Sabor de Catemaco

El Restaurante asadero El Mojalete abrió su puertas en Catemaco, Veracruz, en Avenida x, esquina con y.

Corny Catemaco

I am not a corn fan. While traveling through Navajo territory, or junky southern towns I will occasionally slaver over fresh cornbread smothered with butter. Even the occasional Denny's will slap me a bite. The rest of the time I ignore corn.

Corn, of course is the staple food of Mexico. Corn is also the staple food of most farm fed animals in the world. So how can Mexico compete with BUSH endowed and subsidized US competitors?
Simply, Mexico cannot compete. Although Mexico is known to have over 400 varieties of corn, most of the varieties grown make hand made tortillas and feed burros in mostly non economical dimensions.

They say the white corn is for animals or Mexicans and the yellow corn is for corn-on the cob freaks in southern food restaurants or US supermarket aisles.

So I did a little taste test.
First I defroze my genuine Mexican Walmart special yellow corn, then I shucked my freshly shucked locally purchased white corn and chopped off the ends to make it appear similar.
Then I microwaved both of them for 3 1/2 minutes.
And slothered them with butter and salt.

Then I blindfolded 4 non- Mexican volunteers for a taste test.

All said I used too much salt!

Aside from that none noticed a difference between yellow and white.

SO much for Mexicans and animals.

BTW - The customary way of serving the equivalent of Mexican corn-on-the cob, is with sloshes of mayonnaise and red pepper. YUMMY but guaranteed to zip your cholesterol to heaven.

Licking Catemaco

Photo: Haras de la Gadelière

During the HOT days in beautiful downtown Catemaco, which are now fortunately becoming less frequent, my household salivates over a chance to lick on a "percherona" ( giant icemilk concoction on a stick).

I never questioned the name until recently when I searched for the name, and mostly found horses.

Apparently Catemaco and Los Tuxtlas are famous for this delight of mostly frozen fruit flavored ices, wrapped around a stick, about 1 1/2 inches square, 3 inches long, and wrapped in a plastic sleave. Probably other towns have the same thing but don't use the name.

Percheron horses are some of the largest and heaviest in the world. During the Middle Ages in Europe they were the equivalent of modern tanks. The horse name is French, and that country has an almost worse history of messing with Mexico than the US. So I sort of wonder why those things are not called "Buffalos" or something.

¡Ni modo! If you want to slurp off one, bring a bath towel! The napkin that comes with those delicious monsters is only good for the first 3 licks.

Catemaco History

On the eve, or one of those mañana things, of Mexican Independence (Sept 15/16), read the history of:
La Batalla de El Alamo in garbled Google Spanish, and then
The Battle of the Alamo in Wikipedian English.

And then! Grab a six pack of Corona and holler a toast to the Texicans.

Oops, the Mexicans only seceded Texas, etc. They kept the rest of Mexico.
That is why there are almost no Six Packs of Beer in my part of Mexico.
Common Mexican beer drinkers prefer their beer lukewarm in quart size bottles.
A real culture shock!

