Chocolate!

A table lined with all the standard tools for preparing chocolate: a ceramic comal or griddle for roasting the beans, a metate or volcanic grinding table, a molcajete or mortar (upper right) for mixing the cocoa with other ingredients and a molinillo (lower left) used to produce the delicious foam that tops Mexican hot chocolate

The history of chocolate begins in Mesoamerica…

Chocolate residue found on 2,600 yr. old ceramic vessels

Etymologists trace the origin of the word “chocolate” to the Aztec word “xocoatl,” which referred to a bitter drink brewed from cacao beans. The Latin name for the cacao tree, Theobroma cacao, means “food of the gods.”Many modern historians have estimated that chocolate has been around for about 2000 years, but recent research suggests that it may be even older.

In the book The True History of Chocolate, authors Sophie and Michael Coe make a case that the earliest linguistic evidence of chocolate consumption stretches back three or even four millennia, to pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica such as the Olmec.

It’s hard to pin down exactly when chocolate was born, but it’s clear that it was cherished from the start. Cacao beans were a valuable commodity and used as currency by 600 AD.  Around this same time the first Maya cocoa plantations were established in the Yucatan.

Both the Mayans and Aztecs believed the cacao bean had magical, or even divine, properties, suitable for use in the most sacred rituals of birth, marriage and death. At royal banquets frothing chocolate was served in golden goblets with finely wrought gold or tortoise-shell spoons.

Hot Chocolate, Raimundo de Madrazo y Garreta (Spain 1841-1920)

Sweetened chocolate didn’t appear until Europeans discovered the Americas and sampled the native cuisine. It didn’t suit the foreigners’ tastebuds at first –one described it in his writings as “a bitter drink for pigs” – but once mixed with honey or cane sugar, it quickly became popular throughout Spain.

By the 17th century, chocolate was a fashionable drink throughout Europe, believed to have nutritious, medicinal and even aphrodisiac properties (it’s rumored that Casanova was especially fond of the stuff).  But it remained largely a privilege of the rich until the invention of the steam engine made mass production possible in the late 1700s.

By 1868, a little company called Cadbury was marketing boxes of chocolate candies in England. Milk chocolate hit the market a few years later, pioneered by another name that may ring a bell – Nestle.

Read more about Cacao and Chocolate in Mesoamerica:  http://whp.uoregon.edu/mesoinstitute/?page_id=759

Related:

Every year since 1977, the small town of San Pedro Atocpan celebrates its most famous dish with a month long festival in October, the Feria del Mole, featuring dozens of types of mole.

Sacred Brew: Cervecería Sagrada – José Guízar

Lucha Libre design by José Guízar

The Cerveceria Sagrada combines the full flavors of Mexican craft beer with a design aesthetic inspired by Lucho Libre, Mexico’s professional wrestling known for its elaborate masks, ‘high-flying’ moves, and general kitschy-ness.

Designer Guízar created labels inspired by the masks of some of the most famous luchadores ever to grace the wrestling ring: Rey Negro (the Black King), Güero Gomez (Blond Gomez), and El Hijo del Vampiro (the Vampire’s Son).

…the golden era of lucha in the 1950′s, when movie heroes were not Superman or the X Men, but El Santo and his wingmen, fighting creepy monsters on a silver ’52 Alfa Romeo with surf music in the background. – José Guízar

Cervecería Sagrada – José Guízar.

Foods we crave when away from home

Australia's Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, packs a taste of home when traveling.

The Australian Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd was recently questioned at the Mexico City airport about his suspicious looking jar of Vegemite, but things were much worse in the US.  Rudd said he “needed Foreign Ministerial intervention” to keep the popular Australian spread when security authorities attempted to confiscate it. Vegemite, a famous Australian spread is typically not eaten anywhere else in the world and it is understandable that the authorities were suspicious of a jar containing black paste.  (The name doesn’t help a whole heck of a lot either.)

