10 Years Ago: Antigua, Guatemala: Yogurt and Bread

 

My typical food menu remains the same today as it did 10 years ago, as do my prejudices about food trends that purport to perform miracles of super-health. Fortunately, I'm a person who feels satisfied with the same foods day after day. Maybe that's because my daily food is sexy to me, so I don't lust for paramours. OK, well. There is kettle corn, a long-time lover with which I pass a little time maybe twice a year. 

I rarely have bread. Revisiting this 10-year old post on bread sends me into reveries of delicious memories. 

About that blackberry yogurt in Antigua: While in Quito this past year, I sought jugo de mora, that magical potion that I experienced in Quite decades ago, the memory of which is permanently embedded in my brain, but the closest I could get to it were packets of powdered blackberry drink, which I bought at every opportunity. They were quite good. Sadly, I abandoned my accumulated packets in Lima, Peru, under duress, a story I will likely tell sometime soon. Months later, my regret at their loss remains palpable. 

Monday, May 2, 2016

Antigua, Guatemala: Yogurt and Bread

Generally, I live on a pretty straightforward menu, which consists of some protein, bread, lots of vegetables and fruit. Strong-flavored cheese at times.

No worries, I'm not about to embark on a litany in adoration of the latest trend based on junk-science, whether it be paleo, blood-type, gluten-free-for-everyone, raw food, whole30, or whatever else the shit is out there being hawked by modern-day snake-oil sellers these days. Also, I'm not a foodie, at least not in the sense of being a gourmet.

I'm just offering a preface to get to today's topic: yogurt and bread.

Because although my dietary regimen is pretty boring by most measures, I love the food I eat. And when a particular item on my usual menu surpasses my expectations, I get a little swoony.  Don't even get me started on the wonders of the snappy, sweet, jumbo carrots you can get inside Antigua's cavernous municipal market.

Or how I practically licked the plate at an Italian restaurant in Antigua, where I lapped up the pasta in an Alfredo sauce with such enthusiasm, a dish I hadn't had in maybe a year or more, that the gentleman I was with appeared a little alarmed at just how much I enjoyed that meal. I looked him straight in the eye and smiled without shame.

But anyhoo, on to the main point of this post.

Yogurt. I don't remember if I stumbled on the yogurt at Doña Luisa's little storefront bakery adjacent to the well-known restaurant, or if someone recommended it to me, but Goddamn, that yogurt is good! I tried the blackberry (mora) yogurt first, as a bit of nostalgia from my trip to Ecuador in my youth, where the memory of whipped, frothy blackberry juice I bought there has stuck with me ever since. The texture of Doña Luisa's yogurt is thick and a little granular, so in addition to a delicious flavor, it has a luscious mouth feel.

It's more expensive than any of the other yogurt  I tried in Antigua, but exponentially richer in flavor and feel.

Bread. By pure chance, on a certain day at a certain time on a certain stretch of sidewalk near Central Park in Antigua, I bought a bag of rolls from a woman who sat on said sidewalk. I am rolling my eyes heavenward just thinking of them. Round, kind of flat, with a bit of chewiness, and just a little sweetness. 

Sadly, after I consumed all of the rolls, I couldn't find them anywhere again. Anywhere! I didn't even know what they were called. In describing the rolls to just about everyone I met, someone would offer a name for them, and I'd hie myself to the multitude of bakeries in town and ask about them. I tried a couple that were similar in looks and shape. No!

Eventually, after some goose-chasing leads, I got a couple of new name possibilities from my Spanish teacher: "pan de Patzún" or "pan de maxtate." Bingo. The reason I couldn't find this bread in any of the bakeries is because it isn't sold in any of the bakeries in Antigua (at least not that I found). It is a local bread from the countryside, let's call it a farmer's bread, perhaps considered too rustic by city folk.

With the new intel, I continued to ask around where I might find this bread. A new lead came to me, I think it was from the guy who sells bus tickets to Lake Atitlan in the cafe across from a local supermarket: "If you go over there (pointing to an area outside the supermarket) on Tuesday afternoons at about 3:00, no, maybe 4:00, you'll find a woman who sells this bread." I learned from this gentleman, or perhaps another informant, that the bread is normally sold inside the massive Antiguan municipal market, brought in from the countryside only on the big market days.

Guatemalan bread: Pan de maxtate or pan de Patzún. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

I couldn't find this woman on the designated afternoon, so to the municipal market I went. I asked this vendor, and that vendor, and the other vendor. "Pan de maxtate? Pan de Patzún?" No, no, no. Then someone pointed deeper into the darkness of the market, "Back there." I kept asking. Finally, a woman indicated she knew where I could find this bread, and she led me there. Aha! A woman had baskets of it! The holy grail!