Catemaco Bagels

We just returned from a quick bagel trip to Veracruz city, known as Veracruz Puerto to all you Mexicophiles.
A quick bagel trip is more complicated than it seems.
It requires scanning endless aisles of a supermarket for things we were not able to buy in the local Catemaco, Veracruz and Tuxtlas “hood”.
And among the canned foods we found such treasures as wasabi paste, more or less instant blue berry pudding, white spaghetti sauces and chunky canned tuna, among other jewels.
The bakery had just finished baking assorted small but not sweet breads, still on the cooling rack visible behind the counter.
After fighting with the counter agents, my apparent drool alerted a manager to permit me to enter into the hallowed halls of Walmart bakedom and remove a dozen hot breads to slide into my cooler for my 3 hour trip back to Catemaco to reside in my freezer to evoke future drools.
Those 3 hours were pure misery. To satisfy our curiosity we had stopped at the relatively new COSTCO store, for which we had no 35 dollar membership. And I saw things I had forgotten existed, like Ben & Jerry’s, pastrami, baby ribs, cheddar cheese and fresh milk.
We were not prepared to travel frozen and my Popoluca refused to let me buy another 40 gallon ice chest, the one we owned had been forgotten, so I had to settle for one of those 70 peso plastic bubbly ones and stuffed it with mostly Bagels.
Why Bagels? you may be asking.
Preferentially I would love a good black bread, or one of those steinofen gebackene brots.I grew up in northern Europe and eating white bread was next to being excommunicated.The Bagel habit I picked up by osmosis via an ex, Jewish wife, about whom my most fond memories are my kids and lox (smoked salmon +/-).
So now I am getting ready to munch on a genuine Mexican bagel and schmear it with genuine Mexican cream cheese flavored with Chipotle, accompanied by one of those funny shaped Mexican tomatoes and the usual round onions and smothered with something called smoked salmon “Irish style”.
And for this, I left beautiful uptown Miami, Florida?

Drunk in Catemaco

Below the belt of most Mexican rural towns, including beautiful Catemaco, Veracruz, dangles a pair of culture threatening problems, drunkenness and spouse abuse. The two are closely related to each other and form a basis for the extraordinarily high incidence of murders, mutilations and roadkills in the country.

At present federal Mexico does not tax alcohol, aside from the 15% tax added to most consumer products. The concept of sin taxes is not absent in Mexico. The booze manufacturers have just been able to excert their political prowess more than the tobacco companies which are heavily taxed.

Especially at night, the prevalence of public drunks is pernicious in most of downtown Catemaco, as well as many other communities, especially on the weekends and on the highways, despite the efforts of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) which is hyperactive here as well as in the rest of Mexico, providing 9 local refuges in this town of 20,000, and more than 22 in neighboring San Andrés Tuxtla.
Not helping is the cheap availability of rot gut "aguardiente" (firewater, distilled from sugarcane) at the equivalent of a short quart (26oz) of 72 proof liquor for 12 pesos. Even cheaper is the purchase of distilled alcohol from many grocery stores in any amount as long as you bring your own container. If you see a "wino" waving along the street clutching a plastic bag, containing what seems to be water, that will not be his goldfish, but a "churrito" or "boli" of brandless alcohol.
Firewater is the preferred choice of hard core drunks. The most problematic choice, though, is beer.
Mexico has a well deserved reputation for excellent beer quality and was able to fool the US public by exporting a third rate beer to the US market, where it rapidly cornered the "most imported " beer status and drove up the price of limes, Corona.

Corona and a few other breweries in the tightly controlled Mexican economy offer their most popular serving in "caguama" size bottles, (940ml, roughly a quart) for 14 pesos which compares to a similar bottle of Miller's "low life" for US 1.65 which is after the alleged 44% taxes which US alcohol consumes. Obviously Mexican drinkers are being ripped off by their compatriots controlling distribution channels.

The beer companies, aside from almost monopolistic Coca Cola, and Nestle are possibly the best marketers in Mexico and make it possible for any Jose or Juana to open a cantina on shoe strings, receiving free chairs, tables, refrigerators, decor and paint as long as they stick to selling one brewery's products.

The partial benefactors are the county governments (municipios) which charge a relatively high rate for liquor licenses, but not anywhere the huge sums that these licenses cost in the US.
The mayhem, roadkill and spouse abuse are additional benefits which are not included in the license fees and usually get picked up by state and federal funds.

The Mexican government, which is statistics happy, has made substantial studies of the drinking problem in urban areas, but seems to be avoiding the rural areas, where the problem is much more prevalent.

One final comment, which is not an endorsement, is to say that I have remarkably found those public drunks in Catemaco to be generally courteous and non-intrusive compared to many others I have encountered in my travels in other countries.
Cheers.

