Catemaco Pepper

Ever tried finding a decent pepper mill in Mexico?  After umpteen years of living with third rate substitutes, my good friend the Fool on the Hill, presented me what according to him was a marvel of German engineering.

For a while it worked great and  permeated my kitchen with the smell of fresh ground lemon pepper imported by the "Fool" from who knows where. The little marvel bit the dust, or should I say ground, a year or so back, and the Fool promptly replaced it with something that would satisfy an elephant in search of a dildo.

Today I made the mistake of  returning the original mill to the Fool, in case he needed spare parts.

He promptly proceeded to lecture me: 

"It is common knowledge among we pepper mill history buffs, that the Zassenhaus Pepper Mill has been around for ages and has been long considered the best. Actually, the mill was invented by a Swede living in Hamburg, who named the mill after his amigo “Hans Julius Zassenhaus”. This occurred just after the invention of Germans (also by Swedes), and in anticipation of the invention of pepper – by Swedes.

Sometime after I bought my original Zassenhaus Mill, many years ago, and prior to purchasing your mill, the Swedes relinquished their time honored right to technical production supervision (They did this after tiring of replacing millions of the little screw-type caps on the mills that the Germans kept losing.) Some German then took it upon himself to replace the metal gears with plastic (undoubtedly a German invention) gears. This accounts for your dysfunctional mill. Is strikes me as most apropos that you, a German, were the first in Mexican history to suffer a dysfunctional Zassenhaus mill.

"Du gamla, Du fria . . . Ja, jag vill leva, jag vill dö i Norden. . . . "

I'll be damned if I accept any more pepper mills from a Fool of Swedish ancestry!

Catemaco Food

There are several excellent English blogs about Mexican Food, and all dwell on recipes, flavors, looks, etc.

A current  visitor to beautiful downtown Catemaco has now added a new wrinkle by concentrating on only canned and packaged food available in Mexico. Plus he rates them on taste. Definitely food for thought.

Visit Frosti's "Food in Mexico" website

Other good sites:

The Mija Chronicles

De la Tierra

Catemaco Menu Items

reprint from 2006 with corrections

I just returned to beautiful downtown Catemaco, from hectic, historic, vibrant Veracruz City with some frozen, gorgeous, apparently juicy marbled prime beef steaks.

The rest of my time here I have eat:

TEGOGOLOS

A small fresh water snail whose slug body occasionally looks black. It is native to Laguna Catemaco. Its meat is a little chewy, but it tastes good. It is usually prepared like a Mexican shrimp cocktail, with tomato, onion, coriander, Chile, much lime, bay leaf and catchup. It is a known aphrodisiac and that is why Catemaco is so sexy.

TOPOTES.

These are small silver plated fish, sort of like a guppy. Usually they are served fried with lime and chili, and taste like weird spicy french fries if you close your eyes. They are also available in soups, or even get served in tacos.

MOJARRA

This used to be a Catemaco native fish. It has virtually been extinguished by an imported African perch which may or may not taste the same. Mexican visitors apparently do not taste the difference. This is a fairly small fish, (I rarely see one over 2 pounds) and is preferrably served whole and deep fried. It is also available stewed, in soups, a la Veracruzana, and possibly another hundred variations. Most of them are delicious.

EEL

I am not sure whether this is a real eel or a snake. They are 2 to 3 feet long and  frequently served after being hashed to shreds (Minilla de Anguila) and colored red. Usually they are served in empanadas, (stuffed tortillas) but also in many more creative versions. Try some, with chili, black beans and olive oil. They do not electrocute anyone.

NANCHES.

A sweet and sour fruit, sized like a cherry, usually conserved in alcohol and used in a myriad of desserts. It is mostly grown in Veracruz and Tabasco and is a favorite item on Day of the Dead menus.

And then there are the virtually hundreds of different pastries. Because of them my fingers are now almost too fat to reach individual keys on my keyboard.

That is most of the usual stuff. I would hate to bore you with beans with chonegui or ochote, bexo leaf tamales, chagalapoli juice or wine, or other weird stuff which I have to live on until my steaks disappear, which is probably tomorrow.

