The Poor Gringo Guide to Mexican Cooking

Acknowledgments

Pickerel wishes to thank his ex-wife, Miriam, for making a precipitous exit from their unholy matrimony. If not for her timely departure, Pickerel would have chosen conjugal homicide over culinary mayhem. To local farmers, Pickerel expresses his sincerest gratitude. Their unguarded fields provided fresh fruits and vegetables that otherwise would have been purchased. Pickerel remains indebted to his neighbors—especially those who unsuspectingly allowed their poultry and pets to wander out of sight and into Pickerel's front yard. He cannot imagine what these recipes would taste like without their generous contribution. Special thanks also go to Mexican health inspectors, underpaid wildlife officials, and corrupt law enforcement personnel (all of whom shall remain nameless) for allowing the author to despoil public domains, trespass on private property, and swindle innocent natives in the pursuit of no cost ingredients. For creating appropriately outrageous illustrations to go with this text, the author embraces (from a distance) the taciturn and talented Susan Say-less. To Shea Spindler: your gimlet eye leaves Pickerel in editorial awe. Sarah Garibaldi, LDG, thank you for the graphic tweaking. Not to be taken for granted are the tildes and accents added to these pages by H. Vargas: the only person on the planet who understands Spanish as written by Pickerel. And to everyone at Endle Literary Agency, Sentry Books, and Great West Publishing, thank you for daring to allow this deviant sally into Mexican cuisine to go to print. You will not be forgiven.

Foreword

Pickerel has prepared, eaten, and—most importantly—digested every dish in these pages. Many fires have charred his grill. His pots are black, his bean masher worn. The Poor Gringo Guide to Mexican Cooking is, between recipes, the story of Pickerel himself—a poor gringo masquerading as a sane one.

Pickerel lives in Mexico for many reasons. The sea is near. The nights are warm. The women are friendly. So are the husbands. He is poor here for others, which have nothing to do with his cooking.

Pickerel is no gourmet, not even by the loosest translation of a drunken Francophile. He is a slam-it-down, toss-it-on-the-fire, meatan'-tater, elbows-on-the-table, fork-clicking, chew-with-his-mouth-open kind of fellow. His former mother-in-law rarely had him over for dinner. He is a graduate of the Walt Whitman School of Cooking, where liberal substitutions are encouraged and Song of Myself is finding a pubic hair in your taco.

Pickerel does not promise that you will get fat on his poor gringo fare. In fact, you may get thin. The only promise Pickerel does make—if his cooking guide is followed—is regular and satisfactory bowel movements. This he guarantees, upon proof, or your money back.

Oh, yes.

Pickerel pretends to know nothing of culinary terms. He also mixes metric and English measures (both liquid and dry) at his convenience. His Spanish translation of food items and cooking directions is colloquial, if not ungrammatical. And he borrows, bargains, or steals most of his ingredients.

Purists read no further.

Your Chef Today

Your chef for this impertinent culinary onslaught is Miles S. Pickerel, at your service. Middle name is service. However, S is for Standish—a momentary resurfacing of the puritanical consciousness on his mother's side.

Autobiographically speaking, Miles Standish Pickerel (It is he speaking here, preserving the neutral voice of the disembodied; Pickerel is allergic to first-person singular and plural. It makes him itch.) appeared on the planet one rainy morning in June 1950 at 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts. His arrival was inconspicuous enough—one more boomer in Beantown. That afternoon, across Muddy River, the Red Sox played a twilight double-header against the Yankees, losing both games. Pickerel's mother fondly recalls that her son cried all night. To this day, he continues to wail in one implacable voice or another, even in the telling of his favorite recipes.

Pickerel's first distinct recollection is that of trying to throw pabulum at a Goodyear blimp as it passed low over his daybed, obstructing his view of the universe. He was two at the time. Next came the unpleasant memory of his maternal grandmother—a stern, fearsome woman with cold Britannic blood—forcing him to eat a boiled egg from an eggcup. Forty years later, Pickerel still runs from hardboiled eggs.

His first social encounter with fellow small-fry Freudians like himself was on the sidewalk of Ditson Street, downtown Dorchester, where he pushed Grady Goss, age three, off the curb for not giving Pickerel half the sidewalk. Grady ran home to his mother, scraped up and bawling, while Pickerel marched victoriously foreward. He remains a sidewalk pusher to this day.