Catemaco Milk

Assorted travel writers have touted the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Veracruz as the Switzerland of Mexico. And in common with Switzerland, Los Tuxtlas also has abundant herds of milk cows.

But in beautiful downtown Catemaco, milk comes in a bricklike cardboard carton, guaranteed to withstand 140 degree temperatures, last for 6 months, and possibly survive being dropped by a helicopter. Fresh Milk is udderly absent despite thousands of happy cows grazing on what is left of the surrounding landscape.

There is fresh pasteurized milk available in Veracruz City and other towns are known to even have fresh milk delivery, but those bricks are generally a staple in Mexico and most of the world. I used to think that was related to international lack of refrigeration, but, no, the Europeans also like their bricks of ultra high pasteurized milk.

Ultra high pasteurization kills most vitamins, so naturally, those are added back into the bricks. Assorted enzymes are also missing, but what is really beneficial is the absence of all those cow diseases transmittable to humans.

I have abandoned my habit of an occasional glass of milk and usually only splurge after a trip to Walmart where fresh milk is stocked. The reason is probably purely psychological, because I am now perfectly happy to drink my orange juice poured from a brick.

Maybe a retired US dairy farmer or juice bottler could show the locals a few tricks to supplement their survival on government handouts.

Catemaco Coffee

Veracruz produces about 20% of Mexico’s coffee. Most Mexican coffee producers died of starvation a few years ago when coffee prices plunged substantially below production costs.

The uptown Catemaco, Veracruz area grows a lot of coffee, which is now in cyclical price renaissance again. Other areas of Veracruz are almost famous for their coffee, especially around the Coatepec area.

Right now, I have a coffee bush hidden among my other plants and my Popoluca is plucking the seeds. It looks like I might get two whole cups of coffee from my bush after I investigate how to roast just a little bit of coffee.

There actually is an uptown Catemaco coffee brand, but there is no way that I know that you can taste it without visiting Zapoapan de Cabanas in the hills of Catemaco, which is where my bush came from.

Catemaco Menu Items

I just returned to beautiful downtown Catemaco, from hectic, historic, vibrant Veracruz City with some frozen, gorgeous, apparently juicy marbled prime beef steaks.

The rest of my time here I have eat:
TEGOGOLOS
A small fresh water snail whose slug body occasionally looks black. It is native to Laguna Catemaco. Its meat is a little chewy, but it tastes good. It is usually prepared like a Mexican shrimp cocktail, with tomato, onion, coriander, Chile, much lime, bay leaf and catchup. It is a known aphrodisiac and that is why Catemaco is so sexy.
TOPOTES.
These are small silver plated fish, sort of like a guppy. Usually they are served fried with lime and chili, and taste like weird spicy french fries if you close your eyes. They are also available in soups, or even get served in tacos.
MOJARRA
This used to be a Catemaco native fish. It has virtually been extinguished by an imported African perch which may or may not taste the same. Mexican visitors apparently do not taste the difference. This is a fairly small fish, (I have never seen one over 2 pounds) and is preferrably served whole, deep fried. It is also available stewed, in soups, a la Veracruzana, and possibly another hundred variations. Most of them are delicious.
EEL
I am not sure whether this is a real eel, a tiny snake or a worm. They are not much larger than a fat hair, originally colored black which turns red after cooking or drying. Usually they are served in empanadas, (stuffed tortillas) but also in many more creative versions. Try some, with chili, black beans and olive oil. They do not bite anymore.
NANCHES.
A sweet and sour fruit, sized like a cherry, usually conserved in alcohol and used in a myriad of desserts. It is mostly grown in Veracruz and Tabasco and is a favorite item on Day of the Dead menus.

And then there are the virtually hundreds of pastries. Because of them my fingers are now almost too fat to reach individual keys on my keyboard.

That is most of the usual stuff. I would hate to bore you with beans with chonegui or ochote, bexo leaf tamales, chagalapoli juice or wine, or other weird stuff which I have to live on until my steaks disappear, which is probably tomorrow.

