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October 2023

Day of the Dead and Sukkot: Dead Ringers?

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

When we first were in Mexico for Day of the Dead (an autumn more than 25 years ago), we had the feeling of deja vu or, more appropriately, ya hemos visto. No, not because of the superficial similarity with Halloween. As we were escorted around a cemetery by a proud local resident who explained Day of the Dead customs and told stories about the members of his family who were interred there, we were struck by the similarities with the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Both Sukkot and Day of the Dead are autumn festivals. Both have been celebrated for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The celebration of Sukkot is described in the Torah, aka the Old Testament (OT), partial copies of which have been scientifically dated from around 500 BCE. Although Day of the Dead may not be quite as old, there’s reportedly archeological evidence that the celebration occurred centuries before the Spanish began colonizing the Americas in 1493. Both holidays should actually be called holy days since there is a deeply spiritual significance for both practices – and these holy days (two days for Day of the Dead and eight for Sukkot) are synonymous with the practices in many ancient tribal cultures of providing thanks to divine beings for that autumn’s agricultural harvest.

Both holy days involve building a relatively small temporary structure. The Day of the Dead altar, or ofrenda, has three distinct levels. The sukkah, or booth of Sukkot, is defined by three walls. The top level of the ofrenda is an open arch and the top of the sukkah must be open to the sky. The building and decorating of both structures is commonly communal and cooperative. Flowers, especially marigolds in Mexico, are generally brought from individual and community gardens to beautify the ofrenda and sukkah.

Both structures are viewed as portals through which ancestors can visit the living, or at least the living can remember and honor the memory of deceased relatives. The ofrenda, as the name implies, provides a table for holding food and drink preferred by deceased relatives along with photos of the dearly departed. The sukkah walls are traditionally decorated with pictures of ancient ancestors – Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah and Rachel – plus, in more modern times, photographs of more recent forebears. A table is set up in the sukkah where foods made from favorite recipes from previous generations are served.

Prayers and spiritual ceremonies are an important element of both Sukkot and Day of the Dead. Subsequent to the conversion to Catholicism of the indigenous people of Mexico by the Spanish conquerors, it is not surprising that Day of the Dead prayers ask for blessings on the souls of the departed in the name of Jesus Christ. But more ancient elemental spiritual Day of the Dead ceremonies focus on fire, water, earth and wind. Sukkot prayers and ceremonies also include these elements: fire in the form of candle lighting, water in prayers for rain, earth in the form of the branches of three plants (palm, myrtle, and willow) that are bound together to form a lulav and are held together with an etrog (citron), and wind created by shaking the lulav in all four directions plus up toward the heavens and down towards the earth.

At first glance, both observances appear to be grave in tenor. Day of the Dead ceremonies take place in cemeteries, both Holy Days take place at the time of year when flora and fauna are entering their dormant stage, days are growing shorter and darker, and the focus is on dead ancestors. But both Day of the Dead and Sukkot observances are joyous. In fact, Jews and everyone in their communities are literally commanded in the Torah (OT) to be happy. And, as part of the joy, both Holy Days involve storytelling, music and dancing.

Another shared practice is feasting with family and friends. Foods are distinctly ethnic but fundamentally similar. Bread is an essential component; aside from the addition of anise, Pan de Muertos (bread of the dead) resembles the challah served on Sukkot – they have virtually the same ingredients and much the same taste. At both holy feasts, it’s common to serve seasonal fruits and vegetables seasoned with sweeteners, as well as stuffed ancestral foods: kreplach (little dumplings stuffed with seasoned chopped meat) for Sukkot and tamales for Day of the Dead. Children of both cultures enjoy candied apples – albeit decorated as skulls for Day of the Dead.

Perhaps these similarities are based on the core principle of both observances – the realization that life on Earth is temporary, that one day we will all join our ancestors. And the hope in both cultures is that just as we remember those who came before us, we in turn will be remembered for good by those who come after us.

August 2023

The Inexplicable, Unaccountable, Ambiguous Taco

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

People on every continent and in essentially every major city in the world are likely to be able to tell you what a taco is, but they won’t have the same item in mind. The only taco characteristic on which everyone agrees is that a taco is a folded tortilla with some content in the middle. The nature of the tortilla and the quantity and quality of the “something in the middle” are subjects of ongoing, everlasting debate.

the etymology of the word “taco” is in dispute. Some contend that it is derived from the Aztec language, Náhautl; the Náhautl word tlahco means in the middle. Others say that in Spain taco means “light lunch.” Yet others adhere to a fanciful story of Mexican silver miners carrying their lunch meat, usually cheap offal, wrapped in a tortilla. The lunch looked like tacos – paper-wrapped plugs of gun powder used to blast open silver veins in the mine.

Which Tortilla?
No matter what etymology you accept, there are still scores of variations in what people think the tortillas look like. In Mexico, the original wrapping was probably made from white corn masa – a kind of tortilla that is still ubiquitous here. The northern Mexican states, where wheat is grown more abundantly than corn, likely introduced flour tortillas as expedient taco wrappers. Today many kinds of tortillas are used to make tacos.

Given the abundance of yellow corn north of the border, tortillas used to make tacos in the US are not white, and often are intensely colored. Flour tortillas used for tacos can be whole wheat or flavored with spinach, nopales (cactus), tomato, basil or many other vegetables. The flour used for the tortillas might even be made from ingredients other than wheat – cauliflower-flour tortillas have recently hit the market. Such tortillas are currently being produced to meet the latest diet crazes: high fiber, gluten free, keto, carb-balanced, sugar-free and so on. Of course, the original handmade white corn tortilla pretty well met all those dietary requirements.

Some say that the corn tortilla is the only type of tortilla that should be use for a taco, but there remains an international dispute about whether the corn tortilla should be soft or a crunchy shell. Soft tortillas predominate in Mexico. But thanks (or maybe, no thanks) to the American entrepreneur Glen Bell, who founded his now multinational chain of Taco Bell fast food restaurants in 1962 (he called them
“Tay-Kohs”), some people around the world think that the crunchy taco shell must be used for an authentic taco.

