3/29 – Boing de guayaba in Tenancingo
Sunday, 3/29
On Sunday morning – claro – a market sprang up, reviving the soulless streets of the Zitácuaro business district. We roamed the street stalls before entering the covered market in search of breakfast. Mexican markets always make me dream of chucking it all to become a food photographer. As Dad pointed out, it’s not like either of us suffers from a shortage of market pictures. But I never can resist the glorious multicolored beans in bins, the pyramids of mandarins, the gleaming wedges of watermelon and papaya so artfully arrayed. The baskets of braided bread and the bubbling cauldrons of red broth. This year my sister pointed out to me that the street vendors coordinate their tarps overhead with the produce below, so that the sunny plastic glow from above brings out their fruity complexions: yellow for tangerines, red for strawberries and tomatoes.
On this morning we ate in a market stall whose owner-chef turned out to have lived in Anaheim for eight years, where he managed a McDonald’s. He wanted to polish up his rusty language skills with us and so we conversed in English, which felt very odd after nearly two weeks of sticking to Spanish in public. His mother dropped by to get the keys to the family’s other market stall, where she would be selling Chinese food cooked by the brother-in-law, who learned the trade (and buys the supplies) in the States.
Then back into the car for a meandering eastward drive. Crossing the state line from Michoacán back into México, we paused in the pass to look for birds flitting amongst the pines (and if you’re interested, new ones for me included the summer tanager, hermit thrush, magnificent hummingbird, and plumbeous vireo). Bumping along back roads we marveled at highway signs crammed with challenging names like “San Felipe de Tlalmimilolpan,” heading toward Tenango de Arista. The Tenango pyramids had been on Dad’s to-do list since a visit a couple years ago, when his rocky health had thwarted a thorough exploration of the site. His impression was that the elaborate pyramid complex along a ridge above town might yield some good pot-sherding-a favorite (one might say obsessive) family activity. So we were disappointed to find when we arrived that the site closed early on Sundays. Resolving to return first thing in the morning before our drive back to Mexico City, we drove half an hour – entirely downhill – to the little town of Tenancingo. (Side note: my uncle lives in Mamaroneck, NY, where for some reason there is a thriving ex-pat community from tiny Tenancingo.)
There isn’t a whole lot to Tenancingo, but our little hotel off the main road had a pretty courtyard and a tree full of obstreperous grackles, and if we unplugged the little TV we could plug in the computer. In the afternoon we drove up a neighboring mountain to visit a Carmelite convent built around 1800. It’s called Santo Desierto de Carmen and the approach (once you’ve driven to the top of the mountain and parked) is a long, winding, pedestrian avenue, overarched with ancient cedar trees. Teasing birds with unfamiliar voices sang invisibly in the forest canopy. The convent itself had stout stone walls and all the little waterways and animal stalls a small, isolated community would need to sustain itself in such a lovely, solitary spot.
Back in Tenancingo, it appeared that the town’s only two restaurants were closed, but then we found a new spot halfway up the dusty street toward the plaza. It turned out to be an Argentine grill called “Chee.” Its two small cement rooms were furnished with plastic picnic chairs and staffed by a solicitous teenager who offered us a wide variety of grilled meats for dinner. I had the Argentine tacos with chicken and BBQ pork, and Dad was delighted with his grilled sweetbreads. We shared the baked potato. For dessert (which we didn’t order, but the teenager decided we needed): panqueques Argentinas, which were crepes with dulce de leche and toasted pecans. There being no bottled water to hand, I went with a drink I’d seen around (in several colors) but never tasted, a bottled soda whose cheery brand name is “Boing.” I selected guayaba, and it turned out to be (as near as I could tell) pure guayaba juice, pink and pleasingly smooth. The whole meal cost 110 pesos, about eight dollars. Meanwhile, speakers mounted in the corners played music from the ’40s and ’50s, including the Bunny Hop and Begin the Beguine. Somewhere toward the end of the meal we got the giggles about our dinner scenario: “Ah yes, we had a pleasant evening eating sweetbreads and Argentine tacos while listening to The Bunny Hop and drinking Boing de guayaba. You?”
