The versatile Medjool date livens up a variety of recipes.
I’ve always loved dates, especially the big, soft Medjools. In Mazatlán, big pyramids of them appear in the mercados as the holiday season approaches, and they’ve become one of the seasonal pleasures I look forward to each year.
Luckily for me, Medjools are the most popular date grown in Mexico, mostly in Sonora and Baja California. And while Mexico doesn’t rank very high in terms of date-producing countries, there’s enough grown to supply umpteen holiday baskets of dried fruit and nuts. Interestingly, Medjool dates are not actually a dried fruit — they’re packaged fresh as soon as they’re picked with no processing.
Over time, they’ll dry out naturally, shrinking and wrinkling like the rest of us. Store them at room temperature for a month or two, refrigerated for up to six months and in the freezer for a year. Frozen dates, by the way, make a delicious cold snack. Just remember to take the pits out before you freeze them.
Sometimes you’ll see what looks like a white powder on the skin; that’s just the date’s natural sugar rising to the surface and nothing to worry about. Datiles are 50%–68% sugar, depending on the variety.
High-fiber dates are one of the oldest known foods in the world; fossils show that date palms have existed for 50 million years! Dates were most likely brought to Mexico by the Spaniards in the 1700s.
Medjool dates may look like dried fruit, but they’re actually packed fresh.
Cheese-Stuffed Dates
A simply delicious appetizer or munchie that’s guaranteed to please.
12 Medjool dates
2 oz. blue cheese OR soft goat cheese
Optional: 2 Tbsp. pistachios (shelled), honey
Slit dates lengthwise and remove pits. Fill hollow with cheese. Crush pistachios with a rolling pin and sprinkle on top. Drizzle with honey if desired.
Pork Tenderloin with Date & Cilantro Relish
3 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
1 pork tenderloin (about 1½ lb.)
Salt and pepper
⅔ cup Medjool dates (about 4 oz.), chopped small
2 Tbsp. fresh orange juice
3 Tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro plus more for garnish
Preheat oven to 425 F. Heat 1 Tbsp. oil in large ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Season pork with salt and pepper and cook, turning, until browned all over, 6-8 minutes.
Transfer skillet to oven and cook pork 10-15 minutes, until a thermometer inserted in thickest part registers 140 F.
Transfer to a cutting board; let rest at least 5 minutes before slicing. Save pan drippings.
Toss dates, orange juice, reserved pan drippings, 3 Tbsp. chopped cilantro and remaining 2 Tbsp. oil in a small bowl; season with salt and pepper.
Spoon relish over pork and garnish with cilantro leaves.
Banana-Date Smoothie
½ cup unsweetened almond or regular milk
4 pitted dates
1 banana, preferably frozen
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
½ cup ice cubes
1/8 tsp. vanilla
Optional: 1 tsp. almond or peanut butter
In a blender, combine everything (including nut butter if using). Blend well until dates are in tiny pieces and everything is smooth.
Soak the dates first before starting on these coconut-rolled sweets.
Date, Walnut & Coconut Bourbon Balls
Leave out the bourbon for a kid-friendly version.
9 oz. pitted dates, chopped
1 cup unsweetened coconut, plus more for rolling
1½ cups walnuts, minced
¼ cup bourbon
1 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
¼ cup powdered sugar
Steep dates in 3 Tbsp. boiling water for 3 minutes. Transfer to food processor or blender; add 1 cup coconut, walnuts, bourbon, cocoa and powdered sugar and pulse until it forms a chunky mixture. Using a teaspoon, form rounded balls and roll in remaining coconut to completely coat.
Place on a baking sheet and chill until set, at least 15 minutes or overnight.
Bring to room temperature before serving.