Although Bell reportedly claims to have invented the hard taco shell, in 1960 we were munching down tacos made with hard shells in Los Angeles, at a bar oh-so-creatively named La Cantina, before Bell switched from selling hamburgers to tacos. The shell there was filled with ground beef flavored with onions, cumin, chili powder and other spices, topped with lettuce and fresh chopped tomato salsa; liquids ran down your arm when you raised the taco shell to take a bite. That’s how you knew it was the “real deal.”

What about the Filling?

Today, when people dispute the best filling for a taco, they rarely suggest ground beef, lettuce, and tomato salsa. Nor do they generally suggest the auténtico “real deal” offal such as entrails and lungs that would have been eaten by the Mexican workers who were using the other tacos to blow up areas in silver mines.

The driving force behind nominations for the best taco filling seems to be individual and regional tastes. In coastal regions shrimp or fresh fish – batter-fried, pan-seared, or grilled – are popular, especially when topped with shredded cabbage and a special sauce, ingredients often held as top secret by the taco maker.

In states of Mexico noted for their moles, the main ingredient of the filling – the selection of chicken, beef or pork – seems less important than the sauce that coats the main ingredient – mole poblano, coloradito, verde, amarillo … pick your favorite. Cowboy or vaquero country brings out tacos filled with almost every part of the steer, including one of our favorites – lengua, aka tongue. In areas where pigs predominate, carnitas are a commonly touted filling. And, as Julie Etra pointed out in an article in The Eye (July 2020), pork prepared pastor-style on a spit is emerging as a favorite around the country.

Are Tacos Going Upscale?
Recently, the most upscale and notable restaurants are vying for the most expensive and innovative tacos. Pujol, one of the top-rated restaurants in Mexico City, has leaped into Mexican-Asian fusion tacos on a tasting menu priced at over US$300 per person and sold at a taco bar called Omakase. There you can be served tacos filled with rarified ingredients such as lobster, Brussels sprouts, and macadamia nuts. Perhaps the most expensive taco in the world is reportedly found at the Grand Velas resort in Los Cabos, where a taco presented in a gold-infused tortilla and filled with Kobe beef, caviar and truffled cheese will set you back US$25,000 (not a typo). Our son says, “This is not a taco – it is a statement.”

You need not break the bank to find a really good taco. People who are truly taco connoisseurs vote with their feet, not their credit cards. Find a taco-truck or a hole-in-the-wall taqueria with a long line of hungry patrons waiting to be served. Get on line and listen to the disputes about which of the several tacos being prepared is the best. Order the one whose description makes you salivate the most. Or order one of each type. How many should you order? The number of tacos that can satisfy one for a meal is also a matter of dispute – some say three, some say four, some say more. At a recent taco eating contest the winner swallowed 126 tacos in eight minutes. If he had been downing Grand Velas tacos, that would have set him back US$3,150,000. Everyone would probably agree that that’s excessive. Provecho!

2023, July 2023

Street Names in Mexico City

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By Jan Chaiken and Marcia Chaiken

Everywhere in Mexico you will find lengthy street names commemorating historical figures or events, and this is particularly true in Mexico City. Although the persons or occasions commemorated by the names of streets in the nation’s capitol are known to most Mexicanos, those of us who did not attend school here as children are generally clueless. Here we hope to help you get in the know about the background of street names so when sitting in gridlocked traffic you feel as if you are surrounded by history rather than just by hundreds of cars belching noxious fumes.

Nearly every tourist who has been in Mexico City is familiar with the Paseo de la Reforma, the grand wide avenue that transverses the city diagonally and looks as if part of the Champs-Élysées had been lifted up from Paris and transported here. Reforma was originally conceived by the Emperor Maximilian, an Austrian installed as the ruler of Mexico during the French intervention (1862-67); he intended to name it Paseo de la Emperatriz in honor of his wife Carlota, but it was given the name Reforma after Maximilian – who badly miscalculated Mexican sentiment towards him – was executed and Benito Juárez became President of Mexico. The name refers to La Reforma, a series of federal legislative enactments that brought about the separation of church and state in Mexico.

As you walk or drive down Paseo de la Reforma, you inevitably encounter the magnificent memorial The Angel of Independence (commonly called El Ángel) at the intersection of Reforma and Avenida Independencia. These names commemorate the 1821 victory of Mexico over Spain in its War of Independence. The Angel was dedicated by the dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1910, on the centennial of the date that independence was declared.

Another street most visitors to Mexico City encounter is Avenida de Los Insurgentes (aka Insurgentes), the longest street in the city. The 28.8-kilometer (17.9-mile) avenue runs from the southwest Mexico-Cuernavaca Highway to the northeast Mexico-Pachuca highway, connecting numerous neighborhoods, including the famous Roma area. Along this route, there are many restaurants, hotels, museums, monuments and entertainment centers. First known as Avenida Santa Cruz, the current name memorializes the people in the insurgent army that fought in the war of independence from Spain.

If you have traveled into or out of Mexico City’s Benito Juárez International Airport, you may have encountered a much less distinguished nearby street: Calzada Ignacio Zaragoza. Its namesake Zaragoza was actually born in the United States in 1829. His family moved to Mexico, where he attended the National Military College.

He served in the Mexican-American War and later was appointed commander of the Mexican Army in Puebla. In 1862 his army was victorious against the French at the battle of Puebla, an event commemorated as Cinco de Mayo, which in recent years has been celebrated, at least enthusiastically in the United States as in Mexico.

Calle 5 de Mayo (pronounced “Cinco de Mayo”) is a major thoroughfare in the historic center of Mexico City; it begins at the Palacio de Bellas Artes and ends at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City. Calle 5 de Mayo is only one of Mexico City’s many calles de calendario (streets named for dates on the calendar). Avenida Independencia changes its name to 16 de Septiembre as it approaches the historic center of Mexico City to commemorate the date of Mexican Independence. 16 de Septiembre is one block south of Calle 5 de Mayo and runs from the Eje Central, or Avenida Lázaro Cárdenas, to the Zócalo. (Cárdenas was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940; the zócalo is Mexico City’s central square, formally named Plaza de la Constitución). Residents of Mexico would be familiar with the significance of 16 de Septiembre street from their schooling and their experience that the date is a national holiday, with schools, banks and many businesses closed.

