There are foods that I eat that are not what most people would call normal. These are foods not from this land, foods that might make your average Caucasian wither with disgust or distaste. Their labels are printed in Spanish and their contents are sometimes questionable, sometimes just plain wrong-looking, and almost always extremely delicious and somehow progressive. I’m talking about none other than MEXICAN SNACK FOODS.
“Do you have to make that disgusting noise?” My wife asks me, annoyed.
I’m sucking jellied fruit juice out of a little blister-packed plastic cup, this one labeled “MANGO!” and containing little bits and pieces of chopped mango just hanging there in the jelly, suspended like polygonal fish in a tiny bowl. You peel off the top of the cup and suck out the jelly, which fills your mouth with a slippery, sweet glob of fruit-jelly that feels sort of like a raw oyster sitting on your tongue.
“What?! I’m just eating.” I say defensively, my mouth full of goop.
“I’m trying to read this article on a woman who’s got two vaginas, and you’re sitting there making just the most graphic slurping noises.” She tells me. “It’s making my stomach turn.”
“That doesn’t sound like a problem on MY end…” I cheekily retort, retreating to the kitchen to finish my messy, late-night snack. I’ve still got a strawberry and a pineapple-flavored specimen left and I intend to enjoy them to the fullest.
At the end of the movie Hannibal, Dr. Lecter says to a small child, “As your mother tells you, and my mother certainly told me, it is important, she always used to say, always to try new things.” I have taken this advice to heart since as long as I can remember. My parents accommodated me when I was a child by bringing raw fish and smelly cheeses into the house, and my mother encouraged me to try the raw sea urchin or the flying fish roe or the smoked duck breast. I take great joy in consuming the exotic, the frightening, the tasty and revolting delicacies of the world.
So, I seek out the strange. And some of my personal favorites come from my brothers down South. Small candies with cryptic messages (“Doesn’t that word mean ‘bladder’?”) written on the wrappers? I snatch up a handful on a whim. Multi-layered jellied milk desserts in clear, plastic cups sit in the refrigerator of my local gas station, with several layers that I can’t quite identify. I buy two. Mango spears coated with chili powder? Bring it on. If it’s got a label in Spanish, I’ll probably eat it.
Of course, I also eat interesting things that are not Mexican in origin quite often. Raw ground beef, called “kit-fo”, at the local Eritrean food restaurant is quite interesting. As well as stomach tissue in curry sauce at my local Indian food place. So why single out Mexican snack foods? The answer is convenience and the fact that I’m a thrifty shopper: I am more likely to bring home conveniently wrapped Mexican oddities found at gas stations and mini-marts because I can buy a whole bunch of them and make my wife and friends try them. The Mexican people not only have progressive taste buds, they are also thrifty and want to be able to eat on-the-go. This appeals to my financial sense and devil-may-care ingestion policy.
Perhaps it’s my inner Mexican I’m channeling. Perhaps my love of these odd, packaged foods is the same thing that makes me think that stopping to buy a taco at a taqueria that’s inside of a gas station is perfectly alright. I see nothing wrong with the combination of carnitas tacos and fuel fumes. My wife, however, proclaims this practice an abomination. When asked “Why?”, though, she can’t give me an adequate explanation. And as a bit of a Mexican myself, I feel obligated to stick up for my people.
“BECAUSE! They are COOKING FOOD in a damn GAS STATION! They are GRILLING MEAT behind the counter, next to the cigarette display, across the room from bathrooms that are so filthy that they have been condemned by both church and state!” She says.
“Yeah, well, what about those sandwich shops in gas stations, eh? You’re telling me it’s any better to be slapping together cold cuts in a rest stop? At least these guys are applying germ-killing heat to the meats.” I reply, defensively.
She looks at me like I’m asking her to eat a lightly grilled weasel, on a bun, with mustard. “It’s a TAQUERIA in a filthy GAS STATION!”
I had assumed that my local gas station taqueria was an anomaly, the scheme of some eccentric but inventive gas station owner, but while traveling up the Pacific coast for a gig near the Oregon border, I realized to my delight that I was wrong. On the 7 hour trip I stopped at no less than 4 gas station taquerias, having a light snack of two one-dollar tacos or a quesadilla at each one. They were delicious. My wife would have been mortified, had she come along, but instead it was just my drummer, an adventurous eater in his own right, and I. It was a good time, but I paid for it when I returned home with terrible stomach cramping.
“What did you eat out there on the road?” My wife asked me, through the bathroom door.
“I don’t remember… I had a Mountain Dew… and maybe a taco or two.” I confessed.
“My poor baby.” She purrs, putting aside the fact that she had pointed out my food-based folly many, many times before. “Do you want some Pepto-Bismol?” I should point out at this time that, for me, had the situation been reversed, it would have been very difficult to refrain from saying I-told-you-so. Proof here that I’ve got the best wife ever. Just saying. Okay, bragging.
My wife and I will find ourselves, on any given evening, driving around town and discussing where to eat, arguing the pros and cons of questionably placed taco places, and I’ll eventually defer to her tastebuds. I try to be accomodating to her tastes not only because she comforts me in my time of great intestinal pain, but also because I realize that I have such an open mind about cuisine that I have ceased to have any semblance of standards when it comes to food.
I’m pretty sure that, without my wife to hold me back a bit, I’d soon find myself saying things like, “Oh, that’s how they eat that in your country? Covered in rodent hairs? Oh, well then, down the hatch. Mmmmm. The hair really gives it a unique texture… I’ll have another, please.” I am, I don’t doubt, a skanky restaurant owner’s dream-come-true.
We’ll settle on a convenient fast-food chain restaurant, where the dining area is immaculate and the food over-cooked but safe to consume. The prep area is just behind the counter, in plain view, so we can see our food being assembled; A squirt of this, a slice of that. No pickles on this, extra mayo on that. Everything can be identified, and nothing is jellied, nothing is strange, nothing is cryptically labeled. I’ll order a chicken sandwich, and she’ll have fries and a shake, and I’ll bide my time until I can get back to my mini-marts and gas stations full of chewable, slimy, spicy, sweet, wiggly, unidentifiable Mexican treats. Foods that will punish me later, but, at the time of their eating, will hit the spot just right.
