On the road again....

It looks like we're leaving Oaxaca tomorrow for the Sierra Norte. Many of the small mountain villages there have built eco-lodges and offer guided hikes, bird-watching, mountain-biking, etc. as a way of encourging tourism and getting some income. It will be a chance for Harv to get out of the city and do some astronomy, and a chance for both of us to spend some time outdoors.

We'll also be leaving the expatriate community here in Oaxaca which is centred around the Oaxaca Lending Library. The Oaxaca Lending Library is a great institution for the extraneros living here, and even for English speaking visitors who end up spending more than a few days in the city. It's a "member pay" lending library with 30,000 books mostly in English, but also has internet access, reading rooms, bulletin boards and binders with information about rental places and other services (like professionals who can provide accounting or dentristry in English). They sponsor social events, like a Christmas carolling party, and a hiking group that we've joined several times. They also have evening lectures, sketching classes, and have information on volunteer opportunities.

We joined the library when we arrived, and have met a number of people who either winter here or live here full time. But it feels a little weird to be meeting only Americans and Canadians. I don't think I've spoken more than a few sentences of Spansih since I finished my language class 3 weeks ago. Time to head out of town and continue the adventure.

Happy New Year everyone! We'll likely be out of touch for the next week. I expect the eco-lodges are not going to have internet access.

Moles de Oaxaca

Oaxaca is the land of the seven mole sauces, although sources vary as to what the list is.  The ones everyone agrees on are: negro (black), coloradito, rojo/colarado (red), amarillo (yellow), verde (green),  and chichilo.  I've seen two other candidates for the 7th: almendra,  and mancha manteles.  Almendra would be almond, and manchmanteles translates as "table cloth strainer".  

In our cooking class, we learnt that in a mole, the chiles, garlic, seasame seeds, cinnamon (etc. etc.) are all toasted before being used, and are then are blended, mixed with some stock, and simmered together for hours.  The goal is to meld together the 20 or so ingredients into a single blended flavour, with no soloists and even no harmony.    

Here are the reviews of the moles I've tried thus far:

Negro (black):  this is the classic "mole" sauce of Oaxaca, and the one you're most likely to encounter on a restaurant menu in Canada or the US.    If you've heard that "Mexicans serve their chicken with chocolate", they're talking about mole negro.  It's dark brown to almost black in colour. 

The first mole negro I had here in Oaxaca blew me away:  it had a lovely complexity.  I could individually taste the several chiles that go into making it , the darkness of the chocolate, and just a hint of hotness.  Fabulous!  Although I now know that some purists would consider it substandard for that reason,  which is why it was perhaps part of a 35 peso set menu :-).  But  the rest, whether at fancy restaurants or plain, have been much like the moles I've had in Canada or the US.  Negro generally has a very  strong "dark" burnt /chocolate flavour that dominates.  

Mole Coloradito:  the next darkest mole.  Brick red.  Coloradito also contains chocolate, but  the overall flavour is lighter than negro due to the selection of chiles, and the fact that the ingredients aren't toasted as heavily before being included.  Complex, slightly hot, and my favorite.

Mole Rojo/Colarado (red):  the second most common type after negro.  I've read that rojo is the simplest of the moles, and sometimes degenerates into the ordinary kind of tomato sauce that is typically served over enchiladas in "Tex/Mex" food.  But the ones I've tried are similar to mole colaradito, but perhaps a little simpler.  However, I'm not entirely sure I could consistently distinguish them.....darn cooks, each with her own recipe!

Mole Amarillo (yellow):  Actually red, with a simple, bright flavour, and very hot.  It's based on tomatillos (which are green).  The red colour comes from the chiles.

Mole Verde (green):  Like a pesto, but made with pumpkin seeds and a variety of mild green herbs which are native to Oaxaca (like chipil).  Hard to find. 

Mole Almendra (almond),  chichilo, mancha manteles:   I haven't seen any of these offered anywhere, either in a restaurant, or as a mix/paste in the market (which is how many Mexicans prepare their mole these days). I'm keeping my eyes open, but I don't think I'll be able to fulfil my ambition of trying all seven moles while I'm in Oaxaca.

Cooking, Part 2

I entitled one of my earlier posts Cooking Part I, and I've received a request for Part 2.

I've been procrastinating. It seemed like Part 2 should be the triumphant story of how I've mastered the art of Oaxacan cooking and have created interesting dishes using local ingredients. Instead....

In my first post, I said that good cooking required time, energy, and a knowledge of where to shop for ingredients. Turns out I misssed a few things. It also requires a knowledge of techniques, and proper tools.

I thought I had the former. I've been cooking since I was 11, and have been feeding myself fulltime since I was 21. Over the years I've gradually moved to doing more and more cooking from "scratch". It still feels like magic to turn flour, salt, water, yeast and a little bit of elbow grease into bread. Olive oil and vinegar beat bottled salad dressings to flinders. Freah herbs, freshly ground spices....and home made stock! More magic. Home made stock can transform a few vegetables into a fantastic soup or rice into a lovely risotto.