One block further south is Calle Articulo 123. This is named after Article 123 of the Mexican Constitution, which is the labor law of Mexico – it guarantees workers the right to fair wages, safe working conditions, and social security benefits. It also ends at Eje Central/Avenida Lázaro Cárdenas. Calle 20 de Noviembre runs south from the Zócalo, perpendicular to the streets already mentioned. November 20th is a national holiday in Mexico that celebrates the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, which ran from 1910 to 1920 and overthrew Porfirio Díaz after he had been president for 35 years.

The 12th of December provides an interesting example of how separation of church and state operates in Mexico. December 12 is the Feast of Guadalupe, a popular national holiday in Mexico; religious processions are held throughout country, including in the Huatulco area, on that date. In Mexico City a very popular tourist attraction is the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe. But there is no calle calendario for December 12 near the Basilica of our Lady of Guadalupe. Instead, Avenida de Guadalupe is the name of the street that ends at the Basilica. Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico, and her image is one of the best known religious symbols in the world, but secular authorities who designate street names in Mexico City do not commemorate the date December 12.

If the average visitor begins to feel overwhelmed by the details of street names rooted in Mexico’s rich history, we suggest a drive through or stroll around the Polanco neighborhood where the streets are named after luminaries enshrined in history studied in most North and South American and European schools. Beginning with ancient Greece and Rome, Homer, Horace, Aristotle and Archimedes lend their names to streets, and there are streets named after 20th-century notables such as Mahatma Gandhi. Block after block of the small Juárez neighborhood remind us that Mexico City is a major urban center of Western civilization, with streets recognizing London, Liverpool, Amsterdam, Genoa, Tokyo, Oslo, Copenhagen, Rome. And overall, Reforma, Insurgentes, and calendar streets remind us of the struggle to achieve this status.

2023, May June 2023

Memories of Music in Mexico

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

When traveling to or in Mexico, we have always appreciated the music that is ubiquitous on the streets and in buildings, and we have been alert for opportunities to attend musical performances.

Our Introduction to Mexican Music

Our first musical trips were from Los Angeles to the border town of Tijuana, when, after spending hours exploring the San Diego Zoo or another attraction north of the border, our young children would beg to cross into Baja Norte to ride on Ferris wheels, whips and other amusement rides and then feast on tacos or other food they recognized as being tastier than fare in the U.S. Each ride came with its own music, and there was always a band playing nearby with people of all ages dancing in the plazas. Our daughter, never shy, was happy to join in and was welcomed.

When our children reached the ages that involved a week or more away at summer camp or school trips, we would hop on a plane for some snorkeling in Mexico at a coastal resort. We quickly realized that the best food and music was found outside the hotel, in areas frequented by the local residents. Rather than enormous buffets for tourists, we enjoyed fresh tortillas and fish, fowl and vegetables prepared on a grill, and in lieu of blaring rock our meals were usually accompanied by a guitarist or two playing folk songs that were frequently joined by neighboring diners who sang along.

Classical Music

But our serious exploration of Mexico and its music began as empty-nesters when we had the luxury of time to spend months rather than weeks visiting different parts of the country. Although we enjoy many forms of music, classical music has long been a passion. While Mexico City is one of the best places in the world to hear classical music, virtually every other major city in Mexico feeds that passion. Almost every Mexican state sponsors a symphony orchestra that is usually excellent, beloved by the local residents and appreciated by visitors. Many play on Sunday afternoons in a central plaza or the courtyard of a government building so that three or more generations of families can attend together. Whenever we arrive in a capital city we head to Centro and find the government office of culture to learn when and where the state (or visiting) symphony orchestra is playing. Since many concerts are free and seating is by order of arrival, we plan our day around that schedule.

Another method of finding great classical music is by checking with offices in theaters or conservatories noted for hosting outstanding performances. Our go-to place in Mexico City is the Palacio de Bellas Artes (see also Carole Reedy’s article in this issue). The superb National Opera Company and the world-famous National Symphony Orchestra often perform in the large concert hall inside Bellas Artes; excellent smaller ensembles can be heard in the upstairs chamber-sized Sala Manuel Ponce. In the Sala Ponce the stage is only a few feet above the auditorium floor; we’ve had the pleasure of seeing children run up and rest their chins on the stage to watch the performance.

For examples of places in other cities: in Guadalajara we head to Teatro Degollado; in Oaxaca, Teatro Macedonio Alcalá; and in Morelia, El Conservatorio de las Rosas. Often, finding out box office hours can be a challenge in those venues. So we simply ask the usual guard at the door how we can find out about tickets for concerts – and he or she is usually obliging about steering us to the right person. The concert halls are commonly architecturally stunning, the audiences knowledgeable (no disruptive applause between movements) and the musicians world class. We have had some magical hours at concerts we’ve attended serendipitously.

In Huatulco we’ve had absolutely delightful evenings filled with music arranged by friends. Our late dear friend Carminia Magaña took a dynamic lead in Amigos de la Música de Huatulco, planning and producing concerts by exceptional musicians from all over the world. Charmed by Carminia into traveling to Huatulco, we found the Amigos concerts, most memorably the ones taking place on the ocean-front lawn of the Camino Real Zaashila, were priced low enough so that local residents could afford to attend – and Carminia, working her magic, made sure that a roster of sponsors kept the organization financially afloat. Another friend, Nancy Norris, actually built an ocean-front amphitheater at her Cuatunalco home as a venue for exceptional young local musicians playing as part of fund-raisers to support the medical and other needs of local residents.

Even Imported Musical Theater!

Although classical music is our favorite, we’ve also enjoyed musicals imported from New York City – in Spanish of course – in Mexico City. Man of La Mancha in a small theater sounded more authentic in Spanish. We loved The Lion King in the large Telcel Theater, especially because the very well-behaved children in the audience could barely suppress their excitement. And taking one of our theater-loving bilingual granddaughters to see Los Miz, also at the Telcel, was a special treat.