See more of the stuff that I have to live with:

Catemaco Dishes

New restaurant in Catemaco

Beautiful downtown Catemaco was recently graced with the opening of a "fancy" Spanish restaurant, actually a conversion of the old, staid Catemaco Hotel restaurant.

The food is good.

Read a review and the menu of La Rioja

What's eating me in Catemaco

That wonderful chef  Zarela has done it again! Sitting there in ugly downtown New York, she serves the best Catemaco food most of which I have never eaten in beautiful downtown Catemaco.

This is a ripoff  of her webpage of her current offering:
Catemaco and the surrounding area is one of the most beautiful places in Mexico with some of the best food in all of Veracruz and maybe Mexico. No wonder that ancient Mexicans thought that this was the paradise where all good souls went to rest and play for all eternity.

This weekend we are featuring a menu of specialties from the Catemaco-Los Tuxtlas area and following is one of my favorite recipes from the region: Picadillo de Pobre

THE FOOD OF CATEMACO, VERACRUZ

Soup - Tatabiguiyayo
Beef stew flavored with achiote, tomato, mint, parsley and oregano

Appetizers
Pellizcada
Corn masa and green plantain made into a thick ‘pinched’ tortilla, topped with lime and chile sauce and crumbled queso fresco

Chile Relleno de Picadillo de Pobre
Roasted poblano chile filled with shaved beef, potatoes, and carrots, flavored with achiote

Tamal de Champinones
Corn masa filled with cheese and button mushrooms sautéed with tomato, chile, herbs and spices, steamed in corn husk

Entrées
Pescado al Mojo de Ajo
Fish fillet sautéed with whole unpeeled garlic cloves, lime and parsley

Costillas Ahumadas
Smoked baby back ribs served with salsa macha verde

Vegetable - Tortitas de Berros
Watercress and cheese ‘cakes’ served with ranchero sauce

Catemaco Eggs

Growing up 60 years ago I was fascinated by the market stalls selling eggs sitting atop contraptions lit from underneath to see the condition of the eggs.

The memory crossed my mind after cracking my umpteenth rotten egg in beautiful downtown Catemaco, which is part of chicken country with 10 times as many chickens as people.

The last time I saw eggs for sale, which were maintained in a cooler, was years ago. Local eggs are kept for sale a room temperature which regularly reaches above 90 degrees in unventilated stores. And as for quality I regularly get eggs in sizes ranging from pigeons to small ostriches. And I have also learned to love fertilized eggs.

Egg flavors also come in surprises because of the food choices by free ranging chickens, and on occasion an egg will smell like a good fart, or almost as bad as the smell of Baluts (dead embryonic duck eggs) favored by many in South East Asia. But I have learned to appreciate my Popoluca teaching me to never crack eggs directly into a pan.

My dependable local quality egg provider was unfortunately put out of business by a snake feasting on his hens, and since then my soft boiled and eggs over easy consumption has dropped drastically, especially after considering that Mexico is a haven for salmonella induced diarreah, and wondering how much of it stems from eggs.

Photo: BioSciencia

Catemaco Food

If you want to eat great Catemaco food, I suggest you head to New York City.

Zarela Martínez was born in Mexico and has created a niche market of English cookbooks about Veracruz cooking, and she simply gushes about Catemaco.
She also owns a restaurant in New York and plans to offer Catemaco delicacies, including tegogolos, but she will need a little help finding those.

The food of Catemaco: The place where ancient mexicas thought paradise was

Catemaco Home Delivery

Doña Maria has a delivery route in Catemaco. She arrives daily via 2 communal taxis from a village 10 miles away to peddle her fresh vegetables to preffered customers in beautiful downtown Catemaco.

She carries around 20 pounds on her head, walks miles, and has been gaining weight. Note that! all you exercise freaks.

No, she says, she never gets headaches. I didn't have the heart to ask her how much money she makes. Instead our houskeeper bought an extra papaya for 10 pesos.

Catemaco Recipes

I hope you enjoy the home cooking in beautiful downtown Catemaco as much as I do.