Then his formal education began. For young Pickerel, this was an overwhelming event overshadowed by abundant paper, Crayolas, wet paint, Play-Doh, and glue. There was a big person mixed up in it somewhere, calling herself a teacher, but Pickerel acknowledged her existence only when she began to shriek. The whole experience was so thoroughly enjoyable that life since has never stopped being kindergarten. Pickerel misses the chaos to this day.

Regarding Pickerel's adolescent years, he will say only this: he was a typical teenage boy—he liked to eat, drive fast, watch porn, and play with his peter. As for the debauched collegiate days that followed and his subsequent (albeit perverse) embarkation into the adult world, Pickerel will say nothing. Nothing best describes that chapter of his life.

How Pickerel Turned Culinary

When Pickerel's wife, Miriam, departed their two-room, dirt-floor hacienda one August morning in 1997, taking the children but leaving the dog, Pickerel faced the cruel culinary realities of the world for the first time in his life. He had spent the last thirty years intentionally bent on not stirring a pot or washing a dirty tablespoon. In a pinch, he would butter toast, boil a tea bag, or turn a saltshaker, but nothing more.

He had lived with his mother until the very last episode of Gunsmoke aired in September 1985. Constitutionally speaking, he was old enough to become president of the United States, and, though Pickerel was never elected or nominated, his mother catered to his smallest palatal whim as if he had been. Seafood Newberg served over oven-warmed toast for breakfast. Swedish meatballs skewered on toothpicks during televised Celtics games. Pickerel's mother baked beans and brown bread every Saturday at six sharp (when Pickerel was tuning into Hee Haw). On Sundays, she prepared a thick-crusted shepherd's pie (supplicated by her one and only begotten son, sometimes preacher, sometimes parishioner of her heart). She made Pickerel corn bread on rainy November mornings, and she boiled corned beef and cabbage every Tuesday in March. When Pickerel turned pale, she fried him a pan of liver and onions, and on his birthday, she prepared his favorite dish: salmon soufflé. She cooked an old-world beef Stroganoff that warmed Pickerel's bilges even when he gobbled it cold, which he did sometimes, straight from the Westinghouse at two in the morning after surviving on gin and pistachios for twelve hours without intermission. What Stroganoff! What a madre!

Then Pickerel met Miriam, and the planet heaved slightly from the collision. Young Miriam. Innocent Miriam. Sweet but sugar-free Miriam. She was studying interior design at a local junior college. Pickerel was an ergophobic associate professor of biological sciences at the same institution. They came from opposite ends of the great Via Lactea—he, a devious black hole, she, an ingenuous twinkle, twinkle. But Pickerel didn't care if the universe was expanding. He was not looking for fast-snapping neurons, an engaging personality, or even new upholstery. He was looking for high growth in mutual funds. He was looking for stock options, T-bills, and a junior partnership in the family lumber business in Brazil. Pickerel could bring himself to rape the tropical landscape. Yes, he could! Apart from abundant wealth, Pickerel was also looking for one thing more in his future: an abundant woman—not one with hidden beauty or factory options, but one with well-converted carbohydrates in all the right quarters.

How Miriam managed to usurp Pickerel's good sense, deluding him into seeing abundance where abundance was not, is a long and mournful tale that Pickerel still drowns himself bibaciously to forget. It has no place here, where thorough digestion is sought and a loose bowel is a culinary crime.

Instead, let Pickerel say this: Miriam turned out a very decent meatloaf. Yes. Also a mean dish of scalloped potatoes. And her macaroni and cheese (old Norwegian recipe from her mother) never once made it as far as the dog's dish in the backyard.

Stateside, Miriam cut a persuasive figure pushing her shopping cart down the supermarket aisles, sagaciously eyeing bar codes. Years of convenience shopping had tuned her prehensile grip for the instant, the frozen, the freeze-dried, and the prettily packaged. In the kitchen, she was a dervish between the microwave and the toaster oven. She knew all the settings—the wattage for thawing frozen broccoli, the seconds needed to silence Orville Redenbacher. Her electric can opener was never lonesome, her Crock-Pot never cool. She was well on the way to turning instant herself—Miriam in a minute. Just add water and nuke.

Then she followed the Great Solitaire (aka Miles Pickerel) to Mexico—25° 45° N, 108° 57° W, to be exact—and Quaker Oatmeal never tasted the same. A two-burner gas stove with a deceased pilot light turned out to be a shocking welcome. So was the sink. More precisely, the lack of sink. Where does the water go? was the question Miriam posed upon peering into the depths of a plastic dishpan perched on a rickety wooden stand. Obviously, Miriam had never had the pleasure of tossing dirty dishwater out the back door. And the hot water? she asked meekly, observing the solitary cold-water tap with its musical drip. Pickerel pointed at the high noon sun and smiled. After all, such was the price of living in the romantic dream fields of a dangerous Latino land.