But I was forgetting a few basics. How do you clean vegetables when when the water that comes out of your tap is itself not clean? And how do you store and handle food when your kitchen has both a profusion of tiny ants and a steady supply of magnificent 4 cm cockroaches? Not to mention a limited supply of usable pots, two usable burners on the stove, a complete lack of staples (okay, there was salt), and knives so dull you could use them as drumsticks. Cooking is possible, but it's kind of a hassle.

So, I've scaled back my cooking ambitions. I've made chicken soup from some chicken backs that Harv inadvertently purchased from the supermercado. Green beans with nopales (cactus pads) were slimey but tasty. Given how much work it is to create a mole paste, it seemed reasonable to buy a mole rojo paste in the mercado. Harv has twice attempted tortillas from masa, and we made a pasable imitation of empanadas de Oaxaca with chiles de agua.

We've signed up for an all day cooking class tomorrow...just as we've about to give up our kitchen! Oh well. Maybe we'll pick up some tips and recipes, and can buy ingredients to bring home with us. Do you suppose customs will let us through the border(s) with dried worms, fried spiced grasshoppers, and dried chiles?

10 Pesos

An amazing variety of things cost 10 pesos (about .75 CDN).   Here are a few photos.  I'll update this blog entry from time to time as I find and photograph more.

Driving in Mexico

Driving in Mexico is all about paying attention to what's happening around you.  

Traffic rules, including traffic lights and signs, are there as a source of information about what makes sense at any given time, but are by no means taken as authoritative by drivers.  We were told by an acquaintance who is a long time resident of Oaxaca that a red light was merely a suggestion. 

The nice part about this is that no one gives you a hard time for violating "rules".  You're going the wrong way down a one way street?  Oncoming traffic simply makes way for you without making a fuss.  You aren't sure if making a right turn on red is permitted?  Well, as long as you can do so without getting in the way, no problem.  No parking?  Don't sweat it, everyone else double-parks, so if you need to perch for a few minutes everyone simply swerves around you and it's not a big deal.

But even traffic rules and conventions might not be as consistent as you'd expect.  For example,"Ninos Heroes" is the main east-west artery through Oaxaca.  It's a busy city street with three or four lanes of traffic in each direction with opposing traffic divided by a concrete barrier.  You'd naturally assume that the rightmost three lanes were headed east, and the leftmost lanes were headed west.  But what actually happens in the centre of town warrants a diagram.

At the far left and far right of the diagram the arrows indicate the lanes of traffic that behave as you expect.  Everyone drives on their right. 

But pretend that you're driving East across town starting at the far left of the diagram.  You start out in a lane on the right hand side of the road.  So far so good.  But at the first major North/South intersection, the road becomes braided. That is, the three lanes of traffic headed East swap over to be on the left hand side of the road, and the three lanes headed West swap to be on the right hand side of the road.  So far so weird.  But doable.  After all, there's always a lot of traffic on Ninos Heroes, and everyone else is doing the swap so it all sort of makes sense.  

So it again makes some sense when at the next major N/S intersection that I've indicated, the three East bound lanes swap back to being on the normal right -handed side of the street, and the three West bound lanes swap back to their normal location on your left.  

But there's one more twist.  At a minor intersection, the left-most East-bound lane braids over to the far left of the street, while the remaining East bound lanes stay in their normal right-hand location.  So you still have three lanes headed East, but two lanes are on the right hand side of the road and one is on the far left, with West bound traffic in between.

As far as we can tell, this is for the convenience of those who want to head North at the final major intersection shown (Heroico Collegio Militar), because that's where the left-most East bound lane ends in a "forced" left turn Northwards.

Easy-peasy, right? :-)

But the most amazing thing about the somewhat arbitrary nature of some of the driving conventions and the looseness with which driving rules are observed is  .....that things mostly just seem to work.  And it's not even too terrifying (except for the topes).  You just have to adjust your attitude, remain alert at all times, and not take anything for granted.

Living dangerously

On our previous trips to Latin America, we were extremely cautious about what we ate. We usually drank refrescos (soft drinks) directly from the bottle, never ate lettuce or any vegetable that was unpeeled or uncooked, never ate a single thing from street vendors and....still each got violently ill once over the course of a three month trip.
Now, older and wiser, we realize that the middle class restaurants where we usually eat are of course going to wash their vegetables in purified water and wouldn't dream of using unpurified water to make ice or juice drinks. I wince at the thought of us 15 years ago. At a nice restaurant in Mexico City we asked for our drinks without ice, and froze at the sight of lettuce on Harv's plate ;-). And I don't think I ate a single salad over the course of 3 months.
So, we've decided to be a little more adventurous in our eating this time. Step by step of course. The lunch at the little comedor in Tule where they made and cooked the tortillas in front of us was tasty. We've suffered no ill effects from the charcoal roasted peanuts purchased at the market at Tlalcolula, and realize that nothing too much is likely to go wrong with fresh-made potato chips deep fried in front of you at a street stand. The next step is food vendors at the marketplaces. Wish us luck.

