It is no secret that I love avocados, most Mexicans do! Last time I blogged about them in my fruity guacamole recipe. This time, I want to share a more traditional way of making guacamole, the way my mam and grandma would have made it and how I grew up eating it: northern style made in a big molcajete. When I'm hungry and homesick, I make a big bowl of this and eat it with tacos or with a slice of toasted sour-dough bread. It always makes me feel better.
Mexicans use avocados as Irish people use butter: everywhere! Nothing screams more Mexican than a bowl of gorgeously vibrant guacamole. Known all over the world, it has featured on Mexican tables for centuries. Believed to be an Aztec dish, guacamole is a symbol of Mexican food. It's made with Avocados, which are a lovely fruit from a tree native to Central Mexico. They are rich in vitamin B, vitamin E and vitamin K and contain over 35 percent more potassium than bananas plus a higher content of fibre.
I love beans: they're full of iron, they are healthy and fill you up. They're delicious in soups, boiled, with rice, in tostadas or tacos and of course in the classic Mexican style: refried! They are part of the staple diet of Mexican people just as much as tortillas and chillies are. I don't have any hang ups about their colour or texture, or in deed the fact that just piled on a plate, they look highly unattractive! I just like them too much for that. I try to make my refried beans as healthy as possible.
I love rice. It is an ingredient I always have in the larder. It's quick, healthy and very versatile. Growing up, my mam would have used rice as a side dish at least 3 or 4 times a week. The first rice plants arrived with the Spaniards in the 1520's and the seeds quickly took to the warm, moist climate of the States of Veracruz and Colima, both situated along the Golf of Mexico. Nowadays, rice is served on every table in Mexico, it has become part of our traditions and cuisine, so naturally, I use it a lot.
Tortillas are to Mexico what potatoes are to Ireland, the staple of our daily diet. Mexico consumes an average of six hundred and thirty million Tortillas a day! Breakfast, dinner and supper may include a few of them, so when I moved to Ireland ten years ago, the first cultural shock for me (after the weather that is) was the lack of Tortillas in my diet.