Chocolate-Date Energy Bars
2 cups pitted Medjool dates, roughly chopped
2 cups raw cashews
1 cup raw or roasted unsalted almonds
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 Tbsp. coconut oil, melted
½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. cold espresso or strong coffee
½ tsp. salt
½ pinch cayenne pepper
Place everything in a food processor. Pulse and process about 1 minute; check to ensure mixture is moist enough to stick together. Add more coffee if needed. Continue to process until mixture becomes a chunky mass.
Line a baking sheet with parchment or plastic wrap. Scoop mixture into pan. Press down with a spatula until even. Place a layer of plastic wrap on top and smooth again with your hands.
Refrigerate until firm, 2-3 hours. Remove from pan, unwrap, and cut into bars of your preferred size. Store, refrigerated, in container or zip-top bag.
Janet Blaser has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to be able to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats is her first book.
'Welcome to Iguala,' the sign reads, but the city has not been welcoming toward journalists.
Just before 1:00 a.m. on August 2, Pablo Morrugares, a journalist and restaurateur, opened the Facebook page for his news site and began a live broadcast from the cafe he owned in Iguala, in Mexico’s southwestern Guerrero state.
A well-known local reporter, Morrugares covered crime and gangs, a beat so dangerous that Mexican authorities had placed him under the protection of a police officer, who sat by his side at the cafe.
That night’s broadcast for the outlet he founded, PM Noticias, was typical fare for the journalist: he recounted the day’s research trip to nearby Huitzuco, where locals were “super angry” about the alleged killing of a taxi driver, according to a report in Proceso newsmagazine. Morrugares suggested that a local gang, the Tlacos, were behind the incident, and that they had pressured police and taxi drivers in the city. The town, he said, was “super hot” – extremely violent.
Minutes after Morrugares ended the broadcast, unidentified gunmen entered the restaurant and opened fire on the journalist and his bodyguard. They shot more than 50 rounds before they left the café, escaping in the dark, as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented at the time. Morrugares and the police officer, Roberto Hernández, died on the spot.
Six days later, the state prosecutor’s office announced that it had arrested eight men from a safe house, including one who was carrying a gun that may have been used in the murder, reports said. The man, who was not identified in the reports, is now a suspect in the case. The CPJ was unable to determine if any charges have been brought; its calls to the state prosecutor were not returned.
Iguala journalist Pablo Morrugares was killed last August.
It’s unclear if Morrugares’ killing was linked to his final broadcast; the CPJ’s call to the Huitzuco municipality was not returned. But it’s clear that the incident has had a profound ripple effect on the local press. According to several Iguala journalists, Morrugares’ murder was a message: stop covering gang activity or pay the heaviest price.
It was a message reinforced days after the killing, when the journalists said they were added to a WhatsApp group, where people they believed to be gang members issued a barrage of fresh threats. And it was repeated on August 4, when unknown gunmen fired shots at the offices of Iguala newspaper La Tarde, according to news reports.
Today, five months after the killing of Morrugares, the threats have continued, according to six journalists who spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons. And the small community of reporters who covered organized crime in Iguala – journalists told the CPJ there were at least 15 on the beat – has dwindled and gone partly quiet.
At least four reporters have fled the city. (Two others left in the year before Morrugares’ death.) One journalist stopped covering crime altogether; another now uses only official sources. La Tarde has ceased publishing its print edition, though it still appears online, according to one reporter with knowledge of the city’s newspaper operations.
“I believe we’re in a situation of maximum alarm,” said the same journalist, who fled the city. “I’ve never before seen that they attack and harass the media the way they do now.”
Located 120 miles south Mexico City, Iguala is home to more than 140,000 people, according to the latest census. A subtropical city of abundant tamarind trees, narrow streets, and dozens of busy shops, it is known nationally as the cradle of Mexican independence after a proclamation of Mexican sovereignty was drafted there in 1821. But Iguala has earned a more sinister reputation in recent years.
The cradle of Mexican independence has also become known as the cradle of murderers.