Bargaining

Naively, I'd thought that I'd be bargaining when I went shopping in the marketplaces. But in actual fact, vendors of fruits and vegetables need to have competitive prices, and don't want to spend a lot of time haggling over small transactions. They'll often make up bags of produce or stackes of chiles or avocadoes, and charge everyone 10 pesos for the lot. At the larger weekly markets, they'll even label bags, or put up signs advertising their prices. Makes a lot of sense.
But sometimes we do end up paying gringo prices because we aren't bargaining. For example, we'd been looking for coriander (seeds) for awhile, and an eldery woman at the Tlacolula market happened to be walking about selling them. When we asked her how much, she gave a visible start.....and quoted us a price of 10 pesos. Now it's possible that this was the going price. Ten pesos is less than a dollar. But given that 10 pesos also buys you 2 kilos of baby potatoes or a kilo of bannanas, I'm pretty sure that she saw us and thought "gold mine!".
We decided to make her day and give her her asking price.

Climb every pyramid

That's Harv's motto. But even he had to relent when confronted by up to 20 unexcavated mounds at Cerro de la Campana....

Yesterday we visited two minor, partially excavated and restored archeological sites in the valley north of Oaxaca: San Jose el Mogote and Cerro de la Campana near Suchilquitongo. It's interesting to see the unrestored ruins, because it gives you an idea of what these places looked like before the tourism people/"archeologists" got ahold of them. (if the archeologist that we met a couple of weeks ago is correct, many of the "restorations" that are done to archeological sites in Mexico are somewhat dubious in their authenticity). It's also really interesting to see how the local villagers relate to these ruins in their midst.

Cerro de la Campana was the more impressive of the two sites. It's on a high hilltop overlooking the village of Suchilquitongo and has a stunning view up the Oaxaca valley towards Monte Alban. Cerro de la Campana has, we're told, up to 20 mounds on various adjacent hillsides that were once sub-temples. We only spotted the most obvious 10-12 of them amongst the brush and dry grass, and only climbed the 3 largest partially restored buildings.

We were the only people visiting the site that Wednesday morning, except for someone who appeared to be the site's keeper who appeared suddenly in a pickup truck as we were parking the car. He didn't say much to us, just sat in the shade and monitored our movements around the site. We're pretty sure he was there to make sure we made no attempt to break into the locked tomb containing beautifully preserved wall paintings from about 600AD. Not open to the public, unfortunately.

Interestingly, the site is not always so deserted. Apparently as part of their saint's day celebrations the local Zapotec villagers have processions up to a cross they've placed at the peak of the tallest temple. No one may have visited the community museum since December 4th, but the ruins that their ancestors built are very much still a part of the community.

The villagers of San Jose el Mogote have a very different relationship to their ruins: they've built a big chunk of their village over most of the site, and seem to have installed a gravel pit over part of it. The only thing that is really visible is a large partially restored pyramid behind the community museum. And given the remains scattered over it, the burro and horse we saw tethered near by use the pyramid as a grazing ground.

But this site is also amazing: in 1975 archeologists excavated a stelae from a tomb underneath this pyramid that contains the oldest dated glyph in the Americas: from 750 BC. The Mesoamerican calendar and dating system (with it's 260 day ritual year and it's 365 day "real" year, and the long count that distinguished dates in different 52 year cycles) required a sophisticated understanding of astronomy and mathematics, including almost certainly knowledge of the concept of "zero". For context, the ancient Greeks and Romans never did develop the zero (although the Babylonisns came up with the idea in 300 BCE, it didn't catch on, leaving Europeans with the joy of multiplying XVII by CXV until Hindu and Arabic mathematicians spared us the arithmetic of Roman numerals by the Renaissance.)

