I have been waiting to make a blog post about this subject and now that I am officially writing it.. I don’t know where to begin. Most of my blog posts are always ALL OVER THE PLACE and have no sense of organization so you can only imagine how this is going to go.
Let’s talk about food.
Ice Cream Ice cream with rainbow sprinkles and hard chocolate. More ICE CREAM. My cousin Yetzibe eating ice cream in Tequila, Jalisco. My little cousin Felipin, eating his paleta de fresa. My cousin Yetzibe eating her paleta de fresa as we are waiting for my tejuino to be made. My sister and cousin Yetzibe eating their ice cream. My cousin Amaralys eating her ice cream in Tequila, Jalisco. Some of the different ice cream flavors; my personal favorite cookies and cream. A candid of me deciding which flavor ice cream I want.Everyday that I was in Amatitan, Jalisco, Mexico I went to el centro and got ice cream. It became a bonding moment between my cousins and I. It’s weird because walking to el centro to grab an ice cream is a lot more fun than driving to Baskin Robbins here in the United States. Saying that to another fellow latino/a they would tell you, “no shit”, but to those who have never been to Mexico, this is for you. Going to grab ice cream became my favorite thing to do while I was in Mexico. We would leave our house (my sister, 2-3 cousins and I) and we would arrive to the ice cream shop being 6-8 of us.
Everyone knows one another and the vibes are always positive. Here in the United States, you can’t look at someone without them thinking that you have bad intentions. Making small talk with a stranger can be considered weird, which I am not here for. I inserted a map of the walk we would take to get to the ice cream shop. It was a 15 minute walk that felt like a 2 minute walk. We would get so caught up into talking and eating our ice cream that literally flew by.
Shortly before leaving Mexico I discovered a Chasca-Fruta. If you don’t know what that is, I highly recommend you find out and you try it. Well, once the discovery was made, I WAS HOOKED. As for the churros and papas… they were made right in front of me. The ice cream was too, but I didn’t see it of course. Right outside of the church, a lot of people sold food. They had chips, churros, corn, tostilocos, salchipulpos, elotes, hot dogs, hamburgers, shasca, and a lot more. I was in heaven. In the first photo above, you will see me holding a chasca, papas, and churros. I purchased all of that in a matter of one night. I devoured it pretty quickly and right after I got tacos. I had to take advantage of the good not processed foot. You know?
Salchipulpos- fried weenies with french fries
Tostilocos- chips with anything of your choice; cueritos, elote con queso y chile, plain
Chasca- frozen fruit of your choice with frozen yogurt and a special machine is used to blend it but that’s about it
Something very common over in Amatitan is fresas con crema. I don’t like crema so I didn’t try it, but my cousins would eat about 2-3 a day. It looks good, don’t get me wrong, but I am lactose-intolerant so it grossed me out. During the tianguis (a street market), it’s almost as if there are more food options such as agua de coco, raspados con crema y lechera, vasos de fruta (they sold these everyday but on tianguis tuesday they had different fruit options), and more that I don’t remember.
Tacos Eating tacos with my grandpa Processed with VSCO with c1 presetI almost forgot about tacos. I had tacos about 2 times everyday. These tacos were so good. The tacos in the United States are not only overpriced and not good, but they aren’t made with love. The taco guy we went to was a family friend who also owned a store. He was the sweetest old man I have ever met. He was also extremely funny. I am usually not the biggest fan for small talk, but he actually made it enjoyable.
Now for the tacos, I wish I could virally send everyone reading this one. You haven’t lived until you have a taco from Mexico.
Tejuino The tejuino from Tequila, Jalisco. The famous tejuino near our family business. Me drinking the famous tejuino. The 10/10 tejuino from el centro
Tejuino. Fuck, I have been waiting to drink a cup of cold iced tejuino since the day my mother told me we were going to Mexico. It is so rare to find a place or someone who makes them here in my hometown so I took advantage of having Tejuino at every corner. Right next to ice cream and tacos, I had tejuino everyday. I would get my tejuino in a bag in el centro, because I had assumed all the tejuino tasted the same- BOY WAS I WRONG.The tejuino that I had en el centro was good. It was great. It was a solid 10/10. But then on Tianguis (a street market) Tuesday, I was introduced to a new street corner tejuino maker. It was at the end of the street where our family business was located. I actually have footage of this tejuino being made which will be in my travel video (waiting for my camera to get fixed). This tejuino was made by an angels bare hands. Knowing that there was such a great tejuino available to me being made, I was not going to be purchasing from anyone but him. He set the bar and boy, he set it HIGH. I did try a tejuino while I was in Tequila, but I didn’t get the chance to really enjoy it since we were being rushed. I actually don’t really remember it. All I know is that we had to walk about a good mile or so to get to the Tejuino guy and it was not worth the walk. I love Tejuino so much.
Bonding with FoodI truly mean it when I say this.
The food was the best part.
During my visit to Mexico, my stomach did not get messed up. Usually when I leave my hometown I get sick and don’t eat. I get used to a certain type of food and anything that is not exact, makes my stomach turn into a monster. As you can see, I ate a lot. I only mentioned foods that I ate as “snacks” or “to try out”. I did not talk about what I ate for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
In Mexico, you eat every 2 hours. I have come to the conclusion that due to all the high activity of cleaning, cooking, and walking; you eat a lot more in a day. I could be wrong and this could just be my family. I don’t know.
I will be writing about prices and what not but I’m going to slightly be touching this subject in this blog post.
So.
Yes. I was amazed by the prices. The ice cream that you see in the photos above were 17 pesos. Seventeen. Divide 17 by 18.30 which was the price of the dollar and you get, 92-93 cents. The Chasca’s were 22 pesos, which is $1.20. Tacos were 7 pesos each, which is 38 cents.
It being that cheap, I ate so much. I gained 10 pounds. 10 pounds of no regret.
Lastly.
Usually when we walked to el centro to grab food, we would walk to la plaza to consume the food we had purchased. How lovely must it be to live in Mexico. I made so many observations while sitting on the benches. Couples would walk around eating their salchipulpos, elotes, tacos, chasca, etc. while bonding. It’s such a different lifestyle, and it truly is beautiful. No mouth goes unfed. It is true when they say that those who have nothing are the ones that give the most.
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– Psalm 107:9