On September 26, 2014, 43 students of a rural teaching college were abducted from Iguala and murdered by the local gang Guerreros Unidos, according to the previous government’s initial probe. Dozens of police officers and alleged gang members were arrested, but many were later released in what international observers have called a botched investigation. Iguala’s former mayor and his wife are in custody. In 2018, the then-new President López Obrador announced that he would reopen the investigation. So far, no one has been convicted.
In the years since the 2014 mass abduction, violence has not subsided; bloody warfare between rival gangs has made Iguala one of the deadliest cities in Guerrero, a state in which at least 742 people were murdered in the first six months of this year, according to the most recent data from the federal Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection.
According to an October report on news website Animal Político, the recent uptick in violence in Iguala is partly due to a split in the gang the government blamed for the 2014 kidnapping, Guerreros Unidos. Another Iguala journalist, the one who has taken the precaution of only relying on official sources in his work, confirmed this report with the CPJ. He described a turf war that started between factions when alleged Guerreros Unidos members who had been released from prison began to vie for dominance with other members in the city. Other gangs have also been involved.
“Violence has increased significantly due to the clash between organized crime groups,” that journalist said. “It didn’t used to affect us as much as it does now.”
To be sure, violence against journalists in Iguala, and in Mexico more broadly, is not a new phenomenon, as the CPJ has documented. Morrugares himself survived a 2016 attempt on his life when unknown gunmen shot at his car as he was driving with his wife, according to news reports. After that incident, the journalist fled Iguala for Mexico City. He received his bodyguard through the federal mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, a national program which provides protection measures like panic buttons, police accompaniment, and monitoring to reporters and human rights workers.
According to news reports, Morrugares had returned to Iguala under police protection just one month before his death.
Omar Bello Pineda, a journalist from Guerrero and spokesman for the Mexican Association of Displaced and Attacked Journalists, told the CPJ that Morrugares had been threatened two months before his death in a Facebook video allegedly posted by a criminal gang; his association tweeted on August 2 that Morrugares was named on a so-called “narcomanta,” a banner criminal gangs use to send messages to the public, rivals, and authorities.
The CPJ has been unable to determine what, if any, of Morrugares’ reporting may have drawn the attention of his assailants. But his death appears to have been the opening salvo in a new wave of violence and threats, local journalists said.
“After Pablo’s murder, they started threatening us. The gangs here are angry. They don’t want us to report on the things that are happening here,” said the journalist who now only uses official sources.
“The truth is that we feel very unsafe here,” he added. “I fear that they will kill another reporter.”
On October 13, Iguala journalists published a letter in their news outlets addressed to Mexico’s president, federal attorney general, the governor of Guerrero, other authorities, and human rights groups – including the CPJ – and the “Mexican people.” In it, they denounced the threats in detail and demanded protection. “Above everything, we urgently ask the security and justice authorities that they guarantee the exercise of journalism and prevent another reporter from being killed,” the letter said.
Federal authorities responded to the crisis by incorporating at least four reporters in the federal mechanism, according to an official with the program who asked to remain anonymous as he was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. All four have been relocated, he said, in addition to other protective measures.
An Iguala murder scene earlier this month.
On November 3, federal, Guerrero state, and Iguala municipal authorities met with several dozen Iguala journalists at the municipal headquarters. During the meeting, in which the CPJ participated, authorities committed to opening a permanent dialogue with local reporters and implementing protocols to guarantee the safety of reporters, such as a local office to field complaints of threats to press freedom.
The CPJ made several phone calls to Guerrero state and Iguala municipal authorities for comment, but no one picked up.
Among the threats, a third anonymous reporter told the CPJ, were messages asking if the journalists truly believed the authorities would keep them safe.
“We don’t trust the municipal authorities at all,” said that reporter, who has also fled the city. “Municipal police have often been very aggressive with journalists in Iguala. They have accused us of spying for the gangs, pointed guns at us. We’ve heard from the state authorities that they would help us before, but then they disappear and do nothing.”