At least in San Jose el Mogote we weren't the only visitors in the community museum....a group of young local men from the city had tracked down the museum keeper to get him to open it for them just as we arrived, sparing us the effort. So we were able to easily get in and see the stelae and other treasures excavated from the site. Including the vampire. :-)

Cooking, Part 1

Part of the rationale for renting a house while we're in Oaxaca is so that we can cook meals. Cooking is of course cheaper than eating in restaurants. But that's not really the prime reason. Every time I've visited a market in Mexico I've been frustrated by the fact that I was there solely as an observer. Oh, I might buy a few pieces of fruit to eat immediately, but I had no way to cook meals, making my wandering aimless.
So when we planned this trip, I loved the idea of being able to visit the markets for my food. Finally I could visit as a participant, reviewing the stands for the things I needed, purchasing the unusual or interesting, bargaining for my purchases, and then cooking! I brought along my copy of a A Cook's Tour of Mexico. Now I could finally use the book without substituting half the ingredients, and could actuallly make Oaxacan food in Oaxaco. Yah!
WEll, things haven't gone exactly to plan. The supper I just finished was a jar of Prego tomato sauce over penne, topped with cheese. (Fresh Oaxaca string cheese, but still....)
The truth is that good cooking requires a number of things: time, energy, and a knowledge of where to shop. When we're doing a lot of sight-seeing, we're short on the first two elements. And overall we're still falling short on the third. After a couple of false starts we found a couple of good local markets, including the one in the church square a few blocks away. But we haven't yet encountered some of the ingredients that we're looking for. Or perhaps more precisely, we haven't identified them yet. It's one thing to know that you're looking for epazote or avocado leaves, and another to find the vendor that has them or recognize them when you do.
And finding good examples of any given ingredient is another challenge. My first attempt at cooking black beans fell short beause I'd inadvertently purchased the world's oldest. Or at least that seems the best explanation of why they took more than two hours to cook to marginal tenderness, even after presoaking. Because if all beans take as long to cook as those, it seems hard to fathom how beans could be a staple here. There's no way they could be economical enough, from a pure fuel cost standpoint!
At any rate, it's time to try again. Maybe the second set of beans will cook a little more expeditiously....wish me luck! I'm about to put them on.

Tripping hazard

Sometimes I feel like all of Mexico is just one huge tripping hazard. Maintenance of infrastructure isn't quite what we're used to at home. For example, as you'd better watch your step as you walk through downtown, because you never know when you might encounter a gaping hole in the (narrow) sidewalk due to tree removal, a temporarily abandoned excavation, a missing access hatch, etc., all unmarked.

 Sidewalks may be a modest distance about the street, or elevated by a couple of feet, depending. You're not even safe inside: our house is in theory "ranch style" and all on one level. But for some reason the kitchen is up one step and our bedroom and the bathroom are down one step. The shower is actually recessed about 2 feet below that, which requires some care when you're drowsy in the morning. Which is not even mentioning the access road to our house. We're right on the edge of a ritzy neighbourhood, where the town peters out into countryside as the land falls off into a valley. The valley is still only lightly developed, and several of our neighbours have 1/2 acre or so. I'm posting a picture of the last block (steeply) downhill before you turn  onto the 50m of dirt road that leads to our place. For scale, those rocks range from fist-sized to head-sized.

Getting Settled in Oaxaca

The place we rented is furnished, and in theory has everything we need.  In practise, we need to pick up a few things to make it more comfortable.  Like tea - towels.  Containers to store our beans and sundries in.  A new mop.  Stuff like that.  Which brings us to the first problem you encounter when you move to a new city, or certainly a new country.  Where on earth do you buy stuff?  Some stuff is obvious.  By far the nicest fruits and vegetables are available at the market places.  But where can I find simple plastic containers?   Probably a market stall, or a household goods store.  But where?  I ran into this when I spent some time in Germany with Harv.  It's like the words in the language are all familiar (mop!), but the grammar is completely strange.  

House-hunting in Oaxaca

We spent our entire first week in Oaxaca looking for a place to live.  We've owned our own place for more than 10 years, so it's been awhile since we've been house-hunting.  I'd forgotten the cycle…..reading the listings, winnowing them down to the most promising ones, contacting landlords, discovering that the most promising places are all taken…..rinse and repeat until you get some appointments set up.  And then you have the emotional cycle: first excitement.  I wonder what this place is going to be like?  Then, inevitably, because no place is perfect, disappointment.  That part was pretty good, but what about that location?  Hm…..make a noncommittal answer, and then move on to the next appointment.  Until (because we're looking in high season and need parking, both of which severely limit our options), we run out of options and have to make a choice.  

We ended up in a place that's far larger than we need, and was priced way at the high end of the range of places out there.  We have a whole three bedroom house to ourselves on the edge of a ritzy neighbourhood.  it was built as a family home by a Canadian a few years back, but now he lives and operates a taco stand in Budapest.  

It has it's advantages….the location is great, close to a very convenient bus route to downtown.  The place itself has beautiful bones.  It's spacious, open to the garden which hosts lots of birds, has some interesting artwork, and a comfortable feel.  But it's also been a rental place for a long time, and hasn't been getting a lot of love and attention.  The pots need to be replaced.  There's only really one partial set of linen for the whole place.  The beautiful outdoor furniture is falling apart.  There was no hot water for the first two days we were here.  And really, we're paying too much.

But we're settled, have an English speaking landlord, and can finally get down to living in Oaxaca.