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).

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.)

Sunday in the Park

Looks like Sunday in the Jardin is a street-food fest. People sitting and eating.  People walking and eating.  People eating on park benches.  People eating at cafe tables. 

It's all very communal.  Like a pot-luck party in the park.

Above: Eating ice cream on the street in front of the Parroquia church. They both licked it at the same time.  Several times.  I'm jealous.  I thought I was supposed to be afraid of street food.

Above: Fruit cup.  In big, chunky bites. 

Above: I'm not sure what she's eating. Her mom is helping her. Families hang out in the park all day, buying food from the street vendors. 

Above: She soon gave him some of her chicharrón. It made him very happy.

It's actually pig skin.  Here in the states we call it "pork rind." We cut it up into little pieces to look like potato chips.

You can order some online from Utz of Hanover, in Pennsylvania ....here.

Above: More chicharrón.  She poured hot sauce on hers.

Above: Wating for corn customers.  Be Mexican: slather your corn cob with mayonnaise and chili powder, with a splash of lime juice. 

(It's an acquired taste, like eating mayonnaise on your french fries in Amsterdam.)

Above: Sitting in the park, but not eating.  She's probably watching her weight.

Above: She kissed his ear.  He leaned over for more.

Links:

Nancy Zaslavsky's images of this park and her culinary tour in San Miguel: Here

Mary and her Spanish tutor Manuel, in the park, on Mizz E's blog: Here  (I don't know who they are, but I am a sucker for sweet photos.)

Sunday Saints and Sinners

Above: San Diego and pigeons.  ...the Franciscan friar from Spain.  He lived a life of solitude and contemplation.  Here, he still does, high above the streets of San Miguel.

Above: A beatific Virgin Mary.  Beatific, with celestial joy.  Not Beat, like 1950s Beatnik writer Neal Cassady, who partied too hard in San Miguel.

Above: The worst sinner I saw today. Thief being crucified. None of the other sinners I saw today was nearly this bad.

Corn Smut and Chocolate for Dinner

After resisting street food all day we decided to eat at Andanza Restaurant.  The restaurant has a  chocolate vibe going.  Chocolatey furniture. Chocolate moles. Chocolate mousse.

Above: So I ordered the trio of moles, in 3 shades of brown.  Dark brown one, with beef, was my favorite. 

The menu described this mole trio as: Los Moles Mousseline de Mole Rojo, Flan de Mole Verde y Ave, Mole Negro con Filete de Res  (Black Mole with Filet of Beef, Green Mole with Poultry, and Red Mole Mousseline Potatoes).

Above: Chocolate brown furniture like the the chocolate mole on my beef.

Above:  Corn smut dinner rolls. (The dark brown ones.)  Corn smut is Huitlacoche, the corn disease / pathogen fungus that looks like gray cancer, but tastes like brown nuts.

I also tried corn smut in my coffee. It tasted like pathogenic fungus in my coffee.  I liked the concept as much as the flavor. If you want some, ask for the Capuchino de Cuitlacoche, Espuma de Trufa y Queso Parmesano (Cuitlacoche Capuccino with Truffle and Parmesan Foam).

Above: Clark's first Margarita in San Miguel.  (He's drinking it, not smelling it.) 

Above: Clarke's Grilled Baby Octopus. It's Pulpitos a las Brasas, Nube de Horchata, Coulis de Guayaba, Manzana Caramelizada, Reduccion de Jamaica (Grilled Baby Octopus, with Horchata Foam, Guava Coulis, and Carmalized Apple.)

Muchas Gracias to Chef Gonzalo Martinez Cardenas for all of the above.

Patriotic Nuns' Cookies and Patriotic Tequila

Above: Red, white, and green sugar cookies made by las monjas (the nuns) at the Las Monjas church. Those are the colors of Mexico's flag. So these nuns probably think of these cookies as "bandera" cookies ....."flag" cookies.

We ate them all, in one sitting, while sitting under a (laurel?) tree in front of the nuns' church. The cookies made me feel very patriotic.

Above:  The nuns at the convent were zipping arround too fast for a good picture.  So this stone Madonna will have to do for now.

Above: After visiting the convent we stopped in at Harry's for Happy Hour.  Still feeling patriotic about Mexico I ordered a "bandera" of tequila.  It's supposed to be the colors of the Mexican flag, like the nuns' cookies: red, white and green ...white tequila, red sangrita chaser, and green lime chaser.  ...although in this case the lime chaser is not very green.

The out-of-focus nuts are chili peanuts with something that looks like garbanzo beans. We ate a  bowl-full. After Happy Hour we felt ever more patriotic about Mexico.