The author is Mexico’s representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Americas program. He works as a correspondent for the Dutch newspaper Trouw and regularly contributes to publications including Newsweek and RTL Nieuws. He is based in Mexico City. This article originally appeared at cpj.org.
Castillo, second from right, and her associates at Human Warmth.
It’s 7:00 p.m., and Mexico City resident Jessica Castillo Zepeda and her friends Rodrigo, Paulina and Miguel are hunting the streets of Mexico City in a Jeep, looking for people less fortunate than themselves.
Castillo, who lost her job in a clothing shop earlier this year, used her savings to buy merchandise and started a clothing business in September on the internet. At the time, the entrepreneur promised herself that if she managed to survive the setback, she would give a percentage of her earnings to help others.
Now, since September, she has been making good on that promise by regularly traveling Mexico City’s streets with friends who were inspired by her example. Together they look for homeless people and offer them tortas (sandwiches) and coffee along with clothing and blankets.
But perhaps what they offer most of all on these forays is summed up by the phrase Castillo emblazons on each paper sandwich bag in black marker: “Calor Humano,” or “Human Warmth,” the name she eventually gave to her initiative to help.
“I think that the pandemic should touch everyone’s heart a bit to want to help others,” she told the newspaper El Universal. “We don’t all have the same opportunities.”
Though her personal story in 2020 is one of both resilience and generosity, Castillo might have easily ended up in the same situation as people she now helps. She is just slightly older than the age group in Mexico that has been most affected by unemployment since the start of the coronavirus pandemic — people aged 20–29. According to social security figures, nearly 345,000 Mexicans in that demographic have lost their jobs.
A survey by Iberoamerican University and UNICEF found that in 37.7% of Mexican households, one or more family members have lost a job and that one in three families have seen their incomes reduced by 50% or more.
While one might feel that Castillo has done her part to help others, she has been inspired by her success and has ambitions to expand her reach to other vulnerable groups. She and her friends continue to set aside a percentage of their incomes and plan to provide support to children with cancer and to street animals, as well as buy gifts for children from poor families who will not receive a gift on Three Kings’ Day on January 6.
“Helping people makes you want to keep moving forward,” she said.
It’s year end again so the nattering nabobs of negativism in the press and the practitioners of dismal science on economics faculties are looking back to pick past winners and forward to select future winners.
Since only the feeble minded or vaccine makers could label 2020 a good year, they’re concentrating almost exclusively on the future.
“China will be the world’s largest economy.”
“By 2026,” touts one. “By 2050,” touts another.
“Wrong” and “Wrong,” I say.
By 2050, and maybe even by 2021 it will be Mexico, joining Canada and the U.S. in the newly recognized North American union as the biggest, and more importantly the best by almost any measure, even the snowflakey Green New Deal.
Let’s talk “best” first, since only bimbos and sumo wrestlers think biggest is best.
World GDP rankings per capita, excluding the accidentally oil rich sheikdoms, place the U.S. and Canada at or near the top of the world rankings. China slinks in as No. 79. Even Mexico outperforms China by 2:1 in this key measure. So much for “Best.”
Biggest? China’s GDP is estimated at US $14.8 trillion. That of the U.S. is estimated at $20.8 trillion. Forgetting for a moment that China’s leaders say they don’t trust their own numbers, even late ballot counters couldn’t close an almost 50% gap by 2026.
So let’s focus on 2050.
The cornerstones of the forthcoming North American union have been mortared in the new USMCA trade agreement. Adding Mexico’s GDP of another trillion dollars and Canada’s $1.6 trillion to the U.S. total makes catch-up a losing chase for any contender, whether China or the splintering EU. So forget China by 2026.
But by 2050, the sky’s the limit.
Imagine a single economic entity tied together by roads and trains from Thunder Bay to Tapachula. Imagine the world’s leaders in old economy fossil fuels. Imagine limitless sunshine (sorry, Canada but you do have hydro) for the new economy based on renewables. Imagine a manufacturing sector matching abundant Mexican labor with capital rich Canada and the U.S.
