Local food
Jicaletas may be a perfect metaphor for all Mexican food.
Jicaletas are a snack served up to kids while they watch TV, do their homework, or any other time really. The recipe involves taking a jicama which is technically a type of turnip and chopping it into handy slices. You then rub a lime all over your slice. Next you drench it in a bath of Chamoy – a sauce made from pickled fruit that is a sweet, salty, sour concoction. Finally you liberally sprinkle it with two powders one sweet one hot. The result is a strangely compelling mixture of tastes that I can best liken to eating a margarita.
Jicaletas combine an unusual starting point – here the turnip-like jicama with sweet, sour and hot tastes. And that is very much how I’m coming to view Mexican food.
After my post-class snack of jicaletas I went on a mission to try another Mexican classic – mole. Mole is a paste. You start with cacao just like in making chocolate. To this you add sweet things like fruit and sugar, hot like chille, sour, and finally spicy and thick like nuts and tortilla. All of this gets ground, traditionally by hand, into a thick dark paste which is a savory accompaniment to many dishes.
I went to a restaurant recommended by a teacher at the school which was very local and brightly decorated. The staff seemed genuinely thrilled when I explained why I was there and proudly served up their signature dish with mole and chicken. It came on a hidden bed of nacho chips, with liberal garnishes of beans, onions and a white powder I failed to get to the bottom of.
The mole isn’t sweet but it had a disturbing after-taste of chocolate which just didn’t work with the chicken. It was a big meal anyway, but the chocolate taste made it a bit overwhelming for me (although I didn’t tell the staff that and praised it with my full range of Spanish adjectives).
Once again, mole was that Mexican combination of sweet and sour and salty and chili all in one place. And while I’m very happy to try these out, the combination is only really working for me in one format…
