Travel From Home: Mexico
Like many others, we cancelled our travel plans in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the things we missed the most were tasting new foods, immersing ourselves in different cultures, and learning about the local history. As the year wore on, we came up with the idea of trying to recreate the travel experience, but from home. We’re starting a “travel from home” series and picked Mexico as our first “destination” that we can get a little glimpse of.
If you want to try something similar, below you’ll find the kit we created for Mexico. Thanks to our friend Romina who guided us through some of these activities and suggested new ones.
The Music: Once Upon a Time in Mexico Soundtrack
First things first, let’s set the mood with some music. We played the soundtrack of “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” which was really fun and good background music while we cooked. Los Tigres del Norte is another good music option.
Our friend Romina shared some of the most well-known mariachi songs that are not only playful to listen to, but also very entertaining to watch with the traditional dances and flowy dresses.
The Food: Enchiladas
We’ve been excited to make our own enchiladas for some time now, so this was the perfect excuse. The recipe we followed was a modified, vegetarian version of Binging with Babish: Enchiladas from Schitt’s Creek.
To make the recipe vegetarian, we substituted the chicken breast with a can of black beans and some frozen corn (we heated them up with some chili powder to add a little extra flavor).
We made the tortillas ourselves with masa harina from Masienda Bodega (store-bought tortillas would work fine here if you want to save a bit of time).
Making the enchilada sauce was the most time-consuming bit, but there’s no substitute for the flavor of whole dried chilis. We didn’t bother making a queso sauce; instead we just used shredded pepper jack cheese inside the enchiladas and on top. We also added some sliced avocado on the side.
The Drink: Margaritas
What’s a better companion to this dish than a margarita? We enjoyed the taste of agave, lime and tequila in this simple but tasty drink.
This is a good chance to tell you about the Suerte tequila we used. Pedro Hernandez, the master distiller, was born and raised in Atotonilco El Alto, a town and municipality in central-western Mexico. The process by which Suerte makes the tequila is very thoughtful and time-conscious. For instance, their distillation is a 17-hour process while the industry standard is 3.5 hours.
The Literature: Octavio Paz
Our search for famous Mexican poets took us to Octavio Paz who was awarded several prizes, including the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the first Mexican writer to win literature’s highest award. The New York Times discusses Paz’s long poem “Sunstone” as one of the high points of his career. Inspired by an Aztec calendar stone, the poem has 584 lines which match the 584 days it takes for Venus to complete a full cycle and be in the same place in its orbit as seen from the Earth. Here is the beginning of the poem:
Sunstone
willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:
the calm course of a star
or the spring, appearing without urgency,
water behind a stillness of closed eyelids
flowing all night and pouring out prophecies,
a single presence in the procession of waves
wave over wave until all is overlapped,
in a green sovereignty without decline
a bright hallucination of many wings
when they all open at the height of the sky […]
Full poem here.
In addition to his literary career, Paz was involved in international political affairs and was an ambassador of Mexico to India until he resigned in protest of the Mexican government’s massacre of student demonstrators in Tlatelolco.
He saw himself as a ‘’disillusioned leftist’’ because even though he harbored liberal and romantic leftist views, he openly criticized Stalin and Castro. In his book From Art to Politics: Octavio Paz and the Pursuit of Freedom Yvon Grenier, Associate Professor of Political Science, said:
“Paz was simultaneously a romantic who spurned materialism and reason, a liberal who championed freedom and democracy, a conservative who respected tradition, and a socialist who lamented the withering of fraternity and equality. An advocate of fundamental transformation in the way we see ourselves and modern society, Paz was also a promoter of incremental change, not revolution.”
I personally really enjoyed Wind, Water, Stone by Paz and this piece can bring you visions of serenity and meditation:
Wind, Water, Stone
Water hollows stone,
wind scatters water,
stone stops the wind.
Water, wind, stone.Wind carves stone,
stone’s a cup of water,
water escapes and is wind.
Stone, wind, water.Wind sings in its whirling,
water murmurs going by,
unmoving stone keeps still.
Wind, water, stone.Each is another and no other:
crossing and vanishing
through their empty names:
water, stone, wind.
The Game: Lotería
When we looked up well-known Mexican games we can play, we immediately learned about Lotería. In 2019, Google Search featured a doodle about it, helping to spread the word about the game even more. It’s basically like bingo, but with fun pictures and simple words that help you practice your Spanish. Here is what the illustrators Google hired for the doodle said about the game and their process:
Here is a printable PDF of the game with instructions and here is the Don Clemente set on Amazon. We printed two copies of each, using the first copy for our boards and the second we cut into individual cards for the deck to draw from. We got some beans to mark which cards we had on our boards as they are being called from the deck. The first person who reaches a pattern (all horizontal, all vertical, all diagonal) yells “Lotería!” and wins the round. We played a few rounds and practiced our Spanish pronunciation of fun words.
The Film: Lorena, Light-Footed Woman
We had a few options for movies to see — some classic, some more contemporary. We decided to watch the 30-minute documentary “Lorena, Light-Footed Woman” and learn about Lorena Ramírez who lives in Mexico’s countryside and almost effortlessly runs ultramarathons in her long skirt and sandals.
The film did a good job of transporting us to Mexico’s mountains and forests, roads and wildlife, and introducing us to the calm and focused spirit of Lorena. It made me daydream of a simpler life and a culture of mending, one that would have scared Huxley’s Brave New World characters because of its drive for “more stitches” and “less riches.”
The Art: Mexican masterpieces
I’ve been looking forward to spending more time on Google Arts & Culture and this was the perfect opportunity. For our purposes we decided to zoom in to Mexican masterpieces and look at the fine details of Frida Kahlo’s Still Life with Parrot and Flag and José Clemente Orozco’s Allegory of Mexico.
I actually really enjoyed looking at the paintings from home, the ability to read about the work of art and research it deeply, the unhurried freedom away from the crowds of tourists, clamoring to take a picture behind me. However, I missed the ritual of walking from painting to painting in a physical museum and the scent of the paints and their frames.
What would we do differently?
What would we do differently if we could do this again? I’d probably find a way to fit in a short dance lesson. Romina was telling us about some of the Mexican folk dances like Jarabe Tapatio that she remembers being taught at school. It would have been a fun active component to our exploration of the country from home.
Thanks for reading about our travel to Mexico from home. Hope you enjoyed it and that you’ll get to try some of these activities if you’re stuck at home like us. While a few hours dedicated to an entire country isn’t enough time to get a complete picture of its land, people, and culture, it gave us a chance to satiate our travel bug. I believe it also made us better prepared for a real visit in the future.
