Monday, March 12, 2007

Lucha libre and River Snails




Sporting the stars and stripes, this man embodies everything ugly about Americans. He throws tortillas into faces in the audience and tells them to screw their mothers. We become fast friends.

Most times, one tries hard to maintain respect and compassion for new cultures while traveling. Spitting tortillas, waving the US flags, and shouting "Who wants an Uncle Sam suplex?" is probably not one of these times.

It's lucha libre. A ridiculous demonstration of stereotypes and rude behavior. Men donning the craziest clothes and then pretending to fight all throughout the arena. Ealier a pink mini-skirt clad troll of a man kissed me on one of his skipping laps around the ring.

After the match, I invite everyone back to my place for river snails -a traditional food in Chiapas- and the mascot of the Zapatistas. During the week I gathered recipes for snails here and abroad. I think I'm ready except for one little details: I still haven't figured out how to get the meat out the shells. Hammers, knives, nails, machetes were all recommended, but even with this aresenal the process was slow and tedious. Fine if you have a dozen, but I've got closer to 1500.

By the end of the night, we have our own lucha libre match with the snails finally pulling out a few mouthfulls of meat.

Tasty? Sure.
Worth repeatedly hammering yourself in the hand for? Not even close.

If anyone has any suggestions, please comment!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It sounds as though you will eat just about anything Tim! Pucky says Hey!

Tim Dzurilla said...

Food is culture and you are what you eat. Thanks for checking it out Terri!