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Published: July 29th 2012
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Hey readers, here is our next installment:
Wednesday we went back to school -- cooking school. Our great B&B hosts hooked us up with Carla, who runs private cooking lessons from her home in Oaxacca. First, she met us at our B&B to accompany us to the local market, just minutes away. Here, we picked up all the ingredients we needed for our lesson and admired the ones we didn't. Lots of fresh produce, probably sold by the people who grew it, along with all the extras you would expect at a market -- baked goods, grasshoppers, good things to eat.
We then drove to her home and started the lesson. We cooked an appetizer of local cheese fried in some kind of leaf (the cheese was squeaky on our teeth when we ate it, and had a consistency like soft feta), two moles, soup and a cinnamon and cane sugar syrup dessert. Yum! All washed down with local mezcal.
The next couple of days we spent in museums and churches. On Thursday, we visited the cultural museum in an old convent first built by Franciscans, then taken over by the military, now run
by the state. The convent was many hundreds of years old and has been well restored, so we got a feeling of how it might have been. Buildings here have to be built with very thick stone walls to withstand the earthquakes, so the inside of the convent is breezy and cool, and gives a nice sensation when you're looking out on sun soaked cacti.
Mexico has a pretty interesting history, especially when it comes to native groups. Not that it was all pleasant, but in modern times, they have both accpeted the Spanish influence and have also held on to their past. The festival that is going on right now is a celebration of all their different cultures and is appreciated by everyone. Even on our church tour Friday morning, we could see how pagan traditions and rituals have been embedded in Mexican Catholicism. For instance, there are pagan gods and panthers in the stonework (shh.. don't tell) and apparently when they restored some of the statues of saints they found pagan idols inside.
We snuck back to the market to visit the tamale lady (a tamale is a corn mixture which contains a tasty filling which
has all been wrapped in corn husks and steamed for a few hours), as Rob has never successfully been able to try one in Canada or the US. He was very happy.
The party continues all week in Oaxaca, including a parade. We were told that it started at 6:00 near our B&B, so when we heard all kinds of music and excitement at 5:00, we ran down, thinking we had gotten the time wrong. Nope, we had it right, but the bands and dancers are so excited to start, they practice at the starting point for a good hour before starting to parade. The music was lively, the mezacal flowing, and the costumes colourful.
Adios Amigos (until our next one)!
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