I bought a huge bag of the rolls to hopefully last me the duration of my visit. And it did.

Guatemalan bread: Pan de maxtate or pan de Patzún. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Guatemalan bread: Pan de maxtate or pan de Patzún. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Sigh. Mission complete.

Las Cruces, New Mexico: Scenes from the Farmers and Crafts Market

Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market with the Organ Mountains backdrop. January 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

During my current sojourn in Las Cruces, I go downtown on Saturdays to the Farmers and Craft Market. I go for the kettle corn, mainly. It's not often I'm living in a place where I can get it in the wild, regularly. 

Las Cruces seems to have three kettle corn drug dealers. There's Uncle Banjo, Southwest, and a third one, as yet unseen and untried by me. 

My preference is Southwest Kettle Corn. I can taste all of the fat, crunch, salt, and sweet. Uncle Banjo's is too dry for my taste. And the folks at Southwest know how we are, "we" being persnickety partakers of the popcorn crack. As in: If I ask for more salt before I carry away my bag, I'm asked in return: "In layers or on the top"? And always, we users are asked: "Do you want your bag open or tied?" 

The market is long and large. 

On Christmas Eve, my eyes widened at the probable deliciousness of the mushrooms on offer. Oh, mushrooms, how I love thee.

Mushrooms and brilliant smile at Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market. December 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

Mushrooms and brilliant smile at Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market. December 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

On another day, I bought a stash of bright artwork from Alyssa Trujillo. Along with mushrooms, I do fancy lizards. I'll send the work to worthy recipients. 

Artist Alyssa Trujillo at Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market. January 2023. Credit: Mzuriana.

A slide show of the Las Cruces Farmers and Crafts Market, which includes photos from my first-ever visit in 2013: 

This and other markets: 

2010: Kansas City: Travels With Carol: Day 3: City Market, et al

2011: Color in Harar [Ethiopia], Day 4

2011: Last Day in Gonder [Ethiopia]: The Market, Gold, and God is Calling

2011: Rustavi, Caucasus Georgia: At the "Big" Market

2012: Istanbul: Larceny and Spice

2012: Alamogordo, New Mexico: Farmer's Market

2013: Las Cruces: The Not-So-Farmerish Farmers' Market

2013: Lafayette, Louisiana: Farmers' Market at the Oil Center, Winter

2016: El Paso: Downtown Farmers Market

2016: Antigua, Guatemala: Municipal market stories here and here and here. 

2016: Outside Antigua, Guatemala: The Sunday Blues

2018: Mexico City: New Housemates and the Saturday Market

Mexico City: New Housemates and the Saturday Market

Corn at the Saturday market. Mexico City. November 2018.

Last night, new refugees arrived, this time from the second caravan. They were a group of LGBTQ folk from Honduras, including one group member´s younger sister.

One of the young Salvadoran men from the earlier group of refugees has been looking assiduously - so far to no avail - for an affordable place to live, as his shelter time at the guesthouse is to end in the next 24 hours. There´s not only the tangible anxiety involved in the search -- money + safety + suitability + location to potential employment -- there´s the anxiety of leaving the intangible comfort-warmth-camaraderie of the guesthouse.

Today I went to the nearby Saturday market, where I bought fresh cheese made with peppers, a kilo of carrots, a jicama, some fresh basil, a tomato, and a bag of fresh rolls.

The cheese is less salty than what I bought last Saturday, and a bit creamier.

I subsequently learned that what I thought was the minty-version of basil was really yerba buena - more minty than anything else.

Antigua, Guatemala: The Sunday Blues

Closed market stall across from San Felipe de Jesus church, near Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

I heard about a local church that drew many, many folks from the countryside for the first Mass of each Sunday. This same church was allegedly the home of some miracles.

Obviously, I had to check it out. I like to go to places of miracles.

Like the Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico, where I gathered up some holy dirt and placed it in empty receptacles of some sort that I had in the car, and which I later gifted to my mother and, I believe, re-gifted to my Georgian hostess, Neli, after I discovered my mother did not have the full appreciation for such things like Neli did:

And the Holy Tree in Opelousas, from which I harvested a holy stick:

But back to Antigua.

Although sleeping in on the chosen Sunday morning was inviting, I got up early so I could walk to the bus terminal, find the bus to the village, and arrive in time for the early-morning Mass.

My intel was that I'd find the right bus behind the municipal market down this lane and over by this other place. I went to where I thought it was. No buses yet. Upon asking someone, I learned the first bus wouldn't depart til too late. So I grabbed a tuk-tuk, paid too much (though negotiated it down), and was dropped in front of the church doorway.