Now dine on the canard of the world’s biggest economy.
Carlisle Johnson writes from his home in Guatemala.
Turtles are a popular target of wildlife traffickers.
Wildlife protection officials are blaming hard economic times brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic for skyrocketing numbers in wild animal trafficking cases in 2020, as some people may be turning to the criminal activity to survive.
Between 2019 and 2020, the number of federally protected animals seized by the environmental protection agency Profepa rose 660%, although much of that increase was due to just three large raids by the agency this year.
“In 2019, Profepa confiscated [about] 5,000 protected species, and so far in 2020, in just three [raids], the number was almost 33,000,” said Ernesto Zazueta, president of the Association of Zoos, Breeders, and Aquariums (Azcarm), who is trying to get legislation passed to increase penalties for wildlife trafficking.
In a raid on November 26 in the Iztapalapa borough of Mexico City, authorities confiscated 15,000 animals of various species, many of them protected. The animals being housed in overcrowded conditions included turtles, crocodiles, toucans, parrots and Gila monsters.
According to the newspaper Milenio, turtles are the main species being trafficked.
The sharp increase in numbers mirrors increases in animal trafficking worldwide. According to the international body Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the coronavirus pandemic’s resulting economic downturns have coincided with an increase in wild animal trafficking in communities near national parks and wild animal refuges. People are resorting to trafficking to survive, the organization said in a recent report.
“Tourism has been decimated due to travel restrictions, and thus more people that depend on it to make a living can be pushed toward illegal hunting and wild animal trafficking,” the report said.
Worldwide, studies estimate that wildlife trafficking garners US $27 billion annually, Zazueta said.
The Covid-19 pandemic has encouraged the trafficking problem in other ways as well. According to Global Initiative, traffickers in China and Laos are selling products made from rhinoceros tusks as a supposed cure for the coronavirus.
In Mexico, Zazueta said, other factors have compounded its wildlife trafficking problem: Profepa’s 2020 budget was only 75% of what it was in 2018.
“The way I see it, trafficking has also increased because much of Profepa’s budget has been taken away,” he told Milenio. “They have very few inspectors and can’t be searching for traffickers, and the traffickers know that. At times [the inspectors] don’t even have money for gasoline,” he said.
Increased animal trafficking poses more than just the risk to endangered species. It also increases the possibility of diseases jumping between animals and humans. In a report in April, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) explicitly linked the illegal wildlife trade and the threat of emerging human diseases.
“Wildlife crime endangers the health of our planet — and our own health,” UNODC executive director Ghada Waly said. “For the sake of preserving biodiversity and preventing the next public health emergency, the illegal wildlife trade must stop.”
Scene of the accident that killed five people in Puebla in 2018.
Authorities have arrested four people in connection with a 2018 helicopter crash that killed five people, including the governor of Puebla.
All four were employees of Rotor Flight Services, a company that provided maintenance to the Agusta A-109 aircraft, which crashed near the city of Puebla shortly after takeoff on Christmas Eve 2018.
Among the passengers were then-governor Martha Érika Alonso and her husband Rafael Moreno Valle, who preceded his wife as governor and was a senator at the time of the accident. Alonso had been sworn in as governor just 10 days before the accident in an election that was disputed by the Morena party, which alleged electoral fraud.
The crash raised suspicions of sabotage but a federal investigation concluded earlier this year that there was no evidence of sabotage but there were two loose screws in the rotor’s linear actuator, which caused the helicopter to roll unexpectedly.
The four suspects are under investigation for homicide and making false statements. The arrests were made in Mexico City, México state, Hidalgo and Puebla.
Dried salted cod is used in the traditional Christmas dish bacalao a la vizcaína.
I know that it’s a few days out from Christmas when my husband announces it’s time to go the market and buy dried salted cod. He can forego some Mexican traditions, but this is not one of them.
