Si Habla Español?

You know the guy who looks like he can give you good directions, but when you drive up he says in a heavy accent, "going half mile, turn on the right, there to left." You figure he has no clue where you want to go but is saying something to make you happy.

I am now that person.

Some guy asked me for directions to a nearby shopping center. I don't know any of the necessary street names and I couldn't remember how many blocks it was. I don't even know the word for "blocks." So I said, "straight ahead maybe half a kilometer and turn left." That isn't quite enough to get him there, but I'm praying he'll see it from there. It should put him in the neighborhood, anyway.

You know the foreign foods section of the grocery store? The people who traverse that aisle back home are generally either Hispanic or extravagant, with exotic tastes unbridled by either a blue collar budget or a normal cookbook.

Well, I am now one of those oddballs! I never knew until I got here how much mainstream American cuisine has Mexican influence. The French have almost no concept of hot. I bought some "spicy" ketchup and couldn't tell any difference whatsoever. I have searched high and low in half a dozen stores, including ones that specialize in foreign cuisine, and have yet to find chili powder. I know it exists somewhere because my classmates found some, but it has evaded me. Corn meal does not exist. Nobody has even heard of the stuff. The closest thing they have is corn harine, for which I engage the Middle East section of the hallowed foreign foods aisle. I think products from the Middle East tend to be considerably less expensive than products from North or South America. Fortunately it not only substitutes quite well for corn meal, it also works after a fashion for making corn tortillas.

This brings me to another point. Pre-packaged Tex-Mex is the same brands as the US, the packaging is in English, and it is horrendously expensive. Those little jars of salsa cost up to 3 1/2 Euros each, possibly more than the value of their weight in gold. Therefore I refuse to buy them, or taco shells, or tortillas, unless LIDL has an amazing sale. As a result, I have now figured out how to make homemade corn tortillas. Some day when I have time and patience I'll try flour tortillas also. They are a bit trickier. On monday I concocted chili. Not a bowl of chili, a giant pot of it. It was intended for a large group gathering but was never used for such. I have been eating chili for four days, and I estimate that at the current rate of consumption (including pawning off on neighbors) I will probably be eating it until Sunday at least. This was what inspired the creation of the corn tortillas. I had to add a little variety :-)

What next, you ask? I'm thinking the next step is making my own salsa. I can get a can of hot red peppers (whole) from local grocery store #4. Fortunately we have five or six grocery stores to choose from. Between them all I can generally find what I want at a price that doesn't give me a heart attack. Since it's cheap and, for unknown reasons, very abundant both within and without the foreign foods isle, I may even get used to Couscous. Compared to grits, couscous is great stuff. Oh, one last note- I had to laugh. I saw something in the foreign foods isle that looked like the equivalent of Ramen. It cost more than a euro for one packet. They kind of missed the whole point of that stuff... nobody would actually eat it if it cost more than 20¢.