Rudd was en route to New York for the United Nation’s General Assembly when his Vegemite was flagged as “a potentially dangerous liquid.” After the event, Rudd tweeted “Airport staff were surprised when I said it is good for you & I ate it for breakfast.”

Besides Vegemite, I’m sure this is just one of a million food items people have packed in luggage to carry a bit of home along with them. From personal experience I know that during my early expat. years, there were lots of brand foods I would stuff in my bags.

Fortunately, with time, this obsession passes and you can’t think of a single food you would want to bother packing, unless in the form of a gift. Or, at least that’s my experience.

What food items have you stashed in your luggage over the years and when you return home, what foods do you crave?

Mexico’s solar potential

The world’s largest developer of solar thermal plants, Abengoa SA of Spain plans to build Mexico’s first solar-thermal hybrid power plant. The plant will begin operation in 2013

I miss many things about my last country of residence and something I miss a great deal is the active pursuit of eco-friendly initiatives in so many areas of life, wonderful (and adequate) public transportation, subways, trains, and light rail, bike programs, established, functioning recycling programs, tree planting, conscious green space planning, solar panels, hi-tech wind mills and many other things.

So, when I dropped into read the recent posts of The Mexile, I read his post with many of the same questions he poses. Why aren’t there more solar panels in Mexico City?   Maybe we just don’t see them?

He did some research and found that Mexico has the world’s third largest solar potential. This drove me to find out more;  I found that in Latin America, Mexico leads in the use of solar energy.  There are also creative architectural initiatives in process by locals like Jorge Hernandez de la Garza. He has plans for a stunning Vertical Park to infuse the city with much-needed green space in the form of a modular skyscraper made up of a series of stacking units. The solar-powered structure contains sky-gardens in addition to spaces for living and working, and recycles all of its own water.

Read more: Vertical Park: Stackable Solar Skyscraper for Mexico City | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

There are also projects underway in low income neighborhoods.  The inhabitants of the barrio of Heroes de Tecamec do not have much money. But the people in this workers’ quarter of Mexico City are doing their part for climate protection.They use the energy of the sun to heat their water. There are sixty thousand houses in the barrio, a good one thousand have solar panels on their roofs. For the past two years Mexico has been running a cheap loan scheme to finance the installation of solar panels.

Excerpt from Clean Technica:  Mexico a Solar Energy Goldmine

A new report out from Mexico’s energy department, SENER, delves deeply into the nation’s vast solar energy potential, which is well above that of current solar energy leaders Germany and Spain. The report, Solar Energy Sector has a ton of info on the solar potential of Mexico, but here are a number of key findings:

• Only 0.06% of Mexico (in land area) would be needed to power the entire nation from solar energy (according to 2005 usage rates).
• “Mexico’s average solar resources for PV (5 kWh/m2/day) are more than 60% higher than the best solar in Germany (5.4 GW of installed PV).”
• “PV installed in many cities across Northern and Central Mexico has an ‘energy payback time’ (EPBT) of less than two years.”
• “Northern Mexico’s Direct Normal Insolation is equivalent to the best in the U.S. Southwest and in the North African deserts.”

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/12u0Z)

Graph from SENER, (The Energy Dept. in Mexico)

Investors are taking note too: http://seekingalpha.com/article/213492-sunny-mexico-a-solar-energy-opportunity

The Mexile found something on a much smaller scale.  It’s modest and eco-friendly but there are a lot of other people who appreciate sunny Mexico too and plan to make GOOD use of it.

What do you know about green iniciatives in Mexico City?

Jarritos, the classic Mexican soda brand, crosses the border and invades Boing Boing

Jarritos, Mexican soda pop

Boing Boing just keeps spreading the good word, even if it is sugared.

Jarritos, the classic Mexican soda brand, crosses the border and invades Boing Boing – Boing Boing.

Jarritos aficionados, share your favorite flavor!

Mexican Independence Day Chiles en Nogada and video jam: Herb Alpert vs. Tres Delincuentes

This week I decided that I could only post to this blog if I discovered an original approach to the celebration and rich traditions of September 16, Mexican’s Independence Day, or bore my readers to death with redundancy.