The cod is for a dish called bacalao a la vizcaína (Biscay-style cod), often just simply called bacalao. It, along with romeritos con mole (seepweed in mole sauce), are the Spanish and indigenous stars of Mexican Christmas meals. No holiday table, even one limited to immediate family during a pandemic, is complete without at least one of the two.
The dishes’ role came about during the evangelical period in Mexico. Although the sword was certainly used, the Spanish also imposed Catholicism by co-opting similar traditions and rituals. In the Aztec Empire, the birth celebrations of the god Huitzilopochtli, celebrated around the winter solstice, provided such opportunities.
This included a special midwinter feast. Like much of the Catholic world, families today in Mexico gather on Christmas Eve with the “birth” of Jesus occurring at midnight. This birth might be celebrated at Mass or at home, but in either case, it means adding an image of the infant Jesus to the home nativity scene.
Like elsewhere around the world, the dinner that accompanies this ritual is very much a family affair. One interesting note is that this feast is often repeated on New Year’s Eve in Mexico rather than going out to get drunk.
Bacalao’s Spanish green olives and capers betray the dish’s colonial roots.
In many cases, Mexican dishes evolved with a mix of Old and New World ingredients; this is not entirely the case with bacalao and romeritos. The two dishes have mostly conserved their original recipes.
Abstaining from meat is a kind of penance, but those who could afford to substituted fish because seafood was not considered meat. The demand for seafood in locales far from bodies of water drove a centuries-long industry for salted and dried cod, as well as associating this cod with holiday eating.
The Spanish brought the concept and prestige of cod with them to Mexico, and the Biscay stew recipe became the norm for the Christmas holiday. That recipe, with its use of green olives and capers, rarely found in Mexican cuisine, betrays its Spanish roots. The only modifications made since the dish’s introduction have been the inclusion of tomatoes and pickled güero chile peppers from the New World.
Romeritos con mole is the indigenous contribution to the Christmas table. The dish is very old, with a version of it documented shortly after the Conquest by historian Fray Bernardino de Sahagún. Romeritos are one of many edible greens that grow naturally in and around tilled fields. They played an important role in the diets of the indigenous and later the poor, who had little access to meat or other animal products. The mole sauce would be adopted by the Spanish, who put it on turkey and other fowl but considered romeritos nothing more than weeds.
But the dish was and is special. Firstly, the greens were associated with the birth of Huitzlopochili. In addition, it took much time and effort to grind the seeds and dried chile peppers for the mole. The dish can still be served in all its vegetarian glory, but it too has suffered some modification: there are now versions that add reconstituted dried shrimp or a kind of “meatball” of dried shrimp mixed with egg and flour.
While both dishes are traditional, bacalao holds the upper hand on the Christmas table, likely due to its historical association with the Spanish elites. Such cod is still expensive, with that fished from Norwegian waters most prized. The whitest flesh commands the highest price.
Romeritos, once an indigenous vegetarian food, is often made with shrimp now.
In fact, the demand is such that shark or even endangered fish species often masquerade as bacalao in Mexican markets. Shark impostors can be identified by their yellow flesh.
Because it is bought salted and dried, Christmas bacalao preparation must start days in advance. The fish needs to be rehydrated, but the water also needs to be changed various times to remove as much of the salt as possible.
The preparation of bacalao is almost the same everywhere it is consumed in Mexico, probably because of its strong ties to tradition, like the preparation of roast turkey in the U.S. and Canada. But one twist that has shown up in Mexico City markets is tortas de bacalao — traditionally prepared bacalao spooned into a crusty roll called a bolillo and eaten as seasonal street food. But then there is a joke that people from Mexico City will eat anything put in a bolillo.
In my opinion, both dishes are something of an acquired taste. Reconstituted cod and shrimp often have a texture that can turn people off. However, using fresh versions does not work for either recipe as the flesh would simply dissolve. Dark greens like romeritos can have a strong flavor as well. But for those who grow up with these dishes, there is no substitute.
Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico 17 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture. She publishes a blog called Creative Hands of Mexicoand her first book, Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta, was published last year. Her culture blog appears weekly on Mexico News Daily.
Security forces escort a shipment of Covid-19 vaccine traveling from Nuevo León to Coahuila.
Another 646 hospital beds in Mexico City have been occupied by Covid-19 patients since the city went red on the coronavirus risk map December 18.
As of Sunday, the situation remained critical in the capital and in México state, where occupancy of beds allocated to coronavirus patients was 86% and 78% respectively.
The two entities lead the country with the highest number of active coronavirus cases. Other states that are high on the list are Guanajuato, Nuevo León, Jalisco, Tabasco, Coahuila, Querétaro, Puebla and Hidalgo.
Together their case numbers represent 83% of the total active cases in Mexico.
As of Sunday night, accumulated cases across the country totalled 1.38 million, while the death toll was 122,426.
Coronavirus cases and deaths in Mexico as reported by day. milenio
Meanwhile, vaccination was to resume on Monday following Saturday’s arrival of another 42,900 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, three days ahead of schedule.
One shipment arrived in Monterrey, Nuevo León, destined for Coahuila, and another in Mexico City. A first shipment of 3,000 doses arrived in the capital last Wednesday.
Doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers are the first to receive the vaccinations.
Brew masters Francisco “Paco” Aureliano, left, and Michael Boudey try out a new recipe.
I live in a rustic community called Pinar de la Venta, located at the edge of the huge Primavera Forest next to the city of Guadalajara. For years my friends and neighbors have enjoyed a series of events called Jazz in the Woods: good music, good company, good food and drink, all organized by a Frenchman named Michael Boudey.
When I recently came upon an ad for a new enterprise called Beer in the Woods, I immediately suspected Boudey must be behind it and gave him a call.
“Hello, vieille branche,” what is Beer in the Woods?”
“Mon cher ami, If you want to find out what we are, come and visit our bodega in the woods, it’s just down the hill from where you live,” replied Boudey.
Well, I always thought a bodega was a warehouse, but this was something else: a cheery place with a bar and a huge screen showing video clips of local jazz bands.
Michael Boudey conducts a beer-experience workshop.
“Welcome to Beer in the Woods,” said Boudey and his partner, Francisco “Paco” Aureliano.
“We make beer here,” they told me, “but we are not a commercial brewery. Every 15 or 20 days we create a new brew and we never repeat ourselves. So we have made 70 different beers since the beginning of this year. Because we are a lab, not a commercial brewery, we never make the same beer twice. A commercial brewer is focused on volume, but we focus on creating a recipe, which means, of course, that we keep very detailed records of every new brew we create.”
So I finally understood that my friends design craft beers for restaurants, bars and hotels, tailored to their menus and to their clients.
“The owner of that restaurant or bar attends one of our workshops,” explained Boudey. “He learns by doing. He literally sweats and pees the beer that he thinks is perfect for his customers, the one that he chooses: his beer. We accompany him in every step of this process. There’s a story behind that beer he chooses: we design it, but he participates every step of the way. That beer tells his story; it expresses his gusto.”
“Just what sort of things do people learn when they attend one of your workshops?” I asked.
“Well, as you know, beer contains four ingredients: water, barley, yeast and hops. So let’s take a little look at its principal ingredient which, to be precise is called malted barley. Let me show you what that looks like.”
Club members receive six bottles of very different style beers.
Boudey then produced lots of bottles filled with barley grains of a wide range of colors from very pale, through crystal and amber to chocolate and black, encouraging me to taste their contents. I was amazed at how many different flavors my tongue was discovering. Malting, I learned, means immersing barley in water so it sprouts, but then quickly drying the barley to stop the process just after the sprouting begins.
