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I’ve long maintained that part of Mexico’s essence is eating on the street. This morning I thought I’d join some out-of-towners for a street food extravaganza with a company called Eat Mexico that offers tours in Mexico City and Puebla for those poor souls that have never experienced Mexico’s street food culture. Two Aussies, two Brits, me and our defeña guide began wandering the chilly streets of Cuahtemoc and the Zona Rosa at 9:30(!)am. What did we eat you ask? What didn’t we eat.
We started with tamales and atole, the traditional Mexican breakfast. That probably would have been enough to do me in, but we all shared, so it wasn’t quite the stomach bomb that it could have been.
We then went to the quesadilla, gordita and tlacoyo stand… and who was there eating a quesadilla? The tamale lady from down the street (I guess we were her last customers of the morning – time for breakfast). Being a dedicated street food eater, it shamed me to admit I’d never had a vampiro juice or a tlacoyo (which, let’s be honest, though delicious, is just another version of the corn, cheese and meat combinations that are so ubiquitous in this country).
But you’ve never been in a foreign country too long to be surprised. Our guide Natalie told us as we were walking through the market that chicken farmers mash up marigold seeds and add them to their chicken feed to turn the chickens yellow. Something to do with Mexicans’ concept of healthy chicken — the yellower the better. I had always wondered about those bright, golden chicken parts! She also told us that gordita dough is often mixed with chicharron prensada (the leftover bits they get when they scrap the pig skin to make crackling) — which makes me kind of never want a gordita again.
We stopped by a tortilleria where we got hot tortillas right out of the machine, grabbed some fruit with chile and lime and headed to Los Burros a Todo Mecate (which delivers in case you’re interested). They have ten different kinds of salsas, from hot to hotter to watch out and a tex-mex style definitely more mex than tex. After that it was street coffee, carnitas and to top it all off, tacos al pastor at Tacos Don Guero. Four hours! Four hours of eating and walking.
Meanwhile Natalie is telling me that she’s on the Paleo diet for her health (“but I’m very permissible with myself,” she responds to the shock on my face. “I won’t ever stop eating street food”) and one Brit is pretty tame with her choices while her partner is willing to try everything (he got a snout and tongue taco) and the Aussies are talking about their dinner reservation at Pujol and I’m babbling on about the San Juan Market like it’s the holyland. There is nothing like eating in a herd with like-minded people. And to that I say, “Buen Provecho.”
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