Well, I was damn early. But I did see the makings of a post-Mass breakfast at various stations in the area next to the church, plus the stirrings of a Sunday market across the street from the church.

Truth be told, the church wasn't all that memorable for me. It was yellow. Which makes it just like all the other churches in and around Antigua.

Ooh, but the blues of the market across the way! The blue of the tortillas! Seas, skies, pools, precious stones of myriad blues!

Closed market stall across from San Felipe de Jesus church, near Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Blue tortillas in San Felipe de Jesus, outside Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

My blue breakfast, San Felipe de Jesus, near Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

I've got to learn to ask folks to just leave off the various sauces from the main dishes. The red sauce added nothing to the meat. Alas.

The blue masa from which the blue tortillas are made. San Felipe de Jesus, near Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

OK, OK, here's a photo of the church - but through the veils of blue tarps:

San Felipe de Jesus church, near Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Antigua, Guatemala: Black Gold and a Queen

Municipal market chef with platter of frijoles volteados. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

On my very first foray into Antigua's municipal market, I met the chef-owner of one of the market cafes. An exuberant, charismatic woman, she introduced me, as a drug dealer might, to a seductive substance called frijoles volteados. I'm embarrassed that I cannot remember her name. And that my photos suck.

But moving on ....

Municipal market chef. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

Literally, "frijoles volteados" means "flipped [or turned] beans."

The color comes from small black beans.

The texture is like the loamiest, most fertile, most lovingly-worked-over earth. A soil so rich that fruit pushes out from its depths, like a baby being born.

The flavor, too, is earthy, bean-y, with a hint of chocolate.

For my meals, I spread it sparingly on my bread, so as not to consume it too quickly.

My Spanish teacher, that ever-pragmatic, never-romantic woman, told me I could get the same thing in a can at Walmart. That she had done so herself when visiting the US.

"No!" I exclaimed. We must be talking about two different things! It is not possible that this sacred stuff could come in a can, buyable at .... Walmart!

Municipal market chef. Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

I've not yet tried any canned version of the frijoles volteados. Some day.

But here's a recipe.

Antigua, Guatemala: Inside the Municipal Market

Antigua's municipal market. April 2016.

Shortly after I arrived in Antigua, my multi-talented hostess (speaks 3+ languages, has a piercing sense of irreverent humor, is gracious, a determined survivor/thriver of what life throws at some of us, with a fascinating professional background) gave me a quick verbal list of various local places to get groceries.

First, a visit to the supermarket

La Bodegona was the supermarket that was closest to my home-school-home walking route, so I checked into that first.

Ohhhh. First impressions. I'm afraid it was so depressing. Poor lighting, the kind that you think about in an old-timey hardware store that has dusty shelves, creaky floors, and dark corners with stock items that have surely been there for decades, gathering an oily layer of residue from the particulate-filled air. OK, maybe I'm dramatizing a bit. But still, depressing. Produce looked tired. Limited selections of things. Seemed expensive.

I put some stuff in my basket, and then, incredibly, after walking around some more, put them back. I don't think I bought anything.

Antigua's municipal market. April 2016.

The municipal market

The same day, or maybe the day after, I went through a wide doorway of a building that was adjacent to an outdoor stall market, whose vendors sold ubiquitous Guatemalan souvenirs, rather expensive fruits and vegetables, plebian plastic ware and other humble housewares for buyers who live in Antigua.

Inside the building .... oh, this was the hidden magic kingdom of produce, cafes, seafood, breads, cheeses, grains, sausages, spices, herbs, flowers, and also the household stuff, along with clothing, music, et al.

Antigua's municipal market. Dried fish. April 2016.

It is like such markets the world over, which I've met in city-center markets in the USA, Caucasus Georgia, Ethiopia, Mexico, Dubai, and Istanbul.

Although actual "market days" fall on Monday, Thursdays, and Saturdays, the market is open every day. I'd say til 5 or 6 or so. I could get most of my stuff on any day, then, it's just that the vendor population, along with produce choices, swelled on the three market days. (But that bread I loved - likely only available on the market days when more vendors came in from the country.)

Antigua's municipal market. Chorizos. April 2016.

Some sights and sounds of the municipal market on a Saturday afternoon, part 1:

Mmmm, look at those carrots at 0:32!


Some dried fish, tortillas, spices and more in part 2:

I went to the municipal market a couple of times a week to stock up on vegetables, fruits, and cheese.

Antigua's municipal market. Shrimp. April 2016.