On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 09:15:35 -0500, "TMOliver"
wrote:


"Mack A. Damia" wrote ...
On Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:14:18 -0400, Boron Elgar
wrote:

On Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:35:25 -0700, Mack A. Damia
wrote:


I still don't know the exact spelling of the delicacy, but
phonetically, it sounds like "Pitcha" (the accent is on the cha) and
is jellied cow's heel with garlic and sometimes hard boiled egg mixed
with it.

Anybody know?

Ptcha. Calve's foot in jelly/aspic.

Boron

Thanks, M8; I actually have a recipe for it, but it's quite involved
with the calf's feet, etc.

Never knew the exact name, though.
-

I'm quite fond of a very plebian (and ancient - at least early colonial,
unless the Aztec had a version featuring the tripes of their sacrificial
victims, which many historians presume were done away with - gruesomely and
at a rapid clip - to solve a protein shortage in the Valley of Mexico)
Mexican soup/stew, Menudo, which requires tripe, hominy and long simmering,
always with a calf's foot or two along with the traditional spices, herbs
and chilies. The calf's foot adds body. Served with warm tortillas de mais
(corn), chopped raw onion, chopped raw jalapeno (a different flavor than
canned/bottled/in escabeche versions, chopped cilantro plus lime and lemon
wedges, it is the traditional weekend cure "para la cruda", for a hangover,
but remains a dish of which consumption may define social status/origin if
not economic class. Can one suppose that the Aztec may have used a few
Toltec heels to fortify their "authentic/original" version?

How the world changes....Years ago in my youth, tortillas de mais were the
norm, with tortillas de harina, now available throughout the US, were
Sunday/Holiday fare...

The Law of Unintended Consequences rears its head..... Conscientious and
conservation-minded 'Mericans "save" gas (and the government provides
massive subsidies for the use of ethanol blended into motor fuel. US
ethanol is produced almost entirely from corn, demand jacking up the price
of the commodity to exceed any previous highs..... That's not bad. We're
prosperous and who notices the increase in corn syrup prices (our principal
processed food sweetener), and shucks, not enough folks eat grits or hominy
for those price increases to show (and there's not a lot of cornbread
consumed anymore in the US)

Meanwhile, down in Mexico's interior, higher corn prices have pushed the
price of tortillas de mais, the staple of the diet of the poor and low
income population, through the roof. Children literally starve so that we
can imagine that we are bettering the environment. High corn prices help
send thousands of young men and heads of households North to the Rio
Bravo/Grande or the Baja Border to illegally enter the US to work to send
home earnings to fill the bellies of their siblings and children.

Somehow, I'd choose to discomfort the caribou up in ANWR with a few oil
wells, while passing on contributing to the hunger of los ninos pobrecitos
de Mejico. Who knows? The caribou might be good to eat, while even Dean
Swift would have been unlikely to modestly propose that we eat Mexican
children (incalculably better flavored presumably than the poorly seasoned
infants of Ireland).

I actually live in Mexico - Baja, south of Tijuana.

I don't care for menudo; I like my tripe pickled with plenty of ground
pepper. Fish tacos are excellent, though, along with tongue,
goatsmeat and lamb tacos.
--
mad