Hairy food in Catemaco

The last few years, beautiful downtown Catemaco has been graced with an annual "Conservation Week" event which mainly helps to display the conservation efforts of its community leaders, including dozens of government organizations who earn a salary for involving themselves in Los Tuxtlas.

To me the most magnificent specific event was the gastronomic "tour de force" of the cooking abilities of the uptown beautiful Catemaco communities. Especially the ability by the sponsoring Government organizations to talk these uphill impoverished communities into providing giant shrimp with all the trimmings at 5 pesos per plate.

I am no fool!


I ate most anything I could get my mouth around. And that includes some stuff I never thought would cross my lips.

And, WOW !!, most of the food was delicious, except for that tamale stuffed with little slippery fish.

Catemaco ducks

Beautiful Laguna Cacemaco in central coastal Veracruz is hot spot vacation resort for Canadian & US ducks. For that matter, my native Popoluca partner tells me, there used to be so many ducks on the laguna that it was hard to see the laguna. And she says "they tasted very good".

Laguna Catemaco is a shallow lake, less than 24ft ( 7m) average depth, and that is a statistic from 8 years ago. The continuing depredation of the hills surrounding the ignored Mexican Laguna Catemaco preserve has probably produced another decrease of the average depth of the laguna by another foot (33 cm) or more through flushing of its hillside debris, communal defecation and perhaps abeyances to the local Chachiuhlicu goddess.

A new Canadian study now revals the real depth of the real duck doodoo. And considering the number of ducks hanging around Laguna Catemaco this is a serious concern. Statistically someone can probably project when Catemaco will be filled in by duck feces, unless, of course the Maxacapan laundries or the liria aquatica (water hyacinths) do it first.

The local gringo culinary expert Vandammed has suggested possibly renamed duck meat to be served as duck l'orange , to coordinate with the local carne de chango, which in its origin has mainly been eaten to the point of extermination, and now only exists as roast pork.

By the way, most of the wintering birds that look like ducks are actually grebes.

Catemaco food shortage

Mexican nutrionists and Los Tuxtlas health authorities are now on high alert to combat the nutritional deficiencies which the absence of pickles in Los Tuxtlas and beautiful downtown Catemaco have created.

Neither the neoliberal capitalistic abusers of culinary delights, Walmart or Soriana, now stock pickles on their shelves. The occasional orphan jars of sliced green things in other small tiendas have also disappeared. Desperate pickle eaters are now crowding the Tuxtlas highways in search of pickles.

A recently interviewed pickle user at Sam´s Club in Veracruz stated "I bought everything they had, sliced, cubed, dilled and freeze dried. To hell with those survivalists in Catemaco".

The Veracruz governor and the local municipal authorities have been advised, and according to informed sources, air drops of pickles will be accompanying the usual dump of sheet metal on deserving communities in Los Tuxtlas.

Anyone experiencing withdrawal symptoms should present him/herself at one of the local out clinics, easily identified by their color schemes of primarily yellow and spouting the words salto, brincon or poder on their exterior walls.

A local Popoluca indian recommended use of chayotes marinated in vinager as a temporary transfusion for those dependent on pickle juice. Local health authorities refused to comment and reiterated their recommendation of saline solution for extreme cases.

Catemaco food shopping

Finally a Walmart franchise, Aurrera, opened in San Andres Tuxtla. And since that store lacks many of the things which that aweful Soriana store does not stock, I now have 8 Steps to complete my shopping in and around beautiful downtown Catemaco.

First I get my basics at the local vegetable, meat and drygoods stores. That´s 3 steps and I do that, because it is more convenient and I like to spend my money where I s(h)it.

Fourth, I now drive to Aurrera. Previously I went to Soriana's first, to fill in with stuff not available in Catemaco, such as fresh romaine lettuce, black bread, and other goodies.

