A challenge: Take a walk down the aisles of your local grocery store or supermarket. What do you see?
Chances are you see heaping stacks of Hamburger Helper, mounds of macaroni and cheese and a frightening variety of 15-minute all-inclusive "meals" in a box.
As well, you will find cans of sodium-soaked vegetables, nutrition labels covered in chemical names and microwaveable munchies questionable as to their real "food" content.
In more than a month of living in Mexico, I have eaten far fewer chemically composed products than I did in a typical month of eating in the United States. In a sense, I am spoiled.
The true difference in the food is the natural ingredients used in their cooking - whereas in the United States, the can opener has seemingly become a staple in our lives.
The head of the kitchen in Mexico is the Se+â-â-¦ora, or the mother of the household. She buys the ingredients ahead of time and begins preparing the main meal early in the afternoon. Rarely does a man participate in any of the cooking.
Most of the ingredients are fruits, vegetables, meats and baked goods bought from a market, not at a grocery store - the products at these "mercados" are cheaper, and shopping at them is a cultural norm.
My host mother cooks soups, salsas and other dishes using ingredients such as natural whole red tomatoes, fresh carrots, zucchini, potatoes, chiles, beans and rice. She has only opened a can twice in the time I have been here, and the only chemically assisted ingredients she uses frequently are ketchup and small amounts of olive oil.
Even our juices are fresh-squeezed on a daily basis - mango, lemon, strawberry, orange, jamaica (a flower) and tamarind, to name a few.
Some people also purchase their meat fresh from the fields. A friend of mine from the University of Michoac+â-â-ín says her mom buys the chicken whole, kills it, cleans it and cooks it.
In the United States, if your meat doesn't come with saran wrap and a black Styrofoam tray, you're probably a farmer or game hunter.
In Mexico, it is also common for a family to prepare everything by hand, especially the indigenous population that lives in the smaller pueblos (villages).
Sitting around the table one afternoon for "la comida" - the main and biggest meal of the day, around 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. - I commented on my appreciation for the natural food I've been eating here.
That's when I learned our house cleaner, Ginita, actually lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, where her family owns cows, pigs, chickens and other animals. The cheese they eat is handmade from their cow's fresh milk; the tortillas are made by hand; and the beans are grown in a field by her father.
The rest of her pueblo lives the same lifestyle, too.
There are also far fewer fast food restaurants. I have seen one McDonald's, a Burger King, a Subway and a KFC. But there are far more food vendors on the streets. Instead of selling cotton candy, corn dogs and nachos as you would typically think of street vendors selling at fairs, these vendors sell fresh-cut fruit or vegetables, tacos and handmade tortillas on a daily basis.
But as the saying goes, there are exceptions to every rule. Stacked high on the shelves of the Bodega Aurrera - which is owned by (who else) Wal-Mart - Mexicans also have their choice of wonder products.
There are people who do choose to use tomato sauce from a can or pre-packaged, chemically processed cheese, but only on rare occasions do such products come across my plate.
Which leads me to wonder: Is this kind of natural cuisine even possible to find among the fine delicacies of Ball State's ample dining halls? I don't think so.
Write to Michelle at
mllong2@bsu.edu
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