A Playa del Carmen beach picnic will protest what has been called the unlawful arrest of a pair of Mexican tourists who were detained for not patronizing the beach club in front of which they had laid their towels.
Tourist police responded to a 911 call from the Mamita’s Beach Club on Sunday in which the business allegedly complained that the couple was not consuming its products.
Videos posted to social media show the couple being detained by police. The woman identified as Asenet N. can be seen in handcuffs, crying and telling officers that they are hurting her.
She and her boyfriend state in the videos that they were threatened by the police, and officers can be heard threatening the citizens filming the event. Asenet said that she was bleeding at the wrists from the officers pulling her by the handcuffs.
Facebook users from Playa del Carmen have organized a beach picnic for next Sunday to protest the incident and raise awareness about Mexican citizens’ constitutional right to access the country’s beaches.
“Bring your cooler, your umbrella and invite your family to be part of this lovely celebration of the recovery of our public beach,” the post reads. “It’s time to remind them of Article 27 of our constitution. The beaches of Mexico are public!”
Article 27 states that the country’s beaches are public land and that private companies cannot regulate people’s access to them.
In a statement posted to Facebook on Monday, Mamita’s Beach Club said that the couple was asked to move to a different part of the beach, as they were in a pathway used by the club’s guests and employees.
It said that the police were called after the couple used “high-flown and threatening words” with its staff.
The club’s management claims that the police were called “at the request of the couple” and that its personnel left the scene after the police arrived. The club alleges to be unaware of the official reason for the pair’s arrest.
The Quintana Roo Human Rights Commission announced that it has opened an investigation into the actions taken by the Tourist Police for alleged abuse of authority.
A grilling fest comes to Azcapotzalco at the end of the month.
Calling all carnivores: the first-ever Feria del Asado (Grill Fair) in the Mexico City borough of Azcapotzalco promises to be a mouthwatering feast for hungry meat lovers.
The fair will bring together over 40 grillers from across the country and abroad to share the best recipes their regions have to offer in the borough’s Alameda Norte park at the end of the month.
Fair attendees will have their pick of a wide range of grilled meats, from American cuts like sirloin, T-bone, tomahawk and ribeye to Mexican favorites like arrachera, bistec, and pork and beef short ribs.
Also sizzling on the grill will be hamburgers, fresh seafood and artisanal sausages, as well as exotic meats like crocodile, ostrich, deer and more. And for those seeking something completely different, the Argentine chefs from the catering service Pablisho Parrillero will be grilling a whole buffalo.
Vendors will be selling artisanal non-alcoholic beverages to wash it all down, and musicians will provide a soundtrack to the feast. There will also be grill accessories for sale and raffles and contests to compete in.
The event will fill Azcapotzalco’s Alameda Norte park with grill smoke from February 28 to March 1 from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. each day.
The organizers from the grill-crazy association Resistencia Parrillera decided to make entrance to the fair free so attendees can spend their money on what really matters: the meat. So bring your appetite.
Pemex has found an onshore oil field in Veracruz that could contain as many as 5 billion barrels of crude oil and natural gas.
State oil company sources told the newspaper El Universal that the mega-deposit is potentially one of the biggest oil discoveries in recent years, stating that it likely contains much larger reserves than Zama, a shallow-water field in the Gulf of Mexico that was discovered by a private consortium of companies in 2017.
The unnamed sources said that the newly discovered Kuxum field, which extends across 200 kilometers of land in the Gulf coast state, has the potential to turn around the fortunes of the heavily indebted state oil company, whose output has been on the wane for more than a decade.
Pemex is also seeking control over the Zama field, CEO Octavio Romero said in late January. He said the state oil company believes that most of the crude found is in an adjacent block where Pemex has development rights, declaring that the reservoir is “shared.”
In light of the new discoveries, the oil company sources told El Universal that Pemex’s oil production could reach 2 million barrels per day (bpd) by December 2020 – 100,000 bpd more than a prediction made by Romero last month.
Meanwhile, Italian oil company Eni announced that it has discovered a reserve in the Gulf of Mexico that is believed to contain between 200 and 300 million barrels of crude.
Located 65 kilometers off the Veracruz coast, the Saasken-1 well is the sixth consecutive well drilled by Eni that has been successful in finding oil. The well appears to have the capacity to yield 10,000 bpd of crude, the company said.
Eni, one of several foreign companies that bought drilling rights at oil and gas auctions held after the previous government ended Pemex’s almost 80-year monopoly in the sector, said in 2018 that it expected to invest almost US $1.8 billion in three Gulf of Mexico oil fields by 2040.
The body of a 7-year-old girl was found inside a bag in southern Mexico City on Saturday, authorities said on Monday, the second shocking murder of a young female in the capital in the space of a week.
The Mexico City Attorney General’s Office (FGJ) said that the body found in the borough of Tláhuac was that of Fátima, a primary school student who was kidnapped outside her school as she waited for her mother to collect her on February 11.
Prosecutors said that the body was identified by genetic testing but didn’t state the cause of death.
FGJ spokesman Ulises Lara López said that a reward of 2 million pesos (US $108,000) is on offer for information leading to the arrest of the person or people involved in the abduction and murder of the girl. A woman who was captured by security cameras with Fátima outside her school is of particular interest to investigators, he said.
Lara said that security cameras also recorded a white vehicle in which the girl may have been traveling. The vehicle traveled to an address in the borough of Xochimilco that has been searched by police, he said, adding that the FGJ has taken statements from five people who live there.
For her part, Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum pledged on Twitter that the crime will not go unpunished.