Fifth, I drive to Soriana to buy the stuff Aurrera does not stock, such as quality canned tuna, chile beans, round tomatoes, etc.

Sixth, then I venture to Fenix in San Andres for such unusuals as crunchy JIF peanut butter, Smucker´s blueberry jelly and Dijon mustard.

Seventh, gnawing on my shopping list, I head for Veracruz, where I can find liverwurst, salami, roquefort cheese, maybe a frozen Lasagna, dozens of salmon filets and even anchovies.

Eighth, I spend my remaining pesos at the junkfood store across from Plaza America in Veracruz, and buy some decent wines, saurkraut & Mott´s applesauce.

Then I´m exhausted and exasperated and I drink all the wine, eat all the delicacies, and wallow around beautiful downtown Catemaco looking for something different to eat.

Really, would you eat tegogolos every day?

Catemaco boycott

Mexico mistreats its Central & South American migrants more harshly than anything the US "Migra" ever considered.

Mexico for the past 100´s of years consistently has kissed the behind of its oligarchy monopoly of politics, economy and society to the detriment of the majority of its population living in abject poverty. Mexico abets the export of many of its people to the US to avoid facing the reality that its government in truth cannot serve its people. Mexico hungers for every dollar that its expatriates return to Mexico to sustain a dysfunctional economy with less growth than most third world countries.

SO NOW Mexico sides with the ongoing boycott of American products to protest proposed US immigration reforms.

Well, this week I will hold my own boycott in beautiful downtown Catemaco.

NO MORE MEXICAN STUFF!

No more enchiladas, coctel de tegogolos, turnedos Azteca, mojarras a la Veracruzana, memelas, or tacos de nopal.

Instead I will eat only pizza, pasta and anything else Italian. Unfortunately that is my only non-Mexican choice in beautiful downtown Catemaco. But I hear an Argentian steak house will open soon in San Andres Tuxtla.

Catemaco fish

I just made my weekly visit to "El Caracol" a tiny roadside seafood place on the road out of Catemaco to Playa Azul, and jealously eyed the 3 pound Tilapia fish my neighbor was eating and I bitched to the owner about serving me Tilapias the size of children shoes.

Apparently the big fish eater had brought his own fish!!! And where did he get it? He is the head honcho in a Mexican federal breeding facility down the road near Coxcoapan. And he told the sad tale of ,"Ripley´s Believe it or NOT", 3,500 registered fishermen on Laguna Catemaco. At present Laguna Catemaco is totally overfished. If a fisherman (almost no women) catches something shoe size, it is almost a hoarded treasure. The central market abounds with minnow size tilapias, and it is Tlacotalpan and other areas that provide restaurant size fish. Several years of efforts to establish some fishing laws for the laguna, including seasons, sizes, etc., have so far been torpedoed by the local fishing gods.

Catemaco Tegogolos

Mexican men are of the heterosexual virile sort, or at least they think so, until they count the humongous secretive numbers of homosexuals among themselves. Beautiful downtown Catemaco attracts them all.

Tegogolos, resident water snails of Laguna Catemaco, apparently are the natural VIAGRA of southern Mexico. Local fishermen gladly oblige the undersexed crowds with extremely portable ice coolers filled with Tegogolo cocktails. Even some restaurants try to harness this energy.

Possibly because of this, the Malecon of Catemaco is littered with a dozen hotels.As far as I know, no scientific study has been done on the aphrodisiac qualities of this endemic slug of Los Tuxtlas.

Unscientifically I know of some gringos and a bunch of Mexicans who will not leave home without a filled ice coolers full of Tegogolos.

Great Sex in Catemaco

One of the beautiful downtown Catemaco, Veracruz best known delicacies are slimy fresh water snails (tegogolos) forcibly removed from their shells, washed in pure Laguna Catemaco waters, and cooked to the texture of shoe leather.

