|
|
FORK PLAY February 26, 2008
Merida Street Food. The Eclipse of the Moon.
Dear Friends and Family,
I didn't wait my customary ten days or so to acclimate my insides to the flora and fauna of Merida. Gambling on my own global street food-toughened innards and Pepto Bismol, I went for the cockteles de camerones in the market our first Sunday and followed up with a couple of evil-looking tacos. The Yucatanese do something with ashes of scorched peppers - just  thinking about it could set off a disturbance. Add a splash of salsa from a crock that looks like it's been sitting on the table through mudslides and locusts. Of course it's a gamble. I'm not recommending you try it, just reporting that 21st century Mexico is eager for all us gringos to eat the salad and drink the exotic fruit juices and go home without experiencing the wrath of Montezuma.
But eating still has its risks. At dinner one evening, San Francisco's abdicated star chef Jeremiah Tower cackles evilly about the tales he's spinning in his newest memoir. All three of us share a decent pizza at La Trotto and he persuades a doubtful waiter to take the arugula offered as a pizza topping and deliver it as arugula salad. Still, he is matter-of-fact about possible digestive distress and recommends some miracle pills to fight it, just in case. Tower has discovered he has a knack for buying and restoring old colonial homes in Merida's center and making a profit that lets him escape to Italy in the unbearably humid heat of summer here.
By this past Sunday I have stopped worrying about the provenance of ice cubes and street food and am eager to follow Los Dos cooking school star David Sterling to his favorite cart in the Santa Lucia Square. Alas, there is no sign of the fabled Sabrina. "I was afraid of that," says Sterling, looking deceptively cool in the 92 degree heat in a close-fitting white guayabana, the local's cotton shirt. "Her daughter got married last night so she's entitled to a day off. But this looks interesting." He saunters toward a shaded cart where a mother and daughter, jeans rolled up under the traditional embroidered white shift, are sautéing tacos, pork carne asada, cheese empanadas and flat patty shaped "polkones" (normally they are ovals like a snake head). "Look, she even sautés her cabbage," he observes.
Since this is a first stop, a bite of each -  good and very good -- is all we need. But we linger because a band is setting up, dozens of locals are seated in rows of folding chairs and dancing will begin at any moment. With the amplified blare of a saxophone, the music bursts forth and couples troop onto the stage to dance the paso double.
If you don't give a damn about stuffed Gouda or turkey tacos but you love to dance, Merida will welcome you. People dance here. Mostly people in their 40s and 50s and seniors too, professional and locals, every night in one square or another, or inside vast neighborhood halls. And there are competitions. Today at noon some of the women are dressed in narrow skirts flared at the bottom. A sturdy couple, she in red and high heels, he in brilliant turquoise, are full of Arthur Murray moves, elegant turns, fancy breaks, provocative twists.
We are off to the zocolo, the town's main square, bound by the cathedral on one side, city hall, and the celebrated Colon Gelateria on another and full of market action on Sunday. At a cart touting "Marquesitas Doradas" I watch a thin batter pressed into an ice cream cone iron. It is then filled with grated Gouda (legacy of the early Dutch traders) and rolled, wrapped in a napkin and delivered steaming hot. The combination -- salty cheese inside the sweet crackle of pastry -- is delicious.
We stop to marvel at a woman squirting mustard on a corn dog and her guy, grinning at a paper boat piled with French fries with a few curls of fried pork. "Don't I want a corn dog?" I ask David.
"No you don't," he says flatly. He thinks I should save myself for tacos al pastor - poc chuc around the corner. Bits of pork, lots of onion, avocado, dried chile and vinegar, just made and really good. Shocked that we have not yet tasted Merida's corn sorbete, he runs across the street to Colon and returns with two little dishes, limone for Steven and corn to taste. Yucatan corn is different than our sweet corn, chewier and full of corn flavor, not sweet at all - odd in the sorbete but not unpleasant. For more on cooking with Sterling at Los Dos, please see BITE.
At that point I decide to skip the grilled corn with hot chile powder. But I'm disappointed I can't persuade anyone to join me for fresh fruit in a tall soda glass -pineapple and mango, mandarin with jicama and grapefruit, varying arrangements, all peeled and cut and ready to eat - as beautiful as cut flowers. For some of us, street food crawls will always be more fun than the Sunday Times.
***
The Total Eclipse of the Moon
"It's started," said a friend phoning from her home around the corner. Steven and I had planned to watch the eclipse of the moon from the terrace at Pancho's. Now the moon and its slow-moving shadow follow us, sometimes on the left, sometimes straight ahead as we walk the mile or so to Pancho's.
I am loathe to leave it behind as we step inside and ask for a table on the roof for fear it will disappear too quickly. But there it is in front of us, the shadow of the earth creeping over its perfect roundness so slowly above the glowing cathedral across the way. Definitely calls for a margarita.
I cannot believe that people are talking and eating and laughing with their backs to this extraordinary event. The waiters are hip and stand back occasionally to catch the progress of the shadow, a few people look up when only the moon's aura remains and a young woman tries to capture the moment on her cell phone.
I'm happy enough with a huge portion of Cobb salad and Steven insists on the shrimp tacos with lime-soaked pineapple he had last time we were here. We linger to watch the moon emerge from hiding.
"Do you think there'll be an earthquake?" I ask. We saw an eclipse of the sun in summer 1999 in Instanbul and there was a devastating earthquke two days later.
He ponders the idea. "Maybe."
"In that case, let's have dessert."
***
Photos of Pancho's face and tomato lady in market may not be reproduced without permission from Steven Richter.
Copyright pending Gael Greene 2008
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
