About the Mexican food culture

September is a very important month for Mexicans because we celebrate the anniversary of our independence from Spain. The celebrations across the country include a lot of tequila, beer, folkloric dance, mariachi music and traditional food of course.  To this respect, I found at Memegrafias (shorturl.at/pvAPZ) this interesting and funny information about Mexican food culture. I want to make a parenthesis to add that this kind of infographic material, it's called "lámina" or "monografía" in Mexico. It is very popular in the country because it was a research resource to Mexicans students prior to the internet. You could find whatever theme your homework was about in a monografía. It was cheap and easy to find. You just had to go to your nearest "papelería" (something like Office Depot but in a really small and local scale) and ask for it. The sellers were like librarians and always knew what was the best monografía for you.

So, coming back to the food information... I thought that maybe I should share it with all my non-Spanish-speakers friends (I hope you read this). I tried to translate for you and add some comments in order to make some context and broad the information. Hope you find educational and amusing as well. From top left to top right and down... 

Memegrafías(C) See the original post at: shorturl.at/pvAPZ

National tragedies:  This is the "trompo to pastor" meat for tacos. We love pastor tacos, so you can imagine how sad is this when it happens.

Mexicans living in the north of the country vs Mexicans from Mexico City (Chilangos) debate: The Quesadillas should be prepared with or without cheese? Quesadillas are composed by 1 tortilla+ingredient(s)+ cheese (queso in Spanish), well, that is some people said. Others claim that cheese is optional, it depends where you are and who you ask about it. The fact is that mysteriously, quesadilla word is apparently a composite word from queso+tortilla, but who knows! I do not want to into this debate; it is a sensitive subject for people here. Anyway, I love to eat them.

Are you pregnant? Or you just ate too much tamal tortas: in other words, you are chubby or fat. This is a very hard thing to ear, especially if you truly are chubby hahaha.

Foreign imitations of Mexican food: Be careful, these are not Mexican food, I repeat, not Mexican food, avoid them, please. 

Be careful with the coriander in your teeth. We are used to adding coriander to many Mexican dishes, including tacos, so it is very common you will end with coriander ruining your beautiful smile. What a shame!

The best Mexican dishes from the Hairy Lady are present in the national holidays.  Doña Pelos (the Hairy Lady) is an iconic Mexican character referring to all these ladies selling delicious street food; they usually wear an apron (mandil) bought in the local market and are a little robust. The hairy thing could be make reference to their hairstyle or the fact that you could find some hair in your food.  The man in the image wearing a Mexican hat is the very popular Mexican singer named Juan Gabriel.

Sauce and spicy/chilis. It is well known we consume a lot of spicy (chile/picante) in all our food. We start to eat chile since we are kids. Candy has chile, snacks have chile, fruit is consumed with a lot of chile, everything has chile. So, be careful when you order some Mexican food in the country. And please, remember this: NEVER believe when a Mexican says to you:  no pica, no enchila, tiene poco chile (it is no spicy, has a little chile) because it’s a lie!

Eat hot broth (caldo de res) in summer. This is the biggest aberration in my opinion. But believe or not, nothing better for a hot day that a big porringer full of caldo de res. You will sweat for sure!

Well, I hope you have learned more about Mexican food. I really hope I can cook some Mexican food for you (trust me, I can cook), if can't, at least I would love to share a meal together. See you!