Chilango

I'm slowly working out where I am.  There are a number of forgettable large arterial roads that criss-cross Mexico City, all of which are lined with the sort of soulless buildings that quickly erase themselves from the memory or else cause your mind to avoid them altogether.  However, just a block off of my own personal intercity super-highway, Insurgentes, the cinderblock structures give way to more sturdy neighborhoods.  Cracked streets turn to tree lined avenues.  Avenues converge at lush parks with elaborate european fountains, which in turn are surrounded by crowded cafés serving culture as much as coffees.  It is easy to dismiss DF as just another enormous and polluted environmental disaster, but such an assessment ignores the seeds of city aspiring to grow into something better.  A closer look reveals roof-top gardens and people pushing for social change that will influence the rest of the nation.  It is a place that is so undeniably international yet absolutely Mexican.  A crepe is just as likely to come with blue cheese and walnuts as it is with queso oaxaca (string cheese) and nopales, sautéed cactus.  It is not easy here, but if you have the energy, what you will find is worth the effort.  

Jumil

Although it is 28 degrees and fair, it is Christmas in Taxco as surely as anywhere else.  Where people once sold onions and tomatoes there are now stands filled with flashing lights, plastic Santas, singing animals, and the obligatory themed candies.  A plastic ponderosa pine forest has been steadily growing from the market's center, each day the mint colored trees creep even further along the streets, forming a vast evergreen forest disrupted only occasionally by their white plastic cousins and stands selling pirated DVDs. 

As best I can tell the first seeds were planted near the deli section, however, things tend to catch on quickly around here, so it is hard to be certain.  If it isn't rudely bleached jeans or an animal flu that occupies the public mind, it is most assuredly a seasonal holiday or food. 

Last months hot item was the Jumil, pronounced “who-meal.”  A beetle so disgusting people get two days off of work to celebrate it.  This spotted pest appears in the nearby mountains in the autumn and for the next several weeks makes up an important part of the Tasqueño diet.  Like all things local, both the producer and consumer believe it is the best.  Let's face it, if Vegemite, Green Chili Wine, or deep-fried turkeys stuffed with chicken and duck were actually the best, they would enjoy more widespread popularity.  As it is, they are mostly favored by people who grew up with them or, at the very least, tolerated for fear of not fitting in.  The same is true of the Jumil.