Saturday, April 01, 2017

Not Mayonnaise.

Growing up the only condiments on the table were salt, pepper and occasionally mayonnaise.
Not any mayonnaise, it had to be Best Foods also know as Hellman's east of the Rockies.
Not Kraft, Not Gulden ( yes they did make mayonnaise in the 50's Not Dukes, or even Heinz.

Why, I don't know, but I have always used Best Foods all my life until being in Mexico which now it's McCormick's with lime is my favorite.
I also use to make it myself, couple of eggs, salad oil, salt and pepper and you have the best home made mayo know to man.

But the table condiments made a drastic 180 degree change here in Mexico. It's no longer mayo anymore, although you do see it at my favorite seafood restaurant, but mostly you will see at least 4 or 5 hot pepper  sauces, a bottle of Magi and even some salsa Americana or Worcestershire sauce.

Occasionally you might find a bottle of Tabasco sauce but not usually.  I only see Tabasco sauce is in restaurants that cater to tourists, since they don't have any experience with local sauces like Tapatio or Cholula.  Recently I have started seeing Seracha sauce which is a spicy not hot Asian style sauce.  In face Sriracha is the most popular pepper sauce in the states nowadays.  ( I am told).

Never the less, you can put lots of sauces and stuff on your food here.  The other day at our favorite taco establishment I ordered a half dozen lingua (tongue) tacos while my wife order a couple of tripa and asada tacos.  For 8 pesos each 10 or 12 small tacos make a great meal for us, wash it down with either a ice cold beer or coke light and we have a great dinner.

Presented usually for addition to tacos are cucumber slices, fresh pico de gallo, marinated onions, tomatillo salsa, guacamole salsa, habanero salsa and chopped cabbage.

 And you always have to squeeze a wedge of lime over the whole shebang too.

Additionally many places will have two or three hot pepper salsas, either chile de arbol, chile ancho and chile manzana salsas.

A veritable selection of salsas with various heat, smoke and roasted flavors.

I am also told that these salsas are gaining popularity in the states as accompaniment to many meals not just tacos and burritos etc.  These salsas can make fish meat and salads pop with flavor.  Not all salsas will blow your eyes out of your eye sockets either.  One of my favorites is the chile de arbol, which has some decent heat and still have great flavor.

Oh, I forgot, for some reason Ketchup is popular down here too.

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