The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1902-04-10

pie OF Mexico, which are also
extensively eaten in the cities,
are tortillas, (corn cakes)
frijoles (beans) and chile. The frijoles
have a strong taste and are rather in
ferior to our ordinary beans. The
chile is very peppery dish and it
seems to me has almost strength
enough to raise the roof from ones
mouth, head and house.
Almost everything eaten by Mexi-
cans is highly seasoned with oil. In
Mexico City every little grocery store
and curiosity shop sells lunches con-
sisting almost exclusively of chile
sandwiches. There is always large
bottle of oil standing by these sand
wiches and with every sale liberal
quantity of this is poured into the
chile between the crusts of bread-and
crusts they are, for no Mexican likes
soft bread. They have a way of baking
tread into small loaves with thick
tough crusts and little Or no pith in
side. 1t is never cut into slices but is
simply broken and if there is any pith
or soft inside it is thrown to the dogs.
Buns or biscuits are like the loayes.
Sandwiches are sold for one and two
cents. Table board at Mexican board
ing houses and restaurants averages
SIS per month, Mexican money; table
board at American boarding houses
and restaurants about $50 Mexican,
which is equal to about SIS in our
money.
Generally speaking, the so-called
American restaurants are run by Chi
nese who serve fairly good, palatable
American meals which include some
articles of food of American product
and are rather expensive owing to the
high cost of freight and duty.
The leading beverages are pulque,
mescal, tiquila and aguardiente
Pulque is drawn from meguey plants
something after the manner of draw
ing sap from tree. These plants are
about as high as mans head and are
cultivated in the same manner as corn
or garden stuff. Within radius of a
few miles from Mexico City there are
thousands of acres of meguey and
every morning some of the railroads
run pulque trains into the city, the
same as our railroads run milk trains
into large cities. Much of this goes
direct to residences for family use, but
most of it goes to pulquerias where it
is retaiied out at the small prices of one
and two cents per glass, the one-cent
glasses holding nearly pint and the
two-cent. ones nearly quart. Pulque
looks like mixture of milk and water
and is slightly thick and Shiny, or to
illustrate more minutely, it very closely
resembles the soft soap made here at
the prison. 1t tastes something like
sour milk, tho not SO sour, and it is not
intoxicating. The average foreigner
rather dislikes it at first, but an appe-
tite can be acquired in short time and
it is considered healthful
Pulquerias correspond somewhat TO
our saloons and are about as numerous,
but their only display is eight or ten
big red barrels, which contain the
pulque, and walls frescoed with cheap
paintings. usually sacred. The fronts
of these buildings and the barrels with
in are always painted red Mescal,
finniio ond aOuardianto oro moda nf
plants corresponding to our rye and
corn and are highly intoxicating. All
of these liquors are colorless like alco-
hol or water. Tiquila is simply mescal
refined, tho both are sold at the low
price of one cent for small whisky
glass, or two cents for a common size
whisky glass. The strength of mescal
and tiquiia is about equal to that of
our WHISTLES.