MOGO-MOGO OF MALE BANANA
6 TEETH OF GARLIC
5 SPOONFULS OF BUTTER
2 LITERS OF WATER
4 MALE BANANAS Or PINTONES
SALT NECESSARY
SUGAR To the PLEASURE IT FORMS TO PREPARE ITSELF:

IN A POT WITH WATER And SALT, IT IS PUT TO COOK GREEN The MALE BANANA BETWEEN And PREVIOUSLY BARE And CUT PINTÓN IN WHEELS. Meanwhile, GARLIC PLASTADOS FRY THEMSELVES IN The BUTTER WITHOUT THEY GET TO BURN ITSELF.

The COOKED BANANA SLIPS Of the WATER And IT CRUSHES SMOOTHLY STRIKING IT WITH A WOOD SPOON. THE HOT BUTTER IS ADDED TO HIM IN WHICH GARLIC FRIED THEMSELVES. ONE RIPENS WITH SALT And SUGAR. ONE USES IT WARMS UP FOR The BREAKFAST Or IT HAS SUPPER And IT IS ACCOMPANIED BY HOT CHOCOLATE.
 
You get the drift, I hope

Source: Venavernos

Catemaco breakfasts

After being a while in beautiful places like downtown Catemaco, the variety of restaurant breakfast choices in provincial Mexican "burgs" drives me up the wall.

Same old stuff, huevos rancheros, mexicanos, revueltos, omelette, with or without cheese, mushrooms, ham, and occasionally chorizo or longoniza, with maybe green or red sauce. Huevos Motuleños are an abnormal treat.

Damn , I would love a McDonald´s breakfast burrito or a BurgerKing croissanwich.
And I would die for a Waffle house breakfast burger scattered, smothered and covered with hashed browns.

Just before I would kill for:
two+two+two - two eggs, two pancacakes, two bacons or sausages at the IHOP
Lox, creamcheese, tomatoes, and onions on a sesame bagel at any deli
Blueberry pancakes with fresh cream at any pancake house.

Something simple like: Buttermilk Pancakes, Home style Bacon and Sausage,
Creamy Cheddar Potatoes, Country Grits, Biscuits and Butter available at any "greasy spoon".

Steak'n eggs with fried onions, mushrooms and Texas toast served at any hicktown off ramp
Eggs Benedict as served in the Shark and Tarpon Club in North Miami.
And refills! Wonderful free coffee refills!

But, how about some nice homemade tortillas, flecked with chipotle and wrapped around pig innards, or some nicely sauteed shrimp with chorizo in a quesadilla.

At least that would wake up my customary local restaurant breakfast menus which have almost no relation to what people actually seem to eat in their homes.

brrrrrrrrrr

Ok - you are what you eat, or so they say. I guess now I am a tortilla.

Corny Catemaco

I am not a corn fan. While traveling through Navajo territory, or junky southern towns I will occasionally slaver over fresh cornbread smothered with butter. Even the occasional Denny's will slap me a bite. The rest of the time I ignore corn.

Corn, of course is the staple food of Mexico. Corn is also the staple food of most farm fed animals in the world. So how can Mexico compete with BUSH endowed and subsidized US competitors?
Simply, Mexico cannot compete. Although Mexico is known to have over 400 varieties of corn, most of the varieties grown make hand made tortillas and feed burros in mostly non economical dimensions.

They say the white corn is for animals or Mexicans and the yellow corn is for corn-on the cob freaks in southern food restaurants or US supermarket aisles.

So I did a little taste test.
First I defroze my genuine Mexican Walmart special yellow corn, then I shucked my freshly shucked locally purchased white corn and chopped off the ends to make it appear similar.
Then I microwaved both of them for 3 1/2 minutes.
And slothered them with butter and salt.

Then I blindfolded 4 non- Mexican volunteers for a taste test.

All said I used too much salt!

Aside from that none noticed a difference between yellow and white.

SO much for Mexicans and animals.

BTW - The customary way of serving the equivalent of Mexican corn-on-the cob, is with sloshes of mayonnaise and red pepper. YUMMY but guaranteed to zip your cholesterol to heaven.

Licking Catemaco

Photo: Haras de la Gadelière

During the HOT days in beautiful downtown Catemaco, which are now fortunately becoming less frequent, my household salivates over a chance to lick on a "percherona" ( giant icemilk concoction on a stick).

