Immigration is a hot topic across the continent. But for all the political outrage it stirs, there is a hypocrisy we do not talk about enough: people who may relish the cuisine from Mexico often deplore the people and culture from south of the border.
That contradiction matters. More than 50% of our country’s fruit and vegetables come from Mexico, and many ingredients that now feel ordinary on American tables once arrived as something unfamiliar. I wanted to celebrate the “new” produce that will likely be on your table within the next ten years, and to show that this other form of immigration is already so commonplace, we might otherwise fail to notice our food’s country of origin.
This is important to me for reasons that are personal as well as political. During a recent hospital stay, I had doctors from Korea, Latvia, and India. My nurses were from the Philippines, Nigeria, and Mexico. Immigrants are essential to the health-care industry in the U.S. In my hometown of San Antonio, where more than 64% of residents are Hispanic, Mexican culture is in the food I eat, the music I listen to, the air I breathe.
And yet the treatment of immigrants in this country remains a disgrace. South of San Antonio is Dilley, Texas, site of the South Texas Family Residential Center, the largest ICE detention center for families in the U.S, where the kid in the blue bunny hat was imprisoned. In recent news, ICE confirms purchase of detention center in San Antonio. I cannot speak enough about the benefits of immigrants — and the shameful way our administration treats them.
So yes, immigration is a human issue. It is also there at almost every table. Mexican food is welcomed in places where Mexican people too often are not. With that in mind, it’s time to take a look at Indigenous ingredients — foods from south of the border.
Did you ever try a tomatillo? You may not like it, but it’s only 99 cents a pound. Maybe you didn’t like salsa the first time you tried it. But what would salsa be without a tomatillo?
Pick a papaya. Think of a large orange berry. Think of a small amber melon. Add 100 hard black seeds. Imagine soft sweet flesh. The time is ripe to try one.
Choose chocolate for your chula. Thank you, citizens of Chiapas, for giving us the cacao bean, the purple Forastero, the pale Criollo, the red Trinitario. Try it with milk and sugar, or cinnamon, or almonds, or peppers. You’re going to love it!
Get your girlfriend a guanabana. It’s a spikey fruit as big as your head. Remove the bitter green peel and the dark toxic seeds. Cut it up for your fruit cup or blend it for a delicioso liquido!
Ask for an agave. The stalks can be chewed, the leaves may be eaten, the sap used to make syrup. But my favorite use is tequila. ¡Salud!
Buy your baby a boniato. It’s a tuber, a sweet potato with dry pale flesh and purple skin. Bake it, steam it, boil it, fry it, put it in your empanadas or mash it. Put it in your pudding, your pie, or your pie hole!
Have a jicama. Slice it or dice it, squeeze some lime up top. Sprinkle it with chili powder, chase it with a shot of tequila!
Sample some sugarcane – caña de azúcar. Cut a section from the stalk. Remove the hard, green bark. Pop it into your mouth, and chew, and chew, and chew. Once all the sweetness is gone, cut off another piece. And chew.
Give your mama a mamey. Peel away the rough brown skin. Take out the big black seed. Enjoy the orange red pulp! It’s like a pear with nutmeg, or an apricot with vanilla.
Chow down on a chayote (aka christophine, mirliton, güisquil, and choko). Cook it like a squash. Serve it in your salad. You may think it has an identity problem. Buy you may be the one with an identity problem.
Get yourself a guava. If a fig married a kiwi, this may be their baby. Eat the greenish skin, savor the pale pink pulp, swallow the countless seeds.
Try some piñón nuts. Eat them raw or roast them. Put them in your fruits or vegetables. Add them in your yogurt or bread. Meats and pasta can be enhanced with the sweet and buttery flavor of el piñón.
Purchase a pitaya. You might have to go to a produce market. You may have to ask for a dragon fruit. Look it up. Learn about it.
Pick up a package of pecans. If a Mexican recipe calls for nuez, it’s probably the pecan from Chihuahua. Eat some gollorías or garapiñadas or some leche quemada. Sweet!
I’ll leaf you with a banana leaf. Did you ever wrap your tamales in a banana leaf instead of a cornhusk? Do the plantain leaves make the masa a little moister? Do they impart a sweeter flavor? Let your tamal be the judge.
The next time you enjoy a Durango desayuno, a Michoacán meal, or some Coahuiltecan cuisine, contemplate where your meal originated. And consider that people – as well as produce – can immigrate.
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A Version of this was previously published in La Voz de Esperanza
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