Swiss Enchiladas and Mexican "x"

[Mike Salovesh]

Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

>    Don't know if the OED wants "Mexican Rice," "Mexican Salad," "Mexican Chocolate," and such other M's.

I dunno about OED, and I'll eschew comment on "Mexican rice" and
"Mexican salad", but "Mexican Chocolate" deserves at least passing
comment.  (Actually, it could use a whole dissertation -- if and only if
it's accompanied by taste testing.)

National tastes in chocolate produce at least as many variations as the
whole gamut of possibilities that characterizes what locals mean by "rye
bread".

Each U.S. city worth mentioning has its own, remarkably unique,
definitions of the taste, texture, crustiness, color, and presence or
absence of seeds in what would be expected in the epitome of rye bread.
I've had San Francisco sourdough rye bread, with caraway seeds at that,
served in a Market Street sandwich shop's idea of a Reuben sandwich --
and Chicagoans are more dissatisfied with a quintessential New York
corned beef sandwich than Gothamites are with the Windy City's best
corned beef on rye.  Not by much, mind you. (And if the delicatessen
doesn't serve phosphates to go with the sandwich, it isn't authentic
anyway.)

National tastes in chocolate are even more disparate. They lead to
products which are so different that only their ultimate relationship to
the cacao bean unites them.  Mexicans, whose ancestors have been using
chocolate much longer than anyone else on earth, make chocolate candies
that are more distinctive of local cuisine than Mexican tortillas, while
Mexico's variety of hot chocolate puts any other attempt at that
beverage into a hopeless second place before competition even begins.

If you ever get a chance to sample chocolate freshly made in Mexico,
you'll know why "Mexican chocolate" really deserves its own entry in any
dictionary whose editors have taste buds.

-- mike salovesh                    <salovesh at niu.edu>
PEACE !!!