town Vermont, gang violence in L.A., burned out neighborhoods in Detroit—it’s there to see. What we don’t see, however, haven’t really noticed, and don’t seem to much care about, is the 80,000 dead in Mexico, just in the past few years—mostly innocent victims. Eighty thousand families who’ve been touched directly by the so-called “War On Drugs”.

 

Mexico. Our brother from another mother. A country, with whom, like it or not, we are inexorably, deeply involved, in a close but often uncomfortable embrace. Look at it. It’s beautiful. It has some of the most ravishingly beautiful beaches on earth. Mountains, desert, jungle. Beautiful colonial architecture, a tragic, elegant, violent, ludicrous, heroic, lamentable, heartbreaking history. Mexican wine country rivals Tuscany for gorgeousness. Its archeological sites—the remnants of great empires, unrivaled anywhere. And as much as we think we know and love it, we have barely scratched the surface of what Mexican food really is. It is NOT melted cheese over tortilla chips. It is not simple, or easy. It is not simply “bro food” at halftime. It is in fact, old—older even than the great cuisines of Europe, and often deeply complex, refined, subtle, and sophisticated. A true mole sauce, for instance, can take DAYS to make, a balance of freshly (always fresh) ingredients painstakingly prepared by hand. It could be, should be, one of the most exciting cuisines on the planet, if we paid attention. The old school cooks of Oaxaca make some of the more difficult and nuanced sauces in gastronomy. And some of the new generation—many of whom have trained in the kitchens of America and Europe—have returned home to take Mexican food to new and thrilling heights.

 

It’s a country I feel particularly attached to and grateful for. In nearly 30 years of cooking professionally, just about every time I walked into a new kitchen, it was a Mexican guy who looked after me, had my back, showed me what was what, and was there—and on the case—when the cooks like me, with backgrounds like mine, ran away to go skiing or surfing or simply flaked. I have been fortunate to track where some of those cooks come from, to go back home with them. To small towns populated mostly by women—where in the evening, families gather at the town’s phone kiosk, waiting for calls from their husbands, sons and brothers who have left to work in our kitchens in the cities of the North. I have been fortunate enough to see where that affinity for cooking comes from, to experience moms and grandmothers preparing many delicious things, with pride and real love, passing that food made by hand from their hands to mine.

 

In years of making television in Mexico, it’s one of the places we, as a crew, are happiest when the day’s work is over. We’ll gather around a street stall and order soft tacos with fresh, bright, delicious salsas, drink cold Mexican beer, sip smoky mezcals, and listen with moist eyes to sentimental songs from street musicians. We will look around and remark, for the hundredth time, what an extraordinary place this is.

 

...

[sugardaddy]

Makes me want to visit... and gives me appetite for some Mexican food!

[Sol Aristatel]

Makes me want to visit... and gives me appetite for some Mexican food!

 

Only been once.  And that was to Puerto Penasco.  

 

Food was horrible at the restaurants I went to.  Much better Mexican food in AZ.  

[joeybagadonuts]

The Mexican food scene is amazing. Highly recommend people visit Mexico City for a food tour

[KingKolzig]

Only been once. And that was to Puerto Pescado.

 

Food was horrible at the restaurants I went to. Much better Mexican food in NH.

[milwaukee mike]

The Mexican food scene is amazing. Highly recommend people visit Mexico City for a food tour

 

mexico city might be the ugliest city in the world

 

horrible horrible place, even if you're eating the best food in the world there it would be a worse experience than eating mcdonalds in cancun

[rito]

mexico city might be the ugliest city in the world

 

horrible horrible place, even if you're eating the best food in the world there it would be a worse experience than eating mcdonalds in cancun

Lol Mexico City is fantastic, I'd live in one of the nice neighborhoods there on a second over most places in USA. You can't compare ghetto to.nice area, I'm sure you wouldn't want to live in Milwaukee ghetto. Polanco, lomas de Chapultepec, Roma, condesa all great neighborhoods

[rito]

Only been once. And that was to Puerto Penasco.