Since I didn’t have a creative stroke of insight, I took a holiday, laid back and enjoyed the festivities.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t resist sharing a few Mexican treasures:  For the cuisine inclined, a link for Chiles en Nogada and Chiles en Nogada with fresh fruit. Chiles en Nogada is a classic for the festivities, in part, because this dish, “blistered, peeled poblano chiles filled with seasoned meat, fruit and nuts, smothered with a sauce of cream and walnuts, and garnished with pomegranate seeds” has all the colors of the Mexican flag. Click on either of these two links:  Cooking in Mexico.  Celebrating Mexican independence with chiles en nogada « Cooking in Mexico  for recipes.

Also, readers might enjoy these musical classics – thanks to BoingBoing for sharing - Los Tres Delincuentes/Three Delinquents and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.  Remember the days?

 

Holidays are soon over for this blogger.  How was your weekend?

Chili peppers’ pain relief.

It might be news to most Mexicans that their love of chiles is not reciprocated by chili plants.

In fact, the plants developed their bite so that humans and other mammals would avoid them; chili plants seeds die in the guts of mammals. Called plant defense against herbivory, the bite of chili peppers is a warning to “back off”.   The chili plants clever but failed strategy, at least in the case of humans, is to produce a fiery irritant called capsaicin.

I write failed because readers know Mexicans and a lot of other people, enjoy, even crave, the burn. What would salsas, camarones adiablados/deviled shrimp or a million other Mexican comfort foods be without it?

A Man’s Quest

A few years ago, Manuel Quiroz, a Mexico City taxi driver, took his machismo and love of these fruits, members of the Capsicum family, to new heights.  At 50+ years of age, he had long claimed invincibility to peppers’ heat. To prove his extraordinary immunity, he accepted an invitation by the weekday TV show Vidatv/Lifetv  to take part in their contest, El Desafio/The Challenge. Contestants ate 5 different types of chile peppers and rubbed chile peppers on their skin.

Manuel, after defeating Jose, Fermin, and Marco, met his equal in the form of Maria Ramirez de Morelos, Mexico. Determined to win, Maria rubbed chile on her underarms like deodorant.  Manuel, seeing his lead toppling, took juicer in hand and squeezed chile juice into his eyes.  The judges declared a tie.

Manuel and Maria, enchilandose

Naga jolokia, can you tell the difference between this and the Habanera?

Soon, Manuel Quiroz declared he wanted the Guinness World Record for consuming the most chili peppers, but then his world was shaken.  The home-grown chili pepper from India called Naga jolokia or ghost chili – it can make you a ghost – went into the Guinness record book as the world’s hottest pepper.  Peppers’ heat value is measured in Scoville units by calculating the amount of capsaicin present, and the Naga jolokia had nearly twice the amount of the feared Mexican red habanero.

Red habanera

Although native people have long known peppers to have medicinal properties, in recent years, science and pharmaceutical industries have found there is another reason to like chile peppers and it is exactly that ingredient that makes them hot, capsaicin; in large doses this phytochemical causes long-term desensitization of neurons that send pain signals to the brain.

I wonder if I shouldn’t just apply a patch before hitting the gym?

Chili peppers’ surprising pain relief – Boing Boing.

Fact or Fiction?   Capsaicin can minimize fat cells before they fully form due to its ability to induce thermogenisis, the process of increasing your metabolic rate by generating heat through energy expenditure – or fat burning.

VOCABULARY HELP

ENCHILAR: Chiles are such an elemental part of Mexican culture that the word chile has a verb form, enchilar, meaning to annoy, get angry or mad, or to go red in the face.  Naturally it can also mean, simply, to season with chile.  Men, after a few beers, may challenge one another to eat chiles until enchilado, a test of manhood often followed by a trip to a hospital emergency room.

CHILLI:  The original Mexican term, chilli (now chile in Mexico) came from the Nahuatl word chilli or xilli.

No pain? Share your favorite Mexican comfort food.