I spent 3 weeks travelling through the south of Mexico into the nearest parts of Central America. Here’s what I ate:
Not just this! Oaxaca in the south is known for its rich cuisine. Mole negro is a chocolatey-nutty sauce that takes days to make and is considered a delicacy. It is often served with meat. I first tried this at the Teotihuacan ruins just outside Mexico City and gave up after two mouthfuls. Tepid, bitter, borderline nauseating. The version I tried in Oaxaca was as part of a gourment tamale (more on those later), this was more palatable. Another Oaxaca specialty is the tlayuda, a large tortilla disc covered with various toppings like a pizza. I ate this in an indoor market where they were showing Star Wars: The Force Awakens and I found Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher’s parenting struggles more diverting than the bland crunch in front of me. Mexican food has to try really hard to be tasteless but they managed it with the tlayuda.
Things improved! In Puerto Escondido I had my first michelada made with salsa ingles (Lea and Perrins Worcester Sauce). These are pimped-up beers, always with salt and lime and then a variety of extras. In Mexico City they tend to be fruity, sometimes with embellishments like gummi bears. Further south it’s more about the salty tang. Micheladas are refreshing and moreish, perfect in tropical weather. (Incidentally I’m told El Salvador has the highest global per capita consumption of Worcester sauce).
Moving into Guatemala where I found the food to be often disappointingly bland compared with Mexico but not without its diversions. I had a good food experience on the Mexico/ Guatemala border following a harrowing 6-7 minutes when after confidently walking into Guatemala we realised our bus had disappeared and men offering favourable exchange rates shoved money in our faces. Bus located I had a lovely tamale, which are warm slabs of dumpling filled with a piece of chicken, cooked in a maize leaf and served with sauce in a plastic bag.
Guatemala’s cuisine is notably different from its neighbours in a few ways. There’s a much bigger pasta culture there and I saw the odd takeaway lasagne place, while pollo y papas (chicken and chips) is widely available and a cut above your Morleys usual. There’s a big Chinese community so I had one passable curry in Guatemala City. Coffee is as expected generally really great and better than Mexico. Although I did once wait 15 minutes for a black instant coffee served with 2 tablespoons of sugar.
Livingston is on the northern Caribbean coast of Guatemala and only accessible by water. The Garifuna community live here – pretty much all of Guatemala’s 8,000 strong black population – as well as people of Mayan heritage fleeing 20th century government persecution. Its culinary showpiece is the tapado, a seafood soup made with coconut milk and filled with plantain (see image above). As a seafood sceptic I couldn’t manage a whole one of these but plantain in a soup is recommended, plantain with anything to be honest.
Finally El Salvador where the pupusa rules all. I’d describe it as a warmed up savoury version of those circular syrup pancakes Sainsbury sell in packs of eight, but much fresher and with infinite fillings. You can’t beat getting a warm pupusa at a border crossing while men wave dollars in your face. Even better, I then got to sample the full works of a Salvadoran New Years: chicharrons (pork canapes) and tortillas by the pool in the day, followed by a 5pm lunch of calamari rice and salad, then an evening of beach, then nap, then drinking until midnight when everyone toasts the new year. At this point everyone sits down for a barbequed meat feast followed by tequila and Latin pop. This definitely beat a battered sausage down Romford High St at 3am.
The holiday period still wasn’t over when I returned to Mexico City, as on January 6th Mexicans celebrate ‘El dia de los Reyes Magos’. In the preceding days everyone is busy buying toys for their children and a huge ‘Rosca de Reyes’, a special celebratory cake. Madly one supermarket seemed to actually stop selling bread to make room for these. Each contains one small plastic Jesus. The person whose piece contains this then has to cook for their friends on Candlemas on 2 February. I got a mini rosca, pictured, and it was delicious, the best bit the candied peel topping.
Prickly Pears 