The enormous National Auditorium of Mexico also hosts Broadway shows (we saw an enchanting performance of Mary Poppins there) and also is one of the worldwide venues where you can see New York’s Metropolitan Opera live in HD streaming. An audience of thousands attends, and if the opera of the day is in Italian, we can almost understand the Italian by glancing at the subtitles in Spanish.

An Uninvited Audience to So Much Music

We often plan our musical events, but Mexico is so full of music that we’ve come to appreciate and even anticipate becoming part of an uninvited audience. Wandering through plazas in far flung cities and towns we’ve stumbled on rehearsals of bands and on guitarists strumming together and never felt intrusive spending time sitting nearby to listen to them. Exploring churches, we’ve parked ourselves on a pew to listen to an organist or a choir practicing for a Sunday mass. When staying in Jalisco, we’re likely to choose a restaurant more for the sound of mariachis entertaining than for the food. In Chiapas we perk up our ears at the sound of a marimba ensemble and find a place where we can enjoy them. And even at local beaches we’ve suddenly found ourselves surrounded by visitors from other Mexican cities who unabashedly start singing folk songs that, after decades of our living in Mexico, are now familiar.

For us, music is synonymous with Mexico. And the sound of a symphony often brings back memories of hearing the same refrain in many of the states in Mexico we’ve come to love.

2023, April 2023

Developing New Private Coastal Residential Communities

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

We have been watching with fascination the construction of one of the new private residential communities in Huatulco. The fence that divides this new property from our Huatulco winter rental condo is only a few feet from one of the swimming pools where we exercise for a least an hour almost every day. And the newest triplex building being constructed is just a few feet away on the other side of the fence. For several years, we’ve experienced the clearing and pounding first carried out to prepare the land before building, then the constant drone of digging and cement mixing for foundations. And currently, hammering starting early in the morning and often continuing until sundown as walls rose up around the property. We watch with awe as workmen perch precariously on the partly constructed building, spend hours bending metal rebar by hand into infrastructure, line up and toss bricks man-to-man to positions readied for laying, and build wooden sections higher and higher from the ground. We’re always impressed with the appearance of the giant concrete extruder that looks and sounds like a mechanical Tyrannosaurus rex but is obviously tamed since workmen guide the mouth to the perfect place where the beast spits just the right amount of concrete to reinforce the structure.

How Does It All Get Done? Let’s Ask Greg Glassman

Although for several years we’ve experienced this ongoing construction, we realized we had little understanding of how this development and other new private residential properties come into being. So asked one of the primary people involved in developing the next-door property, Greg Glassman, who with his partner, Engineer Fernando Gonzales, founded their construction company, PROH (pronounced “Pro”) in 2016. PROH is responsible for the ongoing development of the new community named “Amanecer” (dawn/sunrise) designed by Architect Jorge Herrera. Our outreach to Greg was hardly a “cold call.” We’ve known Greg and his wife Courtney even before they moved here from California in 2005 to start their real estate company, Resort Real Estate (now in the capable hands of Valerie Verhalen and Arianna Rollo).

Greg, who was born in Los Angeles, raised in Agoura Hills, attended college in Boulder, Colorado, and earned a BA degree from the University of California, San Diego, first came to Huatulco in 1997. At that time his father was building his dream retirement home in Conejos – it was Greg’s first taste of coastal construction. When we first arrived in Huatulco in 2001, the Glassmans were already entrenched in the community and provided a warm welcome to us, as we were among the few Americans who had also discovered paradise.

In additional to Amanecer, Greg was also instrumental in building the private residential community Montecito (near La Bocana) and also a third development called the Cove at Reco that is in its beginning stages in Tangolunda. When we asked Greg for a basic tutorial on community development, he graciously agreed to answer our very fundamental questions, realizing that we and many The Eye readers had no knowledge of what is entailed.

Development Is Collaborative

Greg made very clear his involvement in Huatulco development has been through collaborative endeavors involving realtors, investors, architects, the construction company, and subcontractors including carpenters, electricians, and plumbers. The very idea of private residential communities in Huatulco arose from realtors whose clients asked about the availability of that type of living arrangement in Huatulco. Although there were a growing number of private gated condo associations and residential areas with private homes in publicly accessible areas, unlike in the U.S. there were no gated developments of private homes here, much less with ocean views.

The idea of developing such a community appealed to a developer with whom Greg had a relatively long association. Together, Greg, that developer, and architect Diego Villaseñor developed the conceptual design, which is basically an artistic concept rather than a specific design. As in the development of other conceptual designs, the team, using graphic “mood boards” discussed and identified the characteristics of potential residents, including income level, whether they are likely to be permanent or part-time residents, the life-style that would be most appealing to them and the impact on the larger community. The graphics of possible lay-outs for the proposed community used simple circles to demarcate homes and other buildings. The concept that emerged in this case was to develop a luxury community for affluent clients who desired a unique living experience by the sea. The concept ultimately was translated into Montecito (little mountain), the “private and exclusive” gated community of large villas above La Bocana. “Montecito” echoes the name of an exclusive community near Santa Barbara, California, currently home to Prince Harry and other notables.

Site Selection

Greg said that in general when developing private residential communities, his site selection criteria include an accessible location with good existing infrastructure such as electricity and water, a size sufficient for multiple homes, a site that faces east or south to provide ideal sunlight conditions, and an ocean view that provides an interesting perspective such as lights across a bay or other natural features, rather than just endless water. He also seeks topography that allows for creative design, and likely prevents any other structure being built that would block the view. FONATUR (Fondo Nacional de Fomento al Turismo), the government agency that controls development in Huatulco, constrains site selection with its zoning and its schedule for when to release particular sites. After the collaborating team viewed a relatively large tract of land in the area of La Bocana that Fonatur was willing to sell, they agreed that the site met their criteria.

Design – Conceptual and Schematic

Although, according to Greg, it is usually best to have a conceptional design before selecting a site, sometimes an appealing tract of land becomes suddenly available, and a decision is made to purchase it before the conceptual design is finalized. The development of a conceptual design is more philosophical and artistic than nuts-and-bolts. The team develops overall concepts such as what the “pillars” and what the “soul” of the community will be. Informed by these concepts and of course considering the terrain of the site, the architect can begin formulating the layout of the community, indicating structures with circles rather than specific designs.