At the beginning, Miriam bravely trooped it out. She beat their beans without a blender. She hand strangled Pickerel's morning juice. Daily, she made the dusty pilgrimage to the local market where she haggled in bad Spanish over fresh carp and the price of ripe mangos. Briskly, she returned over the cobbles, her woven bag full of corn to husk, peas to shell, and fish to gut.

Pickerel did his part too. He found a cottonwood stump upon which Miriam could strike cutlery. He purchased a clattering electric fan to blow hot wind upon the flies. And he grew demanding with the landlord. Said Pickerel in his most exigent voice, "Señor, the holes in the kitchen roof must be plugged. Pero ya!" When Miriam was not laboring under summer showers, she was speckled with tropical sunlight. Poor Miriam. She tried. She really did.

Then came the Pickerel progeny, unexpected and plural—Rose and Roselyn—the twins, a double whammy of vanilla frizzes and Colgate smiles—and heirs to the Pickerel misfortune. Their arrival sent Miriam's adventurous spirit into a nosedive while launching her nest-building instincts into the stratosphere. Pretending to be poor had been fun. As for the real thing, Miriam saw no future in it. To hell with doing without, were her exact words. Suddenly, indoor plumbing became essential, hot water a necessity, and the lack of window screens a serious health hazard. Soon Pickerel found himself on Miriam's list of things to fix. No longer was she willing to accept his God-given right to prevaricate. Nor was she disposed to tolerate his walking phallus or his intemperate squandering of the family peso. Pickerel's tiny business of biological supply was still in the early stages of liftoff. His monthly check from the VA did not always make a timely landing in the hands of Miriam. Usually it landed not at all, due to urgent debt in other sectors. Remnant cash was often rerouted to El Toro Manchado (The Spotted Bull), Pickerel's favorite retail outlet for distilled beverages.

Miriam's brisk step to the market turned to a trudge. Dusty streets took their toll. The untimely concurrence of a trash collectors' strike and an outbreak of dengue fever fouled her mood. Frequent visits by the landlord trying to ambush Pickerel for back rent became a constant Miriam mortification. And simply living with Pickerel was enough to make her believe she had died and gone to hell in a chiquihuite.*

In due course, Miriam's shadow grew willowy while the substance of the woman grew frazzled and wild—a dandelion gone to seed.

One morning, with eggs frying on the stove for breakfast, the bottled butane ran out. No gas, no eggs. When Miriam called for help, Pickerel jumped to his feet, quickly suggesting that she fire up the charcoal grill. Miriam refused. Instead, she laughed a strange laugh, one from the abyss. Then she shrieked, Miles, get me some gas this instant! Pickerel farted, rather loudly, and then he smiled. He may have grinned.

That was it. Miriam retreated, hands over ears, paint peelings on the ceiling stirring in her wake. Within the hour she was gone, twins in tow, and Pickerel suddenly found himself alone with one dog, no breakfast, and cold eggs congealing on a gasless stove.

What to do? he asked himself as he stared at the lace of eggs clinging to the edge of the frying pan. He looked to Ladrón for an answer—the dog that two months later would mysteriously disappear on the same day Chacha Machado (Pickerel's first housekeeper) served a very decent pozole** for a dinner party of six—and then the answer came to him.

Pickerel would cook. Yes. He would fire that charcoal grill, refry those eggs, and he would eat them inside a warm tortilla—Miriam be damned. Then Pickerel did it, a new king in his kitchen, and even Ladrón got a lick.

The next day he dared to boil his first pot of beans. A week later, he was eating refried topped with grated ranch cheese. Within the month, squash blossom quesadillas filled Pickerel's plate, frijoles on the side.

Every dish in this poor gringo's guide came after that—recipes borrowed from neighbors, offered by friends, stolen from taco stands, or taught to Pickerel by female culinary consorts passing through his kitchen in the tsunamic wake of Miriam.

To this day, Pickerel continues his gastronomic march to madness. And he still gets gas.

___________________________

* Tortilla basket made from woven grass.