I never questioned the name until recently when I searched for the name, and mostly found horses.

Apparently Catemaco and Los Tuxtlas are famous for this delight of mostly frozen fruit flavored ices, wrapped around a stick, about 1 1/2 inches square, 3 inches long, and wrapped in a plastic sleave. Probably other towns have the same thing but don't use the name.

Percheron horses are some of the largest and heaviest in the world. During the Middle Ages in Europe they were the equivalent of modern tanks. The horse name is French, and that country has an almost worse history of messing with Mexico than the US. So I sort of wonder why those things are not called "Buffalos" or something.

¡Ni modo! If you want to slurp off one, bring a bath towel! The napkin that comes with those delicious monsters is only good for the first 3 licks.

Catemaco History

On the eve, or one of those mañana things, of Mexican Independence (Sept 15/16), read the history of:
La Batalla de El Alamo in garbled Google Spanish, and then
The Battle of the Alamo in Wikipedian English.

And then! Grab a six pack of Corona and holler a toast to the Texicans.

Oops, the Mexicans only seceded Texas, etc. They kept the rest of Mexico.
That is why there are almost no Six Packs of Beer in my part of Mexico.
Common Mexican beer drinkers prefer their beer lukewarm in quart size bottles.
A real culture shock!

Catemaco Bagels

We just returned from a quick bagel trip to Veracruz city, known as Veracruz Puerto to all you Mexicophiles.
A quick bagel trip is more complicated than it seems.
It requires scanning endless aisles of a supermarket for things we were not able to buy in the local Catemaco, Veracruz and Tuxtlas “hood”.
And among the canned foods we found such treasures as wasabi paste, more or less instant blue berry pudding, white spaghetti sauces and chunky canned tuna, among other jewels.
The bakery had just finished baking assorted small but not sweet breads, still on the cooling rack visible behind the counter.
After fighting with the counter agents, my apparent drool alerted a manager to permit me to enter into the hallowed halls of Walmart bakedom and remove a dozen hot breads to slide into my cooler for my 3 hour trip back to Catemaco to reside in my freezer to evoke future drools.
Those 3 hours were pure misery. To satisfy our curiosity we had stopped at the relatively new COSTCO store, for which we had no 35 dollar membership. And I saw things I had forgotten existed, like Ben & Jerry’s, pastrami, baby ribs, cheddar cheese and fresh milk.
We were not prepared to travel frozen and my Popoluca refused to let me buy another 40 gallon ice chest, the one we owned had been forgotten, so I had to settle for one of those 70 peso plastic bubbly ones and stuffed it with mostly Bagels.
Why Bagels? you may be asking.
Preferentially I would love a good black bread, or one of those steinofen gebackene brots.I grew up in northern Europe and eating white bread was next to being excommunicated.The Bagel habit I picked up by osmosis via an ex, Jewish wife, about whom my most fond memories are my kids and lox (smoked salmon +/-).
So now I am getting ready to munch on a genuine Mexican bagel and schmear it with genuine Mexican cream cheese flavored with Chipotle, accompanied by one of those funny shaped Mexican tomatoes and the usual round onions and smothered with something called smoked salmon “Irish style”.
And for this, I left beautiful uptown Miami, Florida?

Drunk in Catemaco

Below the belt of most Mexican rural towns, including beautiful Catemaco, Veracruz, dangles a pair of culture threatening problems, drunkenness and spouse abuse. The two are closely related to each other and form a basis for the extraordinarily high incidence of murders, mutilations and roadkills in the country.

At present federal Mexico does not tax alcohol, aside from the 15% tax added to most consumer products. The concept of sin taxes is not absent in Mexico. The booze manufacturers have just been able to excert their political prowess more than the tobacco companies which are heavily taxed.