The next step is referred to as schematic design. The team, especially the architect, turn their attention to all the details of the homes, common areas, and circulation to be constructed. The process is not only art, but engineering as well. In Huatulco and other coastal areas developed by FONATUR, all designs must be reviewed by the agency to make sure that regulations established by FONATUR, including distance from the ocean and elevations, are in compliance. And all construction and engineering plans and documents must be reviewed by an independent agent who reports to the municipality. In addition, as north of the border, an environmental impact study (called MIA) must be submitted to and approved by SEMARNAT (Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, the oversight department in the Federal government) – a practice initially ignored in the early years of construction in coastal Oaxaca but now a regular procedure.

Construction

Once all government documents are signed, sealed and delivered, the actual construction process that neighbors can watch begins. The workmen whom we’ve watched with fascination preparing the land and building the triplex homes in Amanecer are a mix of construction teams either employed full time or subcontracted by PROH.

While some full-time construction workers live locally and go home at night, a substantial number are from relatively distant areas, including out-of-state residents, and live on the construction site. To serve their needs, PROH is responsible for providing shelter and dining facilities. And of course, the construction company is responsible for the purchase and delivery of all construction materials.The ongoing day by day supervision of the construction process is provided by one or more employees at the management level who are on site whenever work is being performed.

After construction is complete, the finishing touches of homes are left up to individual clients. However, because Huatulco has limited businesses providing furniture and other materials for creating a home from an empty house, PROH, in concert with an interior design team, provides furniture packages and other services, so that after taking possession of a unit in a new private residential community, the owner can simply walk into a fully-furnished and stocked home, relax and enjoy the view.

When asked when his job is done and he can walk away from one of the communities he’s involved in developing, Greg laughed and explained; “Building of the last Villas at Montecito is still in process, Amanecer just broke ground on 2 new buildings and the Cove at Reco has 17 new homes in the pipeline. The future of Huatulco is bright, I love what I do and don’t see myself walking away anytime soon.” We however will not be sorry to see the PROH workmen depart from constructing the building adjacent to our pool viewing area – knowing that they will be gainfully employed drilling, hammering, and tossing bricks at another developing private residential community.

2023, March 2023

Eye on the Writers of The Eye: Brooke O’Connor

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Brooke O’Connor began writing for The Eye in October 2022, and is the most recent member of the Eye staff. She stands out among the already-international Eye team as having lived in the most countries – Mexico is just her latest.

Brooke was born in Los Angeles County and was adopted when she was 4 months old. She was raised in Diamond Bar, California, near Anaheim, until she was a three-year-old. Her family moved to Salt Lake City and Brooke was educated there through high school. She spent a gap year working as a nanny in Syracuse, NY and Mountain Lakes, NJ, before matriculating in a special pre-med program at the University of Kansas, graduating with a BS degree. She decided to spend the summer before med school working in Alaska. There she met her soon-to-be husband, and her plans for further medical study were set aside in favor of marriage. Brooke and her husband lived in Squim, Washington, where they would later start their family with first child – a daughter. After several months of being a stay-at-home mother, Brooke discovered she had a talent for multi-level marketing, and marketing became her long-term career.

The young couple moved to Dublin, Ireland, when her husband’s employment required. Brooke realized that many grocery shops in Dublin were small family enterprises providing both housing and income, so she bought and ran such a shop for three years. In addition, she began coaching others in life choices and business decisions, the beginning of another long-term occupation. Her son was born during that period.

Once again following the employment of her husband, who had family ties in Italy, the family moved to a small town outside Milan. They lived in a rented wing of a castle and although the quarters were freezing during the winters, they lived there for three years until they bought a house in the area. When Brooke was divorced in 2012, she became a consultant for a Los Angeles-based company specializing in interior design and an architectural firm with clients in the Middle East. She spent nine months as their agent in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, promoting their projects.

Later she realized that she wanted her teen daughter to have opportunities that were available in the U.S. but not in Italy, so they moved to Alexandria, VA. Brooke bought and ran a limousine service there for three years. Then, to live closer to her brother, she moved to Denver where she was trained and practiced as a clinical hypnotherapist, specializing in working with people who had experienced trauma. It was in Denver that she met her current partner, Scott, and within a few weeks they decided to be a couple for life. They moved to Salt Lake City when Brooke’s mother needed assistance through an illness.

After her mother died, Brooke discussed quality-of-life challenges with Scott and began to explore places in the world where they could enjoy growing old together. After considering several places that appeared to support a lifestyle they hoped for, Huatulco rose to the top of the list … but they had never been here. After a one-month visit checking out the town, they returned to Salt Lake City, sold everything, and returned to Huatulco to a condo they bought in La Crucecita.

Today, Brooke and Scott are partners in a relatively new business called Better You Marketing. Brooke spends her free time snorkeling in our beautiful bays, writing for The Eye, and working on her memoir. She has always enjoyed baking and, like many of us, is finding baking in our environment a challenge. The culinary skill for which she’s best known is her creative breakfast skillets using leftover ingredients.

Brooke arrived shortly after our long-time Eye writer Brooke Gazer moved to Mérida in the Yucatán. We miss Brooke Gazer but are happy to have a new Brooke join us.

2023, February 2023

Thyme and Spice in Time and Space

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

One of the remarkably innovative activities that sets humans apart from our closest primate relatives is cooking our food and flavoring it with spices. According to some anthropologists, this behavior may have emerged while we were still nomadic hunters and gathers. To carry a kill to the next temporary home site, our ancestors probably wrapped the meat in leaves – and a distant relative with a fine palate realized that the meat wrapped in some leaves lasted longer and was tastier than meat wrapped in others. The former leaves became desirable and assigned a higher trading value than others. Similarly, specific flavorful roots, bulbs, berries, flowers and even pollen became prized first as enhancements for cooking and preserving and, after observation of beneficial effects, medicating.

