I miss Mexico, and Mexicans.
Living in Sacramento, I took for granted the presence of both, which are omnipresent, if at times subdued. Latinos are, at the very least, equal in number to non-Latinos in my old home, if not the majority.
Quinceañeras next door, banda or reggaeton playing from the open windows of cars at stoplights, the “hecho en Mexico” eagle logo everywhere. And always Spanish spoken. Not everywhere all the time as in Mexico, but almost every day I’d hear it somewhere.
Not here in Minnesota.
The dominant culture here in the Twin Cities is white and black, with Southeast Asian coming in “third place.” Latino culture certainly exists, especially in West St. Paul, but it’s not woven into the fabric of the region the way it is in California.
Two recent events hammered this in. First, I was watching football at a bar called The Nook when two guys sat down next to me, speaking Spanish. Very quickly I identified them as Mexican — drop a few “no mames,” güey, pedo or any form of the verb chingar and chances are tu eres Mexicano.
I slipped into Spanish and asked them where they were from. Turns out both were from Michoacan, where the majority of Mexicans and Mexican Americans are from, back in Sacramento. One guy was a truck driver and his friend imports cheese from Michoacan.
They were shocked I could speak Spanish, and were wary at first. Understandable, in this fraught time. But walls came down (so to speak) quickly, and we talked on and on about food, football, drinking beer — and Mexico.
To be fair, my Spanish isn’t perfect, so we spoke pocho, as Spanish speakers often call Spanglish. About 80 percent Spanish, with some English tossed in when they wanted to be extra clear with me, or when I couldn’t remember the vocabulary for what I wanted to say.
It was a wonderful night. I drank too much and walked home, happy.
Then, last week, two guys came to do a ton of electrical work at my house. Also Spanish speakers, one was from Ecuador, the other from Morelos in Mexico. Again, I spoke to them in Spanish, and again, they were surprised.
Nobody here ever talks to us in Spanish, Ernesto, the Mexican, said to me, in Spanish. He asked me where I learned, and I said California and Mexico — mostly Baja. He loved Baja, having been there a few times for vacation as a kid.
As the day progressed, I made them lunch of chile verde with tortillas, some coffee and brought them water. Simple hospitality to me, but again, they said almost no one did that for them. I was glad to make their job a bit nicer, and they seemed more relaxed to be able to express themselves in Spanish.
For my part, I am grateful to be given the chance to speak in Spanish, and to be let in, even a little, into the lives of these men.
The takeaway is that I can find Mexicanity here in the Twin Cities, but I must seek it out. I need to find places where Spanish is spoken, like the supermarket El Burrito Mercado, and places to connect with the Latino community here. Not exactly sure how to go about it, but I am eager to start.
I am also eager to start work on my next book, which will cover the cuisine of Northern Mexico. It will be a departure from my usual fish-and-game books, although you can be sure you’ll see both in there, as well as dishes using wild plants and mushrooms.
This book is a departure mostly because I have been approaching it as a research project: Learning Spanish, reading widely (my bibliography is about 100 books long already), traveling the region, talking with anyone and everyone about the food and culture.
The goal is to include both the iconic recipes of the region, done faithfully, as well as those idiosyncratic recipes that just excite me — and many of those will be for wild foods. A few are on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook already.
To that end, if you have some connection to northern Mexico, I’d love to hear about it, and about the foods from there you love. Tell me where I ought to go, and what I absolutely just gotta have in this book!
Based on all your travels in and recipes from Mexico, I have been wondering when you would begin writing a cookbook focused on that region. All the best with this next project. I look forward to the result.
Have you tried the Mexatlan Supermercado on Concord Exchange S, across from my friends at Vandalia glassworks? They have a lunch counter too and the carnitas are rumored to be pretty good.