Things below the surface- Part I: Your Digestive Tract (Thursday, July 20)

“In Mexico, we eat bullets.”

-Dr. Victor R. Rodriguez Brambila, our new gastroenterologist

Not actual bullets (although that is a sharp description of certain Mexican realities) but rather a reference to the fact that a good portion of the food in this country will either clog your arteries or blow out your guts. Every day in this city is a simultaneous battle with heart disease and gastrointestinal disorder. So far it is difficult to tell if I am winning.

Mexico is a fried food and fat-fest. Sundays start with Menudo, a tasty tripe stew that Sara’s family loves. It’s delicious. The beautiful red broth is full of thick sections of different parts of the cow stomach from the chewy outer lining to the bee hive textured inner layer. Some recipes even call for the addition of boiled cow foot. Sprinkle it with oregano and a stir in a dried chili and let the healing begin. We ate pickled pigs feet at a restaurant in the hills. I like chewing, so that was better than it sounds. Oh, and there are always, always plenty of fried crisps most slathered in chili powder or hot sauce. The favorite crisp is Chicharron(fried pork skin). Everything is covered in Chicharron, sold in huge sheets by the quarter, half, or full kilogram. Do you know how much fried pig skin a kilogram is? All of it, that’s how much! The best chicharron are the ones with bits of meat still attached. That gives that extra little salty kick. Sara and her friends talk fondly of the childhood trauma of biting into a piece with pig hair still on it that the scraper missed.

Next are the things stuffed into other things. An endless variety of tacos filled with cheeses, the fatty cuts of every animal, more often than not deep fried, more often than not pork. I probably shouldn’t have had the fried tripe tacos, but it’s hard to feel bad about that one in moderation. Gorditas stuffed with chile relleno in Guanajuato were especially tasty. Sandwiches(tortas) galore, usually with fried pork parts. I recently had my first torta de milanesa, which is a few layers of chicken fried steak with melty cheese, avocado and tomato. That one is likely to be habit forming since I can’t seem to find really good fried chicken for my occasional binge.

Anyway, that’s just the stuff I will eat. There are a host of items I refuse to touch out of sheer preservation instinct. Fresh donuts are sold in the subway for 5 pesos. The smell fills the long tunnels between platforms. Every other food stall on the street seems to sell fried empanadas full of fried meat that are then fried again before served to you on a styrofoam plate. There is this strange sandwich where the bun is filled with pork, soaked in tomato sauce, and then deep fried in a suspiciously old looking bowl of oil. Those seem to be a crowd favorite as well. There’s a glass window display near the Zocolo that is filled with roasted pig snouts. I’m not sure what is going on there but it’s pretty medieval (see picture). It goes on and on…

Every Mexican I speak to about the food problems I’m facing here immediately denies that Mexicans eat this way. They always say they only eat like this on special occasions shortly before chuckling and admitting that there are special occasions for everything in Mexico. The good news is that there really are a number of staples of the Mexican diet, that are delicious and supremely healthy. The basis of every meal are fresh corn tortillas (maiz, water, and salt). I’m also getting good at making black beans (beans, water, a small wedge of onion, a clove of garlic and 4 or 5 hours in a slow cooker). Avocados are nature’s butter; just spread on everything with a sprinkle of salt. Fatty? Yes, but it’s the good kind, right? Eggs, lentils, tomatoes, fresh fruits and vegetables of every kind, all the other beans, amaranth cakes, limes, chili peppers (serranos are my new favorite). These are the things I buy for our home. There are delicious brothy soups like Pozole and consomme that are not filled with beef and pork organs. The markets even have wonderful fresh fish, which was a big surprise because we are fairly in-land. The orange juice is all fresh squeezed and tastes like liquid sunlight, as good as anything I have ever tasted. All is not lost.

There are a few options with doubtful health benefits. Corn, for example, is super healthy on its own, but it’s hard to resist the elote on the street, slathered in mayonnaise, grated cheese, and sprinkled with chili powder. I love the beautiful tamales they sell in the morning. I thought they were healthy, too, until I was informed that they are full of lard. They get you even when you don’t know you are getting got.

So we sought out a lovely gastrointestinal expert to sort us out. He has a chart of chili peppers in his office with the different heat ratings next to them. We told him that the food in Mexico was conspiring to kill us. He gravely told us to focus on fiber and to take three different pills twice a day for the next month to stabilize the mechanics. We’re trying to eat at home more often. It saves money and helps us avoid the cravings that assault us every day. Sara likes the bistec tacos and the sopa de carne, and I’ll take a few pork tacos al pastor, with some extra pineapple.