★Report on Introducing Mexican Culture ” Cooking and talking session”
The
lecture introducing Mexican culture was held on Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at Midorigaoka Bunka Kaikan.
This is the second “cooking and talking session” in FY 2010, after “Korean culture” in April.
 |
The lecturer was Mr Garcia from Mexico
27 people including volunteer staff participated.
The participants were divided into 5 groups
and cooked at different tables.
They made salad with saboten (cactus) and avocado
which are popular ingredients with Mexican cuisine, home made style pork stew,
and ice cream.
|
  |
The salad was made with lettuce, parsley,
tomato, canned saboten and green chili. Mexican people eat salad simply with salt and lemon juice, but if
desired you can add olive oil, soy sauce, pepper or parmesan cheese.
Saboten is a popular Mexican plant and is sold fresh in any market. This
time we used canned saboten pickled in vinegar and salt.
|
  |
The main dish was “COCHINITA PIBIL” pork stew.
Its color is red as we added “ACHIOTE” Mexican original spice.
We put vinegar, lemon juice and orange juice in the stew, so it tasted
sour. Mr Garcia visited each table to see how it tasted. |
 |
< Pureeing avocado to make ice cream.
Mexicans often eat avocado. They even use it
for facial masks!
“Agave Syrup” which was put into the ice cream
is a Mexican natural sweeter made from the same raw material as tequila. It is gaining attention in Japan as being healthy.
|
  |
We ate “COCHINITA PIBIL” with rice and also tortillas. We put meat and
finely-chopped purple onions on a tortilla and wrapped them to eat.
A tortilla for Mexicans is just same as rice
for Japanese. Mexicans eat tortillas as principal food three meals a day, for
breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are two types of tortillas, one is made with corn, and the
other is made with flour.
Corn tortillas are the most popular in Mexico. Mr Garcia said, “Corn is
just like rice in Japan. We eat corn as principal food, we make alcoholic
beverages from corn, we make sweets from corn.”
|
 |
After cooking and eating, the lecture focused on “Family and dining habits
in Mexico.”
Mr Garcia also provided unknown facts about Mexico, for example, did you
know that “Hard taco shells exist only in U.S.A. Mexicans never eat tacos
like this. They always eat soft tortillas.”and “Chihuahua dogs came from
Chihuahua state in Mexico.” |
|