7 Days in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Introduction:

Above: My Chili ...and The Flaming Heart of St. Francis Xavier, by José de Alzibar (ca.1730 - 1806).

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I'm no saint.

I love too many guilty pleasures. I'm not not good with temptation.

My favorite pleasures include fine food and slow dining.

Here in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, my strong-willed Amish relatives deny themselves many pleasures others take for granted.

My Amish cousins allow no drinking, no dancing, no television, no movies, no theater, no internet.

For the Amish, pleasure is suspect. The pain of self-denial is saintly. Like Mexican pilgrims flagellating their backs into raised, red welts.

Except for the pleasures of the table. In Lancaster County dining rooms, all culinary pleasures are good pleasures. In Amish kitchens, the cooks are the boss, and the bishops are the scullery maids.

So Amish meals can be orgies of excellent excess. Overflowing smorgasbords of home-grown bounty. 7 sweets and 7 sours. Over-eating is not a sin. It is a blessing.

The only Amish penance for their culinary hedonism is to say grace twice at each meal, before and after. Like one grace to give thanks, and one grace to ask forgiveness for not resisting dessert.

So....this blog will document my search for intense foods and indigenous spirituality during a 7-day visit to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

I'm looking for chilis in chocolate. And for ecstatic Baroque saints.

I hope to eat lots of tumbagones, and to see lots of stigmata. Hopefully the stigmata won't be on me.

More Introduction:

My Other Websites:

I am a basically a 53-year-old, geekish bibliophile, antiquarian, and hobby photographer.

I'm not a good chef, and I'm not very religious.  But I like good food, and religious folk art. Hence...this blog ....about intense food and intense religion of San Miguel de Allende.

I buy and sell antiquarian books, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

My "Rare Book News" site is Here.

My website about the book and printing arts of Lancaster County is Here.

I am travelling in Mexico with my partner Clarke Hess ...historian, collector of Pennsylvania folk art.

His website about Pennsylvania German antiques and folk art is Here.  His book about Mennonite antiques is Here.

My ancestors were hard-core Pennsylvania Amish. But my grandfather, John A. Stoltzfus, was an Amish rebel. He wanted to drive a Ford, instead of a horse-and-buggy. So he started the "Beachy Amish" group here in Lancaster County, PA.

Cory Anderson's website about the Beachy Amish is Here. (They allow photography.)

Even More Introduction: Our Favorite Amish Mortal Sins:

Above: Six of Our Amish "7 Sweets and 7 Sours"

The best historical buzz-phrase to describe Amish cooking is "7 sweets and 7 sours" ...as in, that's what you are supposed to serve at each meal.

Actually, It's a bit of an exaggeration. These days, 4 sweets and 2 sours is more typical.  We lowered our standards.

P. S. The Amish cookbooks on this page, above, are by Mennonite cook Phyllis Pellman Good, of Intercourse, in Lancaster County, PA. (That's the Town of Intercouse, not the Act of Intercourse.) 

Phyllis and her husband Merle made a huge fortune with their cookbook publishing company.  Their "Good Books" is Here.   (The cookbooks are there next to their justice-and-peacemaking books.)