“When barley is allowed to germinate,” said Boudey, “it turns into a super food, just like alfalfa sprouts do. As sprouts they contain all the amino acids, vitamins, minerals, and very important enzymes. In the malting process, all those benefits are preserved. Since barley responds best to malting it’s typically used in all beer making. Wheat beer, for example, contains 50% barley. Different ways of processing and toasting barley result in different flavors which may remind you of caramel or chocolate. It’s not that the beer contains these ingredients, but that it was made with barley that has been malted and toasted in a special way.”
Michael Boudey and Paco Aureliano met 22 years ago at Tec de Monterrey University in Guadalajara where they were first introduced to beer making by a fellow teacher.”We started out making it in a garrafon and had a lot of fun, but never did we suspect we’d end up where we are now.”
Years later they came up with the idea of Jazz in the Woods. “During those sessions,” Boudey told me, “we found that there was nothing more enjoyable than trying out new beers, new wines and new music with our friends. So we got together with some of those friends, bought some really fine quality beer-making equipment and started a sort of club where we could make beer and drink it while listening to great music and sharing everything together.
“This we were doing for five years, during which time Paco took courses, read books and watched hundreds of tutorials on YouTube, spoiling great quantities of beer along the way, but learning all the time. Finally he served an apprenticeship in Guadalajara.”
Here Paco Aureliano chimed in: “At the beginning of 2020, Michael and I decided it was time to move from theory to practice, not just taking notes while watching other people make beer, but actually getting our hands dirty, getting scalded from boiling water, plunging right in, and Michael said, ‘Yes, let’s do it!’”
Mexican made French cheeses for beer pairings.
“Next,” Aureliano went on, “we started holding workshops in which people would not just watch beer being made, but would actually make it themselves, a direct experience. So two people might participate and we would make three beers. It was an experience in every stage of the process; it was an exercise of exploring the mysteries of brewing. It was learning, it was tasting, it was discovery and especially: it was fun.”
I wondered, of course, just what these two entrepreneurs were doing with all that beer they were producing.
“That was no problem at all,” they told me. “We started a beer tasting club! Every two weeks we send six big bottles of beer or mead to each member of the club and these are always quite different styles of brew, perhaps India pale ale or wheat beer or stout. This is so the member and his or her friends and neighbors can always learn something new about what they have not experienced before. And it’s all about discovery.
“For example, two days ago a friend said: ‘You gave me a stout last time and I had never tried one before, so we did some experimenting at home. My wife made some brownies and oh, wow, what a great combination it turned out to be!’ So we are always trying to entice people out of whatever ‘taste rut,’ so to speak, that they have fallen into.”
The brew masters told me there are around 30 people in their club right now. The first 20 who ask for the beer-tasting kit receive their bottles on Monday and the following Saturday night participate in a Zoom session for the tasting (cata in Spanish). “We suggest foods that can accompany the beers, for example fruits, cookies, cheeses, meats, chocolates and actually any kind of food people want to experiment with.”
If you would like to join the club or participate in a craft beer workshop, just go to the Beer in the Woods website or visit their Facebook or Instagram pages.
Ivel Orozco and Alejandro Pineda of Jalisco’s Mieloro supply fine honey for Beer in the Woods’ new line of mead.
Sprouted barley grains.
The writer has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area and co-author of Outdoors in Western Mexico. More of his writing can be found on his website.
Mary Ann Humfreville didn't appear for a breakfast meeting on December 17.
Authorities in Baja California have been unable to determine what happened to a Bahía de los Ángeles woman who has been missing since December 17.
There has been no contact with Mary Ann Humfreville, 74, since she spoke by phone with her son on December 16.
On the following day she didn’t turn up for a breakfast meeting. Friends later found her home empty apart from a dog and a cat inside the house. Also missing was her red 1998 Ford F-150 pickup bearing California plates.
Humfreville was a full-time resident of Bahía de los Ángeles, a town in the municipality of San Quintín.
Anyone with information about her whereabouts is asked to call 911.
Humfreville is 5 feet, 4 inches tall, has short, gray hair and does not speak Spanish.
