Mexican Strawberry; La Mordida

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   The great Mike S. (from Chicagah) is back on the list!  For Mike and the OED, here are two Mexican "M" entries.
   I'll try to give you a Clementine Paddleford "Margarita" and "Chicago Pizza" soon.
   If he hadn't been following:  the "hot dog" war is over and the "Tad Dorgan" myth is officially dead.  However, the Chicago 1893 World's Fair "Windy City" myth forever continues.  I told the Chicago Tribune in June, then the Columbus Dispatch in July, then the Organization of News Ombudsmen, then the Chicago Tribune got it wrong again in August, then I went ballistic...

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MEXICAN STRAWBERRY

   OED can receive this help from DARE:  "See _strawberry cactus_."  There is one hit on the MOA database from the 1850s.
   From HOW AMERICA EATS, "ALBUQUERQUE: The Pink Bean," THIS WEEK, NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 6 March 1949, pg. 48, col. 2:

   SOMETHING to behold is the southwesterner's appetite for the pinto.  That's the bean called pink, called frijole, called the Mexican strawberry.

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LA MORDIDA

   From THIS WEEK, NYHT, 12 December 1948, pg. 34, col. 1:

_MEXICO'S WAR ON THE "BITE"_
_That's the Mexicans' pet name for the tradition_
_of bribery--but it no longer signifies affection._
_Now press and government are swinging into action_
(...)
   That's the bribe--or, as the Mexicans call it, _la mordida_.  Springing from the perpetual pinch of poverty, the _mordida_ has been an age-old custom so generally accepted and so widely practiced that it long ago gained the orthodoxy of an institution.