Especially at night, the prevalence of public drunks is pernicious in most of downtown Catemaco, as well as many other communities, especially on the weekends and on the highways, despite the efforts of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) which is hyperactive here as well as in the rest of Mexico, providing 9 local refuges in this town of 20,000, and more than 22 in neighboring San Andrés Tuxtla.
Not helping is the cheap availability of rot gut "aguardiente" (firewater, distilled from sugarcane) at the equivalent of a short quart (26oz) of 72 proof liquor for 12 pesos. Even cheaper is the purchase of distilled alcohol from many grocery stores in any amount as long as you bring your own container. If you see a "wino" waving along the street clutching a plastic bag, containing what seems to be water, that will not be his goldfish, but a "churrito" or "boli" of brandless alcohol.
Firewater is the preferred choice of hard core drunks. The most problematic choice, though, is beer.
Mexico has a well deserved reputation for excellent beer quality and was able to fool the US public by exporting a third rate beer to the US market, where it rapidly cornered the "most imported " beer status and drove up the price of limes, Corona.

Corona and a few other breweries in the tightly controlled Mexican economy offer their most popular serving in "caguama" size bottles, (940ml, roughly a quart) for 14 pesos which compares to a similar bottle of Miller's "low life" for US 1.65 which is after the alleged 44% taxes which US alcohol consumes. Obviously Mexican drinkers are being ripped off by their compatriots controlling distribution channels.

The beer companies, aside from almost monopolistic Coca Cola, and Nestle are possibly the best marketers in Mexico and make it possible for any Jose or Juana to open a cantina on shoe strings, receiving free chairs, tables, refrigerators, decor and paint as long as they stick to selling one brewery's products.

The partial benefactors are the county governments (municipios) which charge a relatively high rate for liquor licenses, but not anywhere the huge sums that these licenses cost in the US.
The mayhem, roadkill and spouse abuse are additional benefits which are not included in the license fees and usually get picked up by state and federal funds.

The Mexican government, which is statistics happy, has made substantial studies of the drinking problem in urban areas, but seems to be avoiding the rural areas, where the problem is much more prevalent.

One final comment, which is not an endorsement, is to say that I have remarkably found those public drunks in Catemaco to be generally courteous and non-intrusive compared to many others I have encountered in my travels in other countries.
Cheers.

Catemaco Milk

Assorted travel writers have touted the Sierra de los Tuxtlas, Veracruz as the Switzerland of Mexico. And in common with Switzerland, Los Tuxtlas also has abundant herds of milk cows.

But in beautiful downtown Catemaco, milk comes in a bricklike cardboard carton, guaranteed to withstand 140 degree temperatures, last for 6 months, and possibly survive being dropped by a helicopter. Fresh Milk is udderly absent despite thousands of happy cows grazing on what is left of the surrounding landscape.

There is fresh pasteurized milk available in Veracruz City and other towns are known to even have fresh milk delivery, but those bricks are generally a staple in Mexico and most of the world. I used to think that was related to international lack of refrigeration, but, no, the Europeans also like their bricks of ultra high pasteurized milk.

Ultra high pasteurization kills most vitamins, so naturally, those are added back into the bricks. Assorted enzymes are also missing, but what is really beneficial is the absence of all those cow diseases transmittable to humans.

I have abandoned my habit of an occasional glass of milk and usually only splurge after a trip to Walmart where fresh milk is stocked. The reason is probably purely psychological, because I am now perfectly happy to drink my orange juice poured from a brick.

Maybe a retired US dairy farmer or juice bottler could show the locals a few tricks to supplement their survival on government handouts.

Catemaco Coffee

Veracruz produces about 20% of Mexico’s coffee. Most Mexican coffee producers died of starvation a few years ago when coffee prices plunged substantially below production costs.

The uptown Catemaco, Veracruz area grows a lot of coffee, which is now in cyclical price renaissance again. Other areas of Veracruz are almost famous for their coffee, especially around the Coatepec area.

Right now, I have a coffee bush hidden among my other plants and my Popoluca is plucking the seeds. It looks like I might get two whole cups of coffee from my bush after I investigate how to roast just a little bit of coffee.

There actually is an uptown Catemaco coffee brand, but there is no way that I know that you can taste it without visiting Zapoapan de Cabanas in the hills of Catemaco, which is where my bush came from.

Hairy food in Catemaco

The last few years, beautiful downtown Catemaco has been graced with an annual "Conservation Week" event which mainly helps to display the conservation efforts of its community leaders, including dozens of government organizations who earn a salary for involving themselves in Los Tuxtlas.

