This was our very first purchase in Mexico
because without it you can't cook much around here. In fact, if suddenly there were no more
blenders in the country, I think everyone would starve to death. Whether you're making salsas or moles or
margaritas you need one of these. And,
unlike in America, you don't just discard it and buy another if it breaks. There are fix-it shops here that exist just
to keep your blender alive.
In every market there are stands that sell
nothing but blended fruit and vegetable drinks.
You can also buy them pre-made and concentrated like from this stand
which specializes in drinks made from grains.
Here you can buy barley drink or rice drink or oatmeal drink. I always wondered why there were large
packets of oatmeal in the supermarket when I'd never seen oatmeal on a
breakfast menu. Turns out you whiz it up
in the blender with some milk or water and feed it to the kids. It's considered very healthy - probably is.
By the way, I bought a bottle of the barley concentrate but no matter
how much I diluted the stuff it was still teeth-achingly sweet.
Here are some of the more unusual fruits and
vegetable that get made into drinks.
This is the fruit of the cashew tree. You can see the actual nut part on the end of
the fruit. Unfortunately, there is a
toxic oil related to the same irritant found in poison ivy that exists between
the hull and the kernel of the cashew which makes it inedible. In fact, until a safe way was found to
extract the nut (which involves soaking and roasting them to render them
harmless) people used to eat the fruit and throw away the nut. Cashew fruit has a very short shelf life so
now it's the other way round.
The fruit is still very popular here and is
in season now. Blended it becomes this
lovely pale pink color although, to my taste, it had a slightly astringent
quality which reminded me of an unripened persimmon.
Although cashew fruit didn't win me over this
did. This is chaya, a plant native to
the Yucatan and the only leafy green (other than lettuce) that you will find in
the market. The English name is tree
spinach. At first I didn't know what to
do with it. And when I checked on line I
was warned repeatedly not to eat it since it contains cyanide and must be
boiled for at least twenty minutes - or ten minutes - or two minutes -
depending on what post you read. I tried
boiling it for twenty minutes hoping for something akin to Swiss chard but it
was pretty dreary. Here people use it
two ways. First as a wrapping for
tamales but most of the time as a drink blended raw with pineapple called chaya
con
piña
.
I figured that everyone here is still walking
around after drinking it on a regular basis so I bought a bottle at the
restaurant around the corner and it was so refreshing and tasty I am now a
fan. I've also been told that it gives
you a slight buzz which Bruce thinks is probably due to the alkaloids in the
plant.
This is called pepino kat. Which translates as pepino (cucumber) kat
(something in Maya). So I don't
know what it would be called in English or Latin or even Spanish. The man who sold it to me told me to peel it
and put it in the licuadora and that it was good for the kidneys. It seems you can pretty much turn anything
into a drink. I've even had one made
from the seeds and stringy bits inside of a cantaloupe. Zap them up with water; let sit for twenty
minutes; strain and quaff.
Bruce came back from his hunt for a hammock
at the market and said he'd seen a woman selling bits she'd hacked off of an
animal's head with horns. We examined
this photo he'd taken carefully and I guessed it was some kind of plant. I went back to the market and found her and
she confirmed that, yes, it was the root of a plant called cabeza di chivo
(goat's head). You take a hunk and boil
it in a litre of water for five minutes until it turns blue and then you drink
it. Once again, it's good for the
kidneys. I asked her how much it cost
and she said if I just wanted a small piece she'd give it to me. I know this doesn't involve the blender but I
had to put it in since it was so fascinating.
I went home and googled my head off but couldn't find an answer as to
what it might be. The Spanish entries
said the plant was native to Puebla and I found a reference in English to
something called a kidney tree so maybe that's it. If anyone can figure out what it looks like
growing, let me know.
But as much fun as the blender beverages are,
here are bushels of my favorite daily Mexican drink. We can buy a sack of these local oranges for
60 pesos - that's around $4.50 U.S. - and drink lashings of fresh squeezed OJ
every morning. Viva Mexico!