Mexican and international connoisseurs travel thousands of miles to gobble these small gastropods usually served in what passes for shrimp cocktail sauce in Mexico, (chopped tomatoes, onions, cilantro and ketchup).

Allegedly tegogolos are an aphrodisiac. That is hard to believe, especially after seeing a naked snail without its shell in person. Nevertheless the fable persists and may be the reason for the dozens of cantinas in Catemaco equipped with “slut” machines.

Of course, the French made snails edible just like other uneatables. The famous “escargot” is a cousin of these Catemaco snails who prefer to live in water instead of on land as their French relatives do.

Most escargot are served cooked in garlic butter with a little parsley, a miniature fork if served in the shell, and a loaf of French bread for dipping the delectable garlic snail sauce, and a pricetag of US 15.95 for a serving of 6.

Look for my next business venture in beautiful downtown Catemaco, serving cheap “Escargot a la catemaco”. And! you will get to take the polished snail shells home.

Haute cuisine in Catemaco

There comes a time in every man´s life when it is imperative to leave a warm hearth and hunt for something to eat. And in Catemaco, near the midnight hour, that becomes a little problematical on a weekday.

Unfortunately, I found my prey on a downtown street corner cluttered with hot dog stands that usually are ashamed to show themselves during the day time. And I stuffed myself with mystery meat weiners atop stale buns, slothered with mayonaise, tomatoes, onions and chiles, and I even tolerated the chef´s robbery of a handful of pesos more than he charged his next Mexican customer, oblivious to having heard me order my dog food in Spanish.

I mean, NAFTA, neoliberalism, yankee imperialism and all the other good stuff aside, WHAT happened to Mexican culture and its knife wielding "tacos de carne asada" choppers?

Yes, I could possibly die for a Nathan´s foot long, or one of those kosher monsters with saurkraut and mustard in beautiful downtown Catemaco, but this derivative cultural ethnocide with hot dogs has got to stop.

As for now I am totally weaned off Catemaco weiners

Catemaco tacos

Just what Mexico needs, I thought! - Another kind of taco!

But after driving about 20 miles (1 hour) from Catemaco on some beautiful country roads beyond San Andrés Tuxtla and eating about 15 delicious tacos, I learned why those particular tacos are famous around the northern Tuxtlas.

Cheerful, smiling young ladies line up their canastas (hand woven wicker baskets) on the central plaza of Tilapan, a former hacienda village down the Volcano San Martin slopes, at the edge of Rio Tepango and await the local tourist hordes. It is a limited menu. Chicken, beef or pork served on handrolled tortillas, dripping with a somewhat spicy and greasy sauce at 2.5 pesos each. A small store nearby sells soft drinks. (Bring your own hand washing water or dip into the nearby river).

The canasta operation stems from the former Tuxtlas railroad days, when Tilapan was a major stop on the road. The habit of selling tacos has continued to now mostly one way automobile tourists.

Catemaco Pargo

Some know-it-all tried to tell me pargo is a fish. A pargo is not a fish - it is a whole fried huachinango (snapper)! OK- maybe Cuba has rubbed off on me - because that´s how the word is used there.

Nevertheless when I and my compatriots hit the beach at Costa de Oro, on the Los Tuxtlas coast, about, 30 miles from Catemaco, the lone proprietor of ” Antojitos La Carmelita” gleamed from one side of his Zapato mustache to the other when I ordered “pargos” for everyone, mouthing “huachinango”. Actually it was the only fish he had on hand.

So what else would anyone want after a 30 mile trek from Catemaco passing from verdant jungle to cow pastures to breathtaking views of the Gulf of Mexico.

I would want fresh fried whole red snapper, served over rice, with black beans, hand made tortillas, salad, three sauces, fresh lime and sea salt. AND a beer or soda, and a cup of coffee to get me going afterwards.

AND I would NOT expect to pay more than 50 pesos per person for 5 hungry people on possibly one of the most beautiful beaches in Mexico.

I´m crazy? Yeah?