Sunday, November 16, 2008

Mexican Candy is Awful.

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I like spicy food, no matter how hot. As any good Mexican, I was of the idea that anything can be made to taste better if you add some chilies to it, even candy. Oh, how wrong I was.


Today, my wife and I went for a walk at the mall. We stopped for a snack at a typical snack counter, the kind that sells candy, chips, nachos, some fruit--- junk food in general. I hadn't been to one of those places in a long time, since I was a kid. I realized, we Mexicans have gone too far with our obsession for hot food. I kid you not, every single item in that store had either chili powder, or tamarind chili paste, or the most god-awful stuff there is: Lucas--- most things in the store had all three. I'm not talking about a light sprinkling either, almost everything in shop--- peanuts, apples, tamarind, pineapple, mango, Doritos, pistachio nuts--- was served completely submerged in chili sauce, usually after being thoroughly coated with Lucas or chili powder, turning into a bizarre sort of stomach-destroying soup.




[caption id="attachment_560" align="alignright" width="175" caption="We don' need your steenkin' chocolate, gringos, we got Lucas. Yes. That stuff is considered candy here."]We don' need your steenkin' chocolate, gringos, we got Lucas. Yes. That stuff is considered candy here.[/caption]

We also visited a candy shop in which every item in the shop had a chili covered version, including nuts of all kinds, hard candies, soft candies, marshmallows, dried fruit and, yes, even chocolate (even the Aztecs prepared chocolate mixing it with chili peppers instead of milk and sugar). Tamarind pulp mixed with chili was everywhere. For the love of God, tamarind is not candy. Asians have the right idea about tamarind: in Asia, people believed that the tamarind tree poisoned the air around it and that people who fell asleep under the tree would be dragged off to hell by demons.


Mexican candy is awful, it seems every time a Mexican has a snack, it's just an excuse to cram a liter of hot sauce down his throat. Candy is supposed to be sweet and soothing. Here in Mexico, most of it is hot and stings. It will burn your throat and make your eyes water. It will also contain sticky red tamarind that will stain and burn everything it touches, and will refuse to let go of your teeth until you are forced to taste every single last bit. It's usually deceiving, the very first taste of Mexican candy might be pleasant, but it quickly spreads down to your throat and up into your sinuses and refuses to go away, making its presence felt every inch of its way down your digestive tract.


There are a lot of things I love about Mexico, just not the candy. It's terrible.

8 comments:

  1. Oh my god! Tengo que planear ya la visita a México porque necesitas una sesión de suave tarta de zanahoria... ¿Cómo va todo? Vivo sin Internet y con mucho trabajo, así que estoy desconectada del mundo. ¡Un abrazo fuerte!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ey Ahmed... What about wonderful morelian candy! Seems like you already forgot your walks through the candy market in morelia... Dare you to refuse a perfect piece of ate with a tiny slice of cream cheese!
    - mexican candy defender -

    ReplyDelete
  3. I happen to grow habanero peppers in my garden. I LOVE them. I take little bites of them in front of my children to impress them. Yes. I am strange. Better natural candy than too much sugar. That's bad for the stomach too. Viva la hot sauce. (although if i was expecting sweet and got hot sauce - it would be kind of disappointing). Btw, what are those sweet rolled tortillas called? They have powdered sugar on them. I think they are really tasty. They don't have chili pepper on them, too, at that stand. Maybe the stand owners are going overboard. Perhaps terrorist actions?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Certainly you need to do more research and you don't even need to go to Mexico to see that there is lots of candy made from sugar, vanilla, coconut, nuts, etc. Its true that many people love Hot food, I am one of them, but not all the people do. When you do more resarch about the cocadas, alfajor, macarrones, palanquetas, etc, you'll see what I am talking about,I'm sure you would love to try all those wonderful, sweets.
    take care, congratulations on your openess to try different things. : )

    ReplyDelete
  5. well there are plenty of disgusting american candy also,but you don't see Mexicans or hispanic poeple making blogs about it even if they hate it.

    i have eaten very nasty american made candy. i do like Mexican candy and White people aren't use to the taste. you are use to American candy so obviously you wont like it, like many Mexicans don't like American candy.

    I've eaten some sweet good Mexican chocolate, it is not true that even chocolate has spices and stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm not "used" to American candy. I've been having the nasty Mexican stuff since I was a kid. There are all sorts of tasty sweet candy here in Mexico, but for every coconut bar and awesome chocolate, there are 10 brands of nasty caustic tamarind stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  7. the true is that just because we are mexican doesnt mean that every thing we eat has to has spice in it .

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm Asian and I love Mexican candy. I think it's just a matter of personal taste.

    ReplyDelete