Once humans settled down in farms, towns, and cities and developed writing and reading, one of the first uses of these newly emerged forms of communication was accounting in long-extinct languages for amounts of spices traded. Recipes using spices for preservation, including mummification, were shared; thyme was used as an ingredient over 5500 years ago in Egyptian unguents that were used to prepare bodies for the afterlife. As writing became a method of expressing religious beliefs and poetic expressions, literature produced millennia ago equated thyme and other spices with love, riches and the best of human life. The incredibly beautiful Song of Songs in the Hebrew Scriptures (aka Old Testament) mentions many spices including cinnamon and saffron.

The Song of Songs is said to have been written in the 9th century BCE, so we have evidence from that time period of the availability in the land of Israel of cinnamon native to Sri Lanka and India, and saffron from Crete, which must have made their way via the ships of ancient mariners to the Middle East. In fact, literature from China and other accounts from around Eurasia provide evidence that spices growing wild millennia ago in various parts of the known world were harvested and sold or bartered in distant lands. When given root in favorable climates far from their origin, they were cultivated and harvested for local use or became a currency of exchange.

There is also archeological evidence that in the Western hemisphere, including Mesoamerica, different species of plants from those in Eurasia were also harvested in the wild and began to be cultivated. Like the use of spices across the oceans, they were used to flavor foods, for preservation, including mummification, and for medicinal purposes. It is not surprising, then, that many millennia later, during the Age of Exploration and the Spanish invasion of Mexico and South America, one of the earliest cultural exchanges consisted of adopting Western spices in Europe and Eurasian spices in the New World.

The Spanish conquistadores were accustomed to a diet flavored with garlic, onions and, for the most wealthy, saffron. Imagine their surprise when neither garlic, large onions, nor crocus producing saffron were to be found to be growing in “New Spain,” and the small scallion-like onions were a far cry from the plump sweet vegetable growing in the Mediterranean. Instead, they found a plethora of other spices being used by indigenous civilizations. A wide variety of peppers unheard of in the Old World – ranging from sweet to extremely hot and spicy – were dried and ground and added to many dishes. Cacao, a new and addictive chocolate-tasting fruit, was used to flavor both food and drink. Tomatoes, which originated in the Andes in South America, had been brought north and were cultivated and formed the basis for many different salsas. Anise seeds added a depth to dishes and achiote seeds were “discovered” to impart a distinct flavor and an attractive deep red color to food. Herbs and flowers added while cooking included chipilin, epazote, mint, and pre-Columbian coriander (different from modern day cilantro), each contributing a delicious taste to a diet which, mainly prepared with corn, squash, and beans, could have been quite bland.

To the great delight of those living in Eurasia, tomato seeds were brought from the New World and cultivated in many parts of those continents. Today many Europeans would deny that tomatoes are not native to their countries and would claim they had always been part of their heritage. Similarly, European peppers were primarily sweet peppers, but, learning from their Mesoamerican hosts, Spanish cooks began drying and smoking a large sweet variety of red pepper and then grinding the peppers, producing what is today called Spanish paprika. And of course, chocolate produced from cacao became associated with countries far from the trees that bear the flavorful fruit (think of Switzerland).

In turn, 16th-century colonists began cultivating spices in the lands of the New World that had never grown there. Mexican thyme, which originated in Africa long before the Spanish invasion, was introduced. Cumin, originally cultivated in the Middle East, was introduced and became so ubiquitous that it almost seems synonymous with Mexican cooking – especially in US chain quasi-Mexican restaurants where it tends to be overused. Garlic and large white onions are staples in Mexican grocery stores and kitchens, although relatives of the original scallion-like onions are more flavorful and also still used.

While some of the exotic spices from distant lands could be grown in countries that took a liking to them, other plants have difficulty thriving outside their native land. Over a period of centuries, the spice trade became a highly lucrative enterprise and was dominated by large companies, such as the British East India Company, which was founded at the end of 1600 and continued to exercise a monopoly on some markets for 274 years. Around the time the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, folded, two brothers named Schilling, who had immigrated from Germany to San Francisco formed their own spice company. Shortly thereafter, Willoughby McCormick founded his spice company in Baltimore. McCormick bought out the Schilling brothers’ company in 1946. Today, McCormick is still a dominant force in the field, employing 10,000 people and selling $3.5 billion of spices annually.

As with other markets in the 21st century, spice production is global. However, the country that dominates spice production is India, providing almost 11 million tons between 2021 and 2022. We took a walk down a road in the Southern State of Kerala that was lined with shops displaying heaps of ginger and burlap bags of other spices; it was such a heady experience that we will never forget being there. India is such a prolific producer that Mexico actually imports red peppers from that part of the world. Other countries specialize in individual herbs and spices; cinnamon, so ubiquitous in Mexican cooking and baking, is often a product of Sri Lanka. But Mexico has to a small degree turned the tables; nutmeg, originally from the Banda Islands in Indonesia, is now grown in Mexico and exported primarily to the U.S. And although thyme can be grown in most places in the world, China is the world’s leading producer.

As humans emerged from hunter-gatherer groups and small agricultural units to span the globe and conquer time and space, so did thyme and other herbs and spices we so love. Perhaps when humans colonize other planets, thyme and spices will be among the first possessions brought across time and space.

2023, January 2023

Rabbit Meat: A Mexican Delicacy?

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Over forty years ago, we read about and decided to visit a family-run, highly-rated Quintana Roo restaurant in the jungle off the road from Cancun to Playa Carmen. We pulled off the road at the designated kilometer post into an area cleared for parking, and wandered down a narrow path to find a charming cottage in a clearing on the bank of a lagoon. Near the cottage was a rabbit hutch with sweet roly-poly bunnies – we thought them to be pets of the family’s children.

When we were presented with the menu and saw the offering of conejo, we were sure it must be a misspelling of cangrejo (crab), but suddenly realized that the dish was indeed conejo (rabbit), and the sweet little bunnies were not pets. Although this was the first time we saw rabbit on a menu in Mexico, it should not have come as a surprise. In France, lapin (rabbit) is a relatively common feature on menus, along with frogs’ legs and snails. And in China, we visited live animal meat markets where cages of rabbits were placed near chickens, ducks, puppies and monkeys – yes, monkeys.

