shoestring gringa

Continuing on the food theme of the last post,  it occurred to me that some kinds of cookbooks are more  useful than others here in Old Mexico.  If you’re in the pre-relocation sorting stage, and you’ve got the wherewithal, as with all books, I say bring them all!  If you’re trying to weed out an overgrown collection, however, here are some points to keep in mind.

Any cookbook that relies heavily on exotic ingredients or equipment is likely to be of little use in Mexico (unless you live in a very metropolitan area).  I parted reluctantly with a Hunan cookbook before leaving and have had no reason to regret it — on the contrary, having it around now would only make me pine for its unobtainable pleasures.

Old-fashioned, basic cookbooks have proved the most useful in my experience.  The more general reference material they contain the better.  As I’ve mentioned before, cooking in most parts of Mexico involves starting with what you’ve got as opposed to dreaming up a menu and then assembling it.  I got rid of my 1968 edition of the Larousse Gastronomique because it was so large and heavy, and regretted it so much I actually found another copy (in worse condition) on Amazon and replaced it.  I also regret getting rid of my old Joy of Cooking, although I won’t be replacing that one.  I don’t remember ever actually making a recipe from the Joy of Cooking, but all those tables about cooking times and how long stuff will keep in the freezer can really come in handy at times.

I definitely recommend bringing anything you’ve loved and used for years (for me, all my Italian and Spanish cookbooks), and  also anything of  literary interest (e.g. Elizabeth David, M.F.K. Fisher, Anthony Bourdain, etc.).

I brought a couple of Mexican cookbooks, which turned out to be a good idea, despite my worry about carrying coals to Newcastle.  I’m sorry now I got rid of my Diana Kennedy collection; her formidable scholarship would be doubly interesting now we’re living  here, in spite of  her uber-control-freak recipe format which always annoyed me so.

The one cookbook we’ve acquired since living here (besides the Larousse replacement) is a Cuban one, bought with an eye to wresting more variety out of the limited ingredients available in rural Sonora, and it has worked out very well.

As with all these decisions, when in doubt, keep it and bring it along!  If it’s a book you’re fond of, it will still be good for entertainment or nostalgia, even if you never make another recipe from it again.

If you’re a fan of Chinese food, the good news is that there are Chinese restaurants everywhere,  even in Mexico.  Even rather small towns will often boast one or two.

If you want to make your own at home, you can usually find basic Asian items in large city supermarkets.   Warning — most of the available soy sauce is pretty awful — if you see a jug of Kikkoman in Costco, grab it!  Jars of  plum sauce, oyster sauce, hoisin sauce, and kung pao are easy to find.  Once we found tofu in a tetrapak which was quite acceptable.    We’ve regularly been able to buy fresh ginger (jenjibre) at Soriana for the past year.  Ingredients for other Asian cuisines are sometimes seen, but less common.

If you live off the beaten track, you can still satisfy those Asian cravings with a combination of planning, improvisation, and keeping it simple.  For example, we’re very fond of wonton soup.  The miracle of a steaming bowl on a chilly day was recently achieved by:

Planning:  (1) Having bought ginger when we last shopped in the city (growing it would be even better and is on my to-do list).  (2) Always having soy sauce, cornstarch and sherry, the basics for Chinese food, on hand, and of course garlic.

Improvisation:  (1) Making our own wonton wrappers.  This is easily done with a pasta machine (or rolling pin) and a recipe off the internet.  (I think we bought ready-made wonton wraps once in Merida, but I can’t swear to it.)  (2)  Using pork broth left over from  another dish combined with Knorr chicken powder and water for the broth.

Keeping it simple:  Forgetting about luxuries like dried mushrooms and Napa cabbage and just using locally available green onions.

For someone who learned (perforce) to cook out of books, this way of cooking and thinking is an ongoing learning experience for me — beginning with what’s on hand and fashioning something hopefully enjoyable out of it, as opposed to dreaming up a menu and going out and buying all the stuff for it.  As with so many areas of Mexican life, it involves a whole lot more creativity and way less expense.  Although it can be frustrating at times, it seems ultimately a more sustainable and satisfying approach to doing things.

For many years I made a ritual of buying an art reproduction calendar every year at a local museum.  I’d find an artist I didn’t know well and spend the year communing with their work.  It was an enjoyable tradition which I’ve regretfully abandoned in these times of lean earnings and ~$20 art calendars.

So how’s a girl to know what day it is?  There’s always the date on the computer screen, but sometimes you need a visual representation of the month, and sometimes you want to be able to write on it.

Our first year in Mexico we lucked onto a half-price sale.  The second year, I printed calendar blanks from the computer and stuck them onto some picture we had lying around.

And then I discovered hardware store calendars.  They may not be the most attractive items in the world, but their usefulness makes up for it.  And, they’re free!  We’ve used them for two years now and they’re great.  Not only do they indicate both legal and unofficial Mexican holidays, they also show official US holidays, which comes in quite handy at times if you’re still banking or doing any business in the states.  They also show the saint associated with every single day of the year and the moon’s phases.  The one we got this year even has the day of ingress of each astrological sign.

In cities, other types of business often give away calendars as well.  Once when visiting Merida we got a calendar with a beguiling photograph of a large pig from a carnitas takeout joint.  But if you live in a rural area, hardware stores are the most reliable source of free calendars.

My apologies for the recent lack of posts here, I’ve been in the states attending to some lamentable family and business matters.  I’m home now, and will be posting again soon.  All I have to say at the moment is, ¡Viva Mexico!