To me the most magnificent specific event was the gastronomic "tour de force" of the cooking abilities of the uptown beautiful Catemaco communities. Especially the ability by the sponsoring Government organizations to talk these uphill impoverished communities into providing giant shrimp with all the trimmings at 5 pesos per plate.

I am no fool!


I ate most anything I could get my mouth around. And that includes some stuff I never thought would cross my lips.

And, WOW !!, most of the food was delicious, except for that tamale stuffed with little slippery fish.

Catemaco Duck Burgers

Are you tired of the same old menus while floating around Mexico? Deep fried fish in who knows what sauces or oils, imported shrimp from environmentally destroyed Gulf coasts, meat from the deforested Tuxtlas?

Here is your alternative: DUCK BURGERS.

The Casa de Caballos restaurant in beautiful downtown Catemaco offers genuine home fed good looking ducks slaughtered for your pleasure and served on hamburger buns with all the proper condiments. These are fairly delicious morsels. And with enough condiments one can hardly taste the difference between duck or any other meat product, such as imitation turkey flavored hot dogs.

It is duck migration season in beautiful downtown Catemoo. Formerly millions swarmed here, but because of surrounding habitat destruction and hunger of neighboring communities, the number of ducks cluttering around Laguna Catemacos are diminishing yearly.
As with any wildlife, bigger or faster than a rat, most anything edible has been consumed to extinction in Los Tuxtlas.

Those duck burgers served in Catemaco come from local ducks bred for human consumption. They are guaranteed not to have USA multiple entry visas.

Catemaco Restaurant News

Hardly a day goes by in beautiful downtown Catemaco without a change in the local restaurant industry.

At present the move from plastic to wood is in full swing. Apparently the makers of Corona Beer plastic chairs discovered it was just as cheap to have underpaid Mexican labor make wooden chairs and tables than shipping plastic chairs from China.

Aesthetically these wooden chairs are more attractive than the plastic ones. Comfort-wise they are questionable especially after reading the article on big American butts. Mexico - Land of Little Butts.

Don Alfredo, the giant of the Catemaco hamburger business has finally opened a new locale, “Casa de los Caballos”, behind the cathedral, corner of Hidalgo. He has maintained his “bohemian atmosphere”, offers a pleasant place to snack and chat or play a mean game of chess, and is in serious competion with the church goers on weekends at 5 in the morning.

Another former hole in the wall, within the strip mall buttressing the cathedral, has changed hands. It now occupies triple the space, pays 8,000 pesos in rent, and offers Sunday buffets. So far I have not made it beyond breakfast, barely, at “La Nueva Percherona”.

The former Tanaxpi restaurant, lately known as a furniture store, has changed hands again. I hope no tonto puts in a farmacia or diaper store. It’s amazing what incompetent rich people decide to start as a business here.

Don Marcos is back attending his business at “Restaurante Melmar” below the fountain of the Catemaco plaza, after extensive surgery. His tacos de cochinita pibil are as good as ever.

The wonderful cooking lady of (”El Caracol”) who moved her mini seafood restaurant near the highway at the Catemaco hospital to a mega location behind the Hotel Playa Cristal, has lost me as a customer. Not because of her food, which is still good, but probably because it was more fun to eat with the exhaust fumes at the edge of the road than in a formal setting.

Nanciyaga almost lost me as a breakfast customer after their pastry chef experimented with a new type of cinnamon roll without cinnamon. After international complaints, he hopefully came to his senses.

“La Changada” on the malecon recently remodeled to accommodate all those people that never go there. They held an independence day party and hired one of those noisy mini-car announcers and some musicians, and filled up. Good for them! Unfortunately the place continues like a ghost town, despite being a pretty place to sit and watch the laguna across the street.
Without mention, another dozen eateries either opened in Catemaco or changed ownership. Most of them should change cities.

The owner of the chicken joint across from the Catemaco hospital, (”El Xalapeño”) is so busy and I guess so rich, possibly because he opened another joint in San Andres)), he closes whenever he feel like it, which is usually when I want his chicken. I desperately need a replacement.

And why do I have to travel to San Andres Tuxtla to eat churros?

Reference: - http://www.catemaco.info/restaurant/index.html