** A stew made with meat and hominy in a red chili sauce.

Pickerel's Kitchen

Welcome to Tabachines 212 Ote., Pickerel's address in an unnamed city. Observe the front yard—an oblong plat of weeds enclosed by a rusted wrought-iron fence topped with rust-cankered pikes (tetanus is Pickerel's first defense against creditor climbers). And behold Pickerel's blue-painted front door, dented with kick marks—these left from the days when Miriam believed door locks could keep Pickerel from entering his castle in a drunken rage at early antemeridian hours.

Pásale, pásale. Yes, come in. Mi casa es tu casa.

No tour today, however. Instead, let us head straight to Pickerel's kitchen (cocina) at the rear of his humble abode. Pickerel calls it his scullery turned culinary, his galley-in-the-alley—a three-sided lean-to that opens onto a low-walled patio where rare red bougainvillea once grew until Pickerel repeatedly peed upon them for obstructing his view of the neighborhood. Now when Pickerel cooks, he is able to gaze unhindered upon nearby wash lines and genuflecting washerwomen.

But enough of Pickerel's voyeuristic pastimes. To the kitchen and what you will need there to prepare your poor gringo cuisine.

Essentials and Utensils

Pickerel's poor gringo kitchen would not be complete without the following instruments of culinary mayhem.

Bean masher—Moledor de frijol. A plastic or wooden instrument of bean demise.

Bean spoon—Cuchara para guisar. For cooking beans. Must be long-handled; wooden or plastic. Never use a metal spoon. Beans will behave badly.

Blender—Licuadora. The presence of an electric appliance in Pickerel's kitchen is a tacit acknowledgment that science is grand and the manual eggbeater is dead. He considers his four-speed, turbo Facimix of Brazilian fabrication to be the most important advancement in thorough digestion since Tums. Even plain water tastes better with froth. And in the preparation of his unheralded, maguey milkshake, Pickerel would be helpless without it.

Cheese grater—Raspador de queso. If cheese is milk's leap toward immortality, then a cheese grater is what? A triturating time machine? For poor gringos, a hand grater will do. Ask Santa for an upgrade to a box grater.

Colander—Escurridor. Pickerel made his own by going crazy with an ice pick on a #10 coffee can.

Cookware—Batería de cocina. The centerpiece of Pickerel's cookware is his bean pot: a 10-liter, enameled ironware receptacle blackened with many bean incarnations. His biggest pot is an aluminum stockpot (olla), 16-liter capacity that Pickerel sometimes turns upside down for a stool. His kitchen also boasts two porcelain saucepots (cazuelas) and a menagerie of banged-up, formerly nonstick saucepans (cazos) that Pickerel borrowed from (and did not return to) neighbors, housekeepers, and grieving widows. As for his skillets (sartenes), they are cast-iron, and Pickerel has three of them—eight, ten, and twelve-inchers (the last, a reflection of his rich fantasy life). Finally, there is Pickerel's comal—his griddle—an indispensable piece of flatware for cooking tortillas. Pickerel owns two—a thin, tin one (square 12 x 12 piece of sheet metal cut from nearby AC ductwork) for tortilla warming, and a heavy-duty, heat-holding, cast-iron job that Pickerel needs both hands to lift. On cold nights, he has slipped it between his bedcovers as a warmer.

Corn grinder—Molino de maíz (granos). Pickerel uses his grinder to make green corn tamales. If you count among your culinary appliances a meat grinder or a food processor (Pickerel has neither), you may use one of these to grind corn for tamales. Purists use a metate. Alternatively, you may borrow a neighbor's molino if you promise to pay the owner back with warm, freshly made tamales. If your grinder is new, first grind 1/2 cup of uncooked rice and then grind 3 corn tortillas. This will eliminate any metal flavor. Also, be sure your grinder is fixed to a heavy/immovable object (bar counter, billiard table, or nearby fencepost). Hand grinding is a shaky, screw-loosening enterprise.

Cutting board—Tabla para cortar. Pickerel uses Miriam's cottonwood stump for fish gutting, poultry beheadings, and other animal dismemberments. For smaller jobs, he uses a pine board. Once a year he replaces his bloodstained and knife-marked plank for a new one, selected from a carpentry shop conveniently located across the street.

Dishpan—Bandeja. Pickerel uses a plastic dishpan for sorting beans, mixing tortilla dough, making green corn tamales, soaking dishes, and washing the racing stripes from his yellowed undershorts.

Fire—Fuego. Pickerel's kitchen has multiple options. Número uno is his gas stove (estufa), a Mabe three-burner (burner number four inoperable since Doña Cuca, Pickerel's