Richland beacon., 1888-01-28
THE MENICAN'S CUISINE
SISTER REPUBLIC"
a Typical Mexican Kitchen The
star of Lifc."-A Boiled Con
plnmprntion after SOM.

star of Bifc.''-A Boiled Con-
glomeration after Soup.
1t an nnquestionable fact, VIZ cs Fan
ME B. W lrd from Mexico. that the cuiSino
| S { lir criterion of the civilization OF any
1aticn-aad that Of Mexico is as uniILe
a. the dress and mlnhers of her people.
| The climate, no doubt, IS well Is the
Moorish ar, hitecturc Of the house, has
much to do about it.. la this hot coun-
try, and in these windc yless kitchens,
| steady fires are out of the question, did
not the scarcity and high price of fuel
prevent where trees do not abound nor
| coal MINIS exist. When gnarled and
crooked sticks are bought by weight-at
the rate of cent and half per r md
and coal, brought from great distances,
is Sl6 to SEQ per ton, naturally economy
in fuel is prime consideration. a typi-
| cal Mexican kitchen has neither stove,
| table, chair nor cupboard--the clean
swept clay floor, an adobe shelf against
| The wall and few hooks d pegs an
swering every purpose. In the houses OF
| the rich an adobe range Is built into the
wall, watch is really n long, narrov' box,
made of sun-baked clay and partitioned
off with little compartments, within
each of which handful of charcoal may
be consumed. The middle classes use a
big clay Jar. or pot, in lien of range, in
which charcoal is also burned, while the
poor have "all outdoors for kitchen,
and build their tiny fire Of sticks whcr-
ever it is most convenient. The cooking
utensils are seldom Of iron, because here
that metal is very scarce and dear. but
earthcn pots are almost universally used
instead of the kettles and firing pans to
which northern housekeepcrs are accus-
toned 1t seems incredible that dinner
of several courses en- be prepared over
charcoal pot not much larger than peck
measure, the various ediblcs all cooked
in smaller pots set within It. Let us OBJ
serve some of the dishes. Perhaps the
most important part Of the meaN is the
to-fih, or uncdvened pan cake, the
Mexican "staT of life "and staple article
of food. 1t is made of common field
corn, soaked in lime water, and then
crushed into paste on stone me'ate with
"a stone roller. The women o. the house
hold 90 through the entire laborious pro-
cess as many time every day as there are
meals to be eaten, knecling upon the
floor behind tae low mct"e. The paste
is then mixed with lite water, with
no salt or soda, and small masses of it
are tlattened into little cakes, much like
English scones or Yankee buckwhcats,
spatted into shape betw wcen the hands
and baked Immediately on flat stone,
or piece of iron or tin, over the fire.
Throughout all Mexico ijrtH as have been
in use from tie earliest timts, with no
change in the manner of making them,
| except that for the noble AZtccs in
| Montezuma's time tn lra~es of various
| medical plants were kneade in with the
dough.
Then there IS pucharo, or the boiled
conglomera,ion that always follows the
soup, consisting of mutton, beef, bacon,
| fowls, sausage, garbanzOs {" large white
beam, small gourds, squash, greens,
pears, apes and every other seed, root
| and vegetable known to man, all boiled
together, a piece of each piled npon your
| plate, ana a sauce of herbs, tomatoes and
rcd-hot chill poured over it. At every
| Mexican dinner, 365 days in the year
the third course is invar ably pucha; o
after caldo broth, and the stew Of rice,
vermicclIi or macaroni, mixed with tOma-
toes, cheese or sour milk. There is mole
which means any kind of fish, flesh or
| fowl, with sauce of roasted ch' i pep
pers, which turns the whole thing to q
deep, dark red and is fiery enough to
! draw tears from the eyes of a craven
image Thee is the tamale, innocent
enough in its looks to tempt a baby, but
SO hot W tn chill within that ones throat
needs to be triple plated with tin. 1t is
made of req peppers. tomatoes and
onions, with chopped meat, rolled up in
tortilla dough and put inside corn husk.
which i,avors them through and through,
and really they are not bad when ones
''inner man. becomes hardened to
the chilli Another dclicacy is known
as enchilades made of tortilla dough
rolled over an unexpressible conundrum
of chopped chickens, red peppers, g'ecn
tomatoes. garlic, raisins, and heaven
knows what. These ar, also enclosed in
corn husks and boiled, and are very good
eating if one is not too particular rs to
the component pIrts Of the conundrum
and the dirt it may incidentally contain.
There are also boiled nOpals. or fruit of
the "prickly pear" species" of cacti
bananas fried in lard goats milk cheese
to he eaten with honey; and last, but
by no means least, frejOles, or red beans,
which everybody in Mexico cats at least
twice day, and which Immediately
precede the desert at orery well-rcgula-
ted dinner They are first parboiled in
water, after which the cook takes the
stewing jar, pours out the water, throws
the beans into the air and catches them
again in the jar, keeping up the opera
ton until they are quite cold, when they
are mixed with ch Ii and fried in fat. AS
to the mes:es eaten by the Indians,
cannot speak from experimental knowl-
edge. for even that journalistic fervor
which will lead the wandering s'ribe to
the topmost icy reaks OF sky piercing
mountains, and to the lowest depths of
subterranean cavcrns, fails utterly when
It comes to eating snails, pounded flies,
grasshoppers, fish intestines, mosquitoes
eggs, etc.
DafS'S Tocfh