 

Food was horrible at the restaurants I went to. Much better Mexican food in AZ.

Lol go somewhere real.

 

Big fan of Mexico overall, try to go atleast once a year, probably not gonna make it this year

[FISHHEAD]

 

 

Food was horrible at the restaurants I went to. Much better Mexican food in NH.

 

 

[Sol Aristatel]

 go somewhere real.

 

Pass.

 

I'm gonna stay away from any country where half its citizens would rather risk their lives hopping walls and swimming across rivers in an attempt to leave.  

 

And I don't want people bothering me on the beach asking I want to buy a home made burrito.  

[milwaukee mike]

Lol Mexico City is fantastic, I'd live in one of the nice neighborhoods there on a second over most places in USA. You can't compare ghetto to.nice area, I'm sure you wouldn't want to live in Milwaukee ghetto. Polanco, lomas de Chapultepec, Roma, condesa all great neighborhoods

 

 

overcrowded, polluted, nasty place

 

yes there are nice areas like most places but why not live in a peaceful area near water?  hmm... hilton head island or mexico city tough choice

[CarolinaKid]

I have never wanted to go to mexico at all.Also i cant stand mexican food, i think i been to a mexican food place once in the last 17 yrs and that was not my choice but someone else.

[rito]

Pass.

 

I'm gonna stay away from any country where half its citizens would rather risk their lives hopping walls and swimming across rivers in an attempt to leave.

 

And I don't want people bothering me on the beach asking I want to buy a home made burrito.

Lol half is more like 1% and those are already here. Mexicans aren't coming anymore

[rito]

 

overcrowded, polluted, nasty place

 

yes there are nice areas like most places but why not live in a peaceful area near water? hmm... hilton head island or mexico city tough choice

I don't like beach, I like mountains, have to live at altitude.

[Sol Aristatel]

Lol half is more like 1% and those are already here.

 

Exaggeration for affect.  

 

C'mon rito.  Let me troll Mexico.  It's fun.  

[KingRevolver]

Lol half is more like 1% and those are already here. Mexicans aren't coming anymore

Correct. Half? LOL

 

Doobler must've read that in the Balco facts book. :Hurray

[Sol Aristatel]

Trolling Mexico not as fun as trolling Canada though.  Canadians get very defensive.  Small man's syndrome.  

 

Plus nobody has internet in Mexico so nobody is reading this.

 

At least people have computers and internet in Canada. 

[milwaukee mike]

Trolling Mexico not as fun as trolling Canada though.  Canadians get very defensive.  Small man's syndrome.  

 

Plus nobody has internet in Mexico so nobody is reading this.

 

At least people have computers and internet in Canada. 

 

[Dark Raver Camper]

Been to Cancun twice. Excellent place for ketamine and cocaina.

[Jimmy Hoffa]

Been there 3 times, that's enough.

 

Very unlikely that I would go back again...

[milwaukee mike]

Been there 3 times, that's enough.

 

Very unlikely that I would go back again...

 

might be fine to live/work there, but i think rito is crazy if he would vacation there or retire there instead of the fabulous places we have right here in the good ole USA

[rito]

might be fine to live/work there, but i think rito is crazy if he would vacation there or retire there instead of the fabulous places we have right here in the good ole USA

 

i'd rather retire (and will) literally anywhere in latin america than usa

[Sol Aristatel]

i'd rather retire (and will) literally anywhere in latin america than usa

 

Go back where you came from.

 

- Donald Trump

[milwaukee mike]

i'd rather retire (and will) literally anywhere in latin america than usa

 

yeah ok we're supposed to believe you would rather retire in downtown caracas than in myrtle beach because at least there's some mountains to look at while you're getting shot

[rito]

yeah ok we're supposed to believe you would rather retire in downtown caracas than in myrtle beach because at least there's some mountains to look at while you're getting shot

 

Caracas was (and will be again) a fantastic city.   And shootings are way down this year, apparently the criminals can't even afford bullets now.