Mexican
food makes you feel full and satisfied in a way that
no other type of food can. My theory is that it has
to do with the ingredients and how they are put together.
Mexican food is made up of fiber-rich complex carbohydrates,
such as refried beans, rice, corn tortillas and fresh
veggies – all of which make you feel full and
satisfied. The fullness is complemented by the spicy
salsa, with the chilli peppers providing the necessary
sharpness to cut through the heaviness and aid digestion.
Good
Mexican food should be enjoyed both while you are
eating it, and for a period afterwards when the full
feeling in your stomach provides a sense of peace
and well-being. Mexican food makes you want to sit
and relax, shoot the breeze as your digestive processes
slowly and pleasantly do all the work.
Or
at least that's how I Iearned to feel about Mexican
food. I am a self-appointed expert on Mexican food,
and my credentials are that I had lived in El Paso,
Texas in my youth and for a period of too many years,
spent way too much time in Mexican restaurants on
both sides of the border.. I have eaten Mexican food
in border towns and resort towns, mountain resorts
and big cities, in Acapulco, in Mexico City, and Juarex,
Mexico.
Beans,
tostada chips and salsa were my main nutritional source
for many years. As a college student I would go to
a Mexican Restaurant just across the University of
Texas campus and order a plate of refried beans, knowing
that the chips and salsa were free, included in the
meal. For the first few visits, the chips were all
you could eat and I consumed basket after basket of
chips, stretching out the single plate of beans as
long as I could.
Eventually
the restaurant manager got wise to my antics and restricted
the tostada chips to only one basket per customer.
But still I would go back, same routine everytime,
one bowl of refried beans and a glass of water. I
thought beans, chips and salsa, even if only one basket
of chips, for 90 cents, was a good deal. That's how
I survived as a poor college student.
As
an El Paso based teenager, living in a wild border
town is probably what bent my character to gravitate
toward exotic locales in the first place and also
led me to live in Thailand. Thailand and Mexico have
certain similarities. Beaches, warm climate, active
street life and beautiful brown-skinned girls, for
instance.
Mexico,
with its large Indian population, is actually very
Asian. Looking at the old Aztec and Mayan temples,
the comparisons definitely lean toward the East. Nevertheless,
Mexican food is actually not related to the Spanish
dynasty in Mexico but rather, from the Indian tradition
there. In spite of this historical fact, Thai people
in general don’t like Mexican food. "It’s
all beans and rice." "It’s spicy but
not tasty." These are the kind of comments I
always hear from my Thai associates. Little do they
know that their favorite foods actually have their
origin in the America continent. The humble hot chili
pepper, the tomato and corn were all discovered in
America and then exported around the world. However,
if you tell the average Thai chef that his "prik
kee noo" is actually an American discovery, chances
are he wouldn't believe you.
The
Mexican food scene in Bangkok is rather bleak. My
first experiences were several years ago in two different
hole-in-wall restaurants that claimed to be Mexican.
Then a fast food chain opened up in front of the Ambassador
Hotel several years ago - it was pretty good but it
didn’t last. The American steak and rib joints
have a minimal Mexican menu. Other than that, there
is Senor Pico's at a big hotel, whatever the name
is, on Sukhumvit (haven't been there yet).