So after our initial encounter, we were prepared to find rabbit on more menus in Mexico. This turned out to be a misconception. Not that we were disappointed. One of us sticks pretty closely to Jewish laws spelled out in the Hebrew Scriptures (aka Old Testament) that forbid certain animals to be eaten including pig, camel … and rabbit. There are many traditional delicious Mexican dishes made with meat from permitted animals, but the experience did raise our curiosity about the place of rabbit in Mexican cuisine.

Although a vegetarian diet has for millennia been the main form of food consumed in Mexico, rabbit, as archeologists have found, was considered a delicacy in preHispanic cuisine. In excavations around present-day Mexico City, artifacts and animal bones from a butcher shop indicated that the business specialized in selling rabbit meat. As historians have made clear, there was no need to supplement the daily diet with rabbit since the food consumed by the indigenous residents was nutritionally complete – so the supposition would be that rabbit was eaten as a special delicacy.

The same is true in Mexico today. As compared to other Latin American countries, Mexico ranks highest in percent of the population that sticks to a vegetarian diet. Nonetheless meat, especially beef, chicken or pork, is the preferred meal of the vast majority of Mexicans. Not rabbit. According to a 2022 paper in Meat Science, “The annual per capita consumption of meat in Mexico is 72.8 kg, of which 34.9 kg correspond to chicken, 20.3 kg to pork, 14.8 kg to beef, 1.3 kg to turkey, 0.8 g to sheep and goat, 0.6 g to horse, and [a minuscule] 0.1 g to rabbit.”

Part of the reason for rabbit being an uncommonly eaten source of protein may be the lack of availability. Unlike beef cattle, chickens, turkeys, pigs, goats, sheep or other sources of more commonly used meat, rabbits are not raised on large corporate farms or ranches that produce thousands of animals for food. Rabbit farms are most numerous in the central states in Mexico; but a study of the characteristics of cuniculture (rabbit-raising) in that area showed that the vast majority (87%) are either small-scale or medium-scale family farms. There are other rabbit farmers scattered around the country, especially in areas where there is a substantial foreign rabbit-eating populace, such as the Happy Rabbit Farm in Rancho Loco Chapala in the state of Jalisco. These small farms tend to produce a limited number of rabbits, sold directly for consumption; the availability of rabbit meat in butcher shops or food stores is limited.

Another barrier to a thriving market for rabbit meat may be the taste. Most people who have tried eating rabbit compare the taste to chicken – particularly chicken thighs – but comment on the gamey flavor. This may be why rabbit dishes are usually prepared with assertive spices. There are four primary ways of cooking rabbit meat in Mexico: adobo (marinated in spices including chilis), al ajillo (cooked with garlic), estofado (stewed), and fried in the same manner that chicken is fried. These dishes may be easily sampled in the small restaurants that line the highway that leads from Mexico City to Toluca. Within Mexico City in the Coyoacan area, the restaurant El Morral, specializing in “Mexican Heritage Food,” also served rabbit before the covid pandemic, but their reduced menu may no longer feature conejo.

In the interior of state of Oaxaca, a dish prepared with corn and rabbit in a mole sauce, segueza, is the preferred preparation. It is true that rabbit meat, as chicken, is nutritionally sound; low in fat and cholesterol and high in protein. Thus, the question remains: If rabbit tastes like chicken, and is prepared like chicken, why not simply use easily attainable and less expensive chicken?

But perhaps the most important factor that prevents people from hankering for rabbit stew and other dishes is the adoration developed in childhood for those cute roly-poly soft-fur bunnies that one can cuddle and stroke, along with the rabbits that are featured in children’s books. Just as children north of the border love to hear the Beatrice Potter stories of Peter Rabbit, children in Mexico hear tales of Pedrito, El Conejo Travieso (Little Pedro, the Naughty Rabbit – actually a translation of Beatrix Potter’s 1902 classic Peter Rabbit). More recently, Duncan Tonatiuh, a Mexican-American author of children’s books, has bolstered admiration of our furry friends with a new Mexican character, Pancho Rabbit.

So … although rabbits were served as a delicacy by ancient Aztecs, and a small number of Mexicans still find rabbit meat to their liking, we remain in the camp of most Mexicans who would rather pet them than eat them.

December 2022

Update on the Monarch Butterfly

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By Jan Chaiken and Marcia Chaiken

Mexico plays an important role in the life cycle of Mariposa monarca, or monarch butterfly, a species that is rapidly dwindling due to climate change. Every year monarchs migrate thousands of miles from northeastern US and Canada southward for the winter, and then northward for the summer. The southbound destination for about 70 percent of all these butterflies is in a forest between Michoacán and Estado de Mexico that has been set aside by Mexico as the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. This 56,000-hectare (140,000-acre) reserve was established in 1980, at which time the number of butterflies migrating there was estimated in the hundreds of millions, approaching a billion. This was well before any significant level of concern about climate change.

Monarchs are known to have migrated to this area since pre-Hispanic times, centuries ago. Studies of the legends of pre-Columbian indigenous people in Michoacán found descriptions of swarms of butterflies flying high overhead in November. The legends depicted them as protectors of the souls of deceased relatives who were returning for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is celebrated around the same time.

As the Climate Warms, Monarchs Disappear

The population of migratory monarchs is estimated annually by measuring the area in Mexico’s Biosphere reserve that is covered with butterflies in mid-winter. Analogous measurements are made for the western monarch butterfly, which overwinters in California, including at a reserve near our US home. A few decades ago, there were so many butterflies that the sound of their wings in the trees was like a rippling stream or a rainstorm. Now visitors or scientists have to stand quietly still and stare carefully to observe any butterflies.

The decline in the number of butterflies overwintering in Mexico has been so precipitous (estimated at up to 99 percent in this century, and currently averaging 22 percent per year) that in July 2022 monarchs were placed on the threatened species list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), meaning that they are in danger of worldwide extinction unless there is major intervention.

