On Mar 15, 7:59?pm, "Wayne Lundberg" >
wrote:

> Galloping seems to be in a research mode and sharing his findings with us. I
> look through his postings with great interest but rarely offer an
> observation since it is impossible to define many of the ingredients in such
> a way that they communicate the true taste of them.

It's true that many of the items listed are generic and vague.

But anyone who now knows the *name* of a Tabasqueno dish can at least
begin websearching for recipes and learning the details of which
plantain to use.

When the European conquerors and settlers arrived in the New World,
they brought as much of the Old World with them as possible, but then
they quickly ran out of OW staples and spices and had to substitute NW
staples and spices and a mixed style of cooking evolved.

My own European ancestors had to quickly adapt to the Corn Culture of
North America, or starve.

In the same manner, Mexican migrants who arrived in the USA brought
some of their cooking ideas with them, but adapted to American cooking
and forgot the more complex recipes of their homeland.

Mexicans who arrived here from northern Mexico were usually
illiterate peasants who brought the poverty of Sonora and Chihuahua
with them, so items on the menu were limited to what could be cooked
with rice and beans and ground corn and chile peppers, with the
occasional cut of poor quality meat thrown into the stew pot.

As more and more Mexicans arrive here, the variety of available
Mexican food items offered in supermarkets increases, and, instead of
a shelf with Mexican foods on it, there are entire aisles dedicated to
Mexican foods and entire supermarkets are opened to serve that
community.

Nevertheless, some of the items on the "Especialidades de Tabasco"
list might not be found in a grocery store, one might have to go to a
pet shop to acquire the ingredients for guao, hicotea or pochitoque,
unless one lives in Florida and can gather them from the roadside.

But, that shouldn't bother Wayne, who recently made an appeal for
road-killed armadillo... ;-)