Discovering Xocolatl the Hard Way

We’re in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Merida is the capitol of the state of Yucatan. It’s also the name of the whole peninsula that threatens to reach out geographically and count coup on Cuba, but never does. It’s hot here. Officially, I think March is still the cool season, but it’s never more than a Pat Boone sort of cool. Daytime temps have hovered between 90 and 100 since February. In the summer months, it gets even hotter, rains a lot, and is humid to drive home the point: It’s a jungle out there.

We were curious how everyone lives in Merida. We aren’t staying in a tourist hotel, and we’re skipping many tourist things. Our neighborhood, Santa Lucia, isn’t predominately gentrified. You can walk to all the gentrified things you want from here, though. You can also head due south to La Mejorada, where the real folks live and work untroubled by people who look like Ichabod Crane, i.e., me.

La Mejorada is a thronging, bustling area. I went there early this AM looking for provisions, and there were hundreds of regular folks lined up on the curbs waiting for one bus or another to take them to work, and hundreds more trying to get past me on the skinny sidewalks. They were all the sort of people that have nothing to do with the My Little Pony Kristallnacht, coming or going. They’re the stratum of people that will have to scrub all the paint off the rest of the city, while the upscale feminists who defaced the whole downtown sleep in. Most everyone in La Mejorada have the good, strong, solid, Mayan faces that I admire. The closest you can come to it in the states is an Apache. They don’t look one iota European. I know the Spaniards came, and saw, but I’m not sure they ever really conquered this part of the joint.

We’re more or less on the centerline of the city, east of the main square with the big cathedral. That’s generally where tourists go to be pestered by touts to buy jipi japa hats, better known as Panama hats. They’re little trilbys made from fine, soft hennequen fibers. I’ve heard the pitch for them so often I can recite it. I don’t want a trilby, because what gods there be have made me ridiculous enough right out of the maternity ward gate, and there’s no reason to compound their error.

I like their shirts, though. Guayaberas. All the gentlemen wear them. Half the gentlemen sell them, I think. There are a few different kinds, and uncounted versions of each kind. There’s one kind I recognize in an instant. it has two open pockets, low on the front. Elegant viejos (older men) favor them. They lend an air of sobriety to what is essentially a casual garment.

We ate a few times at the Maya Chuc. It’s a neighborhood restaurant that serves authentic Mayan food. I guess it’s authentic. How would I know? If they cut a leg off a rhino from the zoo and fed it to me, I’m too Spanish-deprived to call their bluff. Large local families like to eat in there, and we liked making faces at their impish but well-behaved children when they mugged at us. The cafe fronts two pleasant streets, so it’s fun to watch the passersby while you eat. On Sunday, one street was blocked to traffic and people cycled by on every kind of contrivance you can pedal. The entire city is flat as a pancake, so cycling is easy if you can stand the sunshine boring a hole in the top of your head. Maybe you should wear a jipjapa or something, norteamericano.

The elegant-looking jefe (boss)in the Maya Chuc was wearing the guayabera with the two pockets, a dead giveaway to me. The hostess seated us at a table, and I reflexively pulled the chair out for my wife, and pushed it in as she sat down. I haven’t clapped eyes on a nun for many decades, but their lessons stick hard if you went to Catholic school. El jefe came over and pointed to me and said I was a caballero — a gentleman. I’m not, but I infer that the average American has no manners whatsoever, so I merited an attaboy. I’ll wear his compliment invisibly on my chest like a medal for many days. If he’d have called me an hidalgo, I think my heart would have burst. But I’m sure he would have needed to see if I left a good tip when I paid the bill before honoring me like that.

Mayan food is very strange to us. It has nothing to do with the usual Taco Bell stuff Americans think of when Mexican food is mentioned. It all looks like a big mess on the plate, and it’s hard to decipher exactly what you’re eating. I have to be careful, because I’m allergic to things that can kill me in a few minutes, so street food is too dicey a proposition for the most part. But we try this and that in restaurants after explaining the gustatory sword of Damocles that hangs over me. The staff of the Maya Chuc did the impossible in this regard. They convinced me to try this:

The Mayans basically invented chocolate. They still like it a lot, and put it in all sorts of dishes where I would’t go looking for it. They have a sauce called mole (moe-lay). It’s spiced chocolate sauce, and they put it on meat, chicken, rice, and who knows what all.

Now, I’ve eaten mole. I’ve vomited mole. Those two details of my life seem inextricably linked in my mind, forevermore, so experimenting in the chocolate field is strictly limited for your humble author. But I was presented with xocolatl by my new, greatest admirer in Mexico, and I felt duty bound to try it if I must, or find a potted plant to water with it if no one was looking. Because I’d heard of xocolatl before, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to drink it, or even kill a plant with it. It is, essentially, Yoohoo, served hot.

But I was backed into a corner. I would rather have donated a kidney to Pol Pot than disappoint el jefe. He presented it to me as something special, a regalo (gift). I toughened up, and belted it back.

It was fantastic. I can’t explain it. It’s got like vanilla and chili powder in there, cinnamon maybe, and some form of ambrosia I couldn’t identify.

El jefe seemed pleased by my reaction. I felt very special that he singled me out for such an honor. I did notice that all the other diners were likewise treated to the same, special honor. I deduced that he was just allowing them to bask in my reflected glory, being in the same room. And when we ate there again, he wasn’t working, but the waiter brought it out and plopped it in front of us, and for everybody else in the joint.

I really must have made quite an impression on that place. There’s no other explanation I can come up with.