Climate change has impacted the migratory pattern of the monarchs, both in the US and Canada where they breed and in Mexico where they overwinter and become dormant. The temperatures where the butterflies become dormant need to stay cool enough so the butterflies’ metabolism is suppressed and they don’t need to eat nectar (which is nonexistent in the winter) to survive. As temperatures rise in the overwinter destinations, the butterflies become more active but do not have the food they need for survival.

The butterflies actually have developed an adaptation to address this problem. Researchers who take measurements annually observe that the monarchs adjust upward the elevation of resting places they choose in the forests of Mexico. However, the adaptation (around a meter upward a year) has not been adequate to counteract all effects of climate change. For example, climate change has also produced unpredictable fluctuations between too hot and too cold for the butterflies, or between too rainy and too dry.

As Habitat Disappears, So Do Monarchs

Another effect of climate change particularly important to monarchs is the gradual disappearance of milkweed in fields of the US and Canada. Milkweed plants are the only location where female monarchs lay their eggs, so their absence leads to an interruption of the reproductive purpose of the northward portion of migration. In addition to climate change’s detrimental effect on milkweed plants, grasslands containing milkweed and nectar-producing wildflowers in the areas on the butterflies’ migration routes are being converted to cornfields to produce cattle feed and to ranches where the herds can range. The more corn and cattle, the more methane produced by the cattle, the more climate change, the fewer wildflowers and milkweed plants, and thus fewer monarchs.

So what, aside from eschewing steak and hamburgers, should be done to help prevent extinction of the monarchs? The World Wildlife Foundation has a simple recommendation that can be carried out by individual families on the migratory routes. Their motto for this recommendation is “all it takes is one square foot.” By planting native local wildflowers in a garden or flower box, you can assist all kinds of pollinators – not only monarchs but bees and hummingbirds, which are also experiencing declining populations.

You may be rewarded by the sight of monarchs coming to sip nectar from your minigarden – not the erstwhile millions, but in sufficient numbers to know we haven’t entirely wiped these beautiful beings from the face of the earth.

November 2022

Carmen Boullosa

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Carmen Boullosa is one of the most prolific and thought-provoking Mexican writers of our times. Her award-winning works include 19 novels, several collections of short stories and poems, four plays and a screen play. The many historical subjects on which she focuses range from Cleopatra to Montezuma to 17th-century pirates of the Caribbean to children in contemporary Mexico. Currently, she has two homes – one in the Coyoacán district in Mexico City and one in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to her prodigious output of books and scripts she also writes a regular column for El Universal, a major newspaper in Mexico.

Boullosa was born in Mexico City on September 4, 1954. She was educated in a Catholic girls’ school there, where she became inspired to later write about themes that were forbidden or at least suppressed by her teachers, such as sensuality and feminism. She went on to study for four years (1972-76) at the far more liberal Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). There was essentially no hiatus between her academic studies and her publications, beginning an impressive stream of literary works.

After her marriage to author Alejandro Aura, domestic life seemed to stimulate Boullosa’s artistic productivity rather than hamper it. Her second novel, Antes (Before), a coming-of-age story, was published in 1989; Antes was the novel for which Boullosa was awarded Mexico’s highly prestigious Xavier Villaurrutia Award. In an interview with one of her translators, Samantha Schnee, Boullosa described a rather idyllic life as a young mother writing novels: “My earlier novels all have young girls as the main characters; in the late eighties I once said in an interview that I could never even create a male character. Back then I had two small children, lived in a beautiful house with a garden that had trees growing figs, pomegranates, and bananas … I had lots of friends and no economic problems (we owned a successful theater-bar).”

She obviously inculcated a love for theater in her children Maria and Juan. Juan is a film producer perhaps best known for his production of Rent. Maria has had roles in over a dozen films, almost a dozen plays, and numerous TV productions. However, the idyll ended when her marriage to Aura, who had been married three times before he met Boullosa, also ended in divorce.

The divorce seems to have freed her to pursue an independent academic life as well as continuing her authorship of novels and other works. In 2001 she held the Andrés Bello Chair in Latin American Cultures and Civilizations at the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University. She has also been a visiting professor at Georgetown University and San Diego State University, writer in residence for the city of Berlin, and held the Alfonso Reyes Chair at the Sorbonne in fall 2001. She was a Visiting Professor at Columbia in 2003-04 and then a Distinguished Lecturer at City College, CUNY, until 2011. Between 2004 and 2005 she received awards for the best book of poems in Mexico and the best novel in Mexico. Boullosa has traveled widely as a sought-after university lecturer who challenges students to think beyond the ordinary and normative.

Although she is perhaps best known for her depiction of women in her fiction, Boullosa has not confined herself to that genre. In 2004, she married historian and author Michael Wallace, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his history of New York City. Together in 2015, they coauthored A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War”, a controversial treatise on the roots of the drug wars in Mexico and the drug trade between Mexico and the U.S. Boullosa is also known for her art, which has been displayed in museums in New York City and Mexico City.

It is not surprising that this exceptional mundivagant woman should write about other exceptional women … both actual historical figures and fictional characters. But Boullosa’s imagination is so fertile that she can bend time and circumstance so that her women characters overcome situations that were barriers in their lives, real or fictional. Cleopatra and Anna Karenina are seen through different eyes and times. In her latest novel (El Libro de Eva, 2020, to be published in English in March 2023), she recreates the biblical book of Genesis, with its heavy overlay of masculinity, in ten chapters written from the perspective of Eve. Boullosa’s entire cast of novel characters is so engaging that from the opening lines of her books one willingly enters her worlds. Some readers are charmed, others incensed by Boullosa’s flamboyant feminism. But no one is bored.

In addition to her own work, she has fostered the work (and lives) of others. Along with Salman Rushdie, Boullasa founded the Mexico City refuge for persecuted writers. She is reportedly exploring the possibility of opening another facility for persecuted writers in New York City.

If you want to know more about Carmen Boullosa, check out the libraries at major universities for her writings in Spanish or English or the scores of essays and Ph.D. dissertations of which she is the subject. Experience the richness of this most notable Mexican author’s creativity.