“It’s shocking, perverse and painful that someone is capable of hurting a girl,” she wrote, adding that Mexico City authorities will work tirelessly to arrest those responsible and bring them to justice.
Sheinbaum personally accompanied Fátima’s mother, María Magdalena Antón, as she completed paperwork to formally file murder charges and attended a Mexico City morgue to take possession of her daughter’s body.
“Justice has to be done, for my daughter and for all women,” Antón said with notable fury ringing in her voice.
She accused a man by the name of Alan Herrera of killing not just her daughter but also her sister and brother-in-law. In addition, Antón accused the same man of kidnapping her two nephews.
She said that she didn’t know the woman seen with her daughter outside her school but charged that she was sent to abduct her by Alan Herrera.
“He was the partner of the daughter of my husband. … He passed himself off as dead but he’s more alive than I am,” Antón said. Asked by a reporter why she believes that the man killed her daughter, she only replied: “He is the culprit.”
Antón also said that investigators had made her family wait hours and travel across Mexico City to file a missing person’s report after Fátima disappeared last Tuesday.
The Associated Press reported that the girl’s aunt, Sonia López, said that her niece “could have been found alive but nobody paid attention to us.”
She also said that there had been concerns about the capacity of Fátima’s mother to take care of her daughter but Mexico City health and family welfare agencies failed to provide assistance.
The discovery of the girl’s body came a week after the murder of 25-year-old woman Ingrid Escamilla in the northern Mexico City borough of Gustavo A. Madero. Erick Francisco Robledo, 46, confessed to stabbing Escamilla to death after which he skinned her body and removed her organs.
That case triggered outrage and a protest at the National Palace and outside the Mexico City offices of a newspaper that published images of the woman’s mutilated body that were allegedly leaked by police and/or city government officials.
After news broke of Fátima’s murder on Monday, there was another outpouring of anger and condemnation on social media, with the hashtag #JusticiaParaFátima (Justice For Fátima) trending. A protest was also held at the deceased 7-year-old’s school with parents holding up placards that read “not one more [death]” and “we demand justice for Fátima.”
Speaking at his morning news conference, President López Obrador said that the girl’s death was “regrettable” and attributed it to family and social problems.
The problem must be treated at its root in order to ensure “well-being of the soul and body,” he said.
The Bajío restaurant in Mexico City's historic center.
El Bajío is a culinary institution in Mexico City with an international reputation, started by a “simple cook” who not only made it what it is but did so while raising five children alone.
Her legal name is Carmen Hernández Oropeza but she uses her late husband’s last names, Ramírez Degollado. To friends and family, she is known as Titita. She was born in 1940 in Xalapa, Veracruz, an area filed with herbs, spices, corn and perhaps most notably, coffee.
Ramírez learned to cook the area’s regional specialities in her family home with a strong maternal presence. She insists, “I am not a chef; I am a cook.”
She had never planned on being a restaurateur. Soon after marrying the couple moved to Mexico City, where Raúl Ramírez Degollado saw a restaurant for sale in the Azcapotzalco borough northwest of the city center. It was already serving carnitas, but Raúl was from Michoacán where the dish originated, and of course he had his own recipe. The couple bought the business in 1972, and Raúl renamed the restaurant El Bajío in reference to his home region. Unfortunately, not long afterward Raúl died of cancer, leaving Carmen with the restaurant and their five children.
She not only saw that the restaurant survived but thrived, allowing her to put all of her children through school.
Bajío co-founder Carmen Rodríguez.
The menu is a mix of the Michoacán food of her husband and the northern Veracruz fare she grew up with. She kept the name of the restaurant as well as her late husband’s recipes for carnitas, but she added menu items from her native Xalapa. It wasn’t easy at first.
“Imagine,” she says. “At first we served dishes such as xonequi, a bean soup with a leaf that goes by this name that is made in Xico (Veracruz). We served it with bolitas de masa (dough balls, similar to dumplings) and people put them aside, wondering what they were.”
Another of Carmen’s contributions to the menu is chipotleneco, or salsa negra, a condiment on all tables that is specific to her family. Other signature dishes at El Bajío include mole de olla, Xico-style mole and sopa de fideo.
She hires traditional cooks, not chefs.
Spanish chef Ferran Adrià called El Bajío one of the best Mexican restaurants in the world in 2002. He was particularly impressed by her dish called “gorditas infladas” (inflated and stuffed corn tortillas), on which he based a dish he called air bags.
For many years, the El Bajío name was only on the original restaurant. But in 2006, a regular came to Ramírez offering to become a business partner and open new locations in the city. By then her children were grown and co-owners of the establishment. They agreed and the second restaurant was opened in the Parque Delta shopping center, south of the city center. The chain grew quickly to the current 19, all in Mexico City. Daughter Maricarmen and her husband run most of the locations, along with one other daughter and a son who manages the finances.
El Bajío’s menu is a mix of food from Michoacán and Veracruz.
One daughter has even gone on to establish a successful food business of her own. With Spanish chef Juan Bagur I Bagur, Maritere Ramírez Degollado opened Sal y Dulce Artesanos, a chain of coffee shops/restaurants specializing in fine pastry.
The original El Bajío still stands in the Cuitláhuac neighborhood of Azcapotzalco borough. It is an older traditional building, located in a lower middle-class neighborhood. All the other locations have the same menu and prices and base their decor on the original. However, they’re not exact copies.
All but one are located in modern business or shopping centers, catering to businessmen and more upscale customers, and as such cannot exactly mimic the hominess of the original. The one exception is the newest restaurant, located on Bolivar Street in the historic center of the city in a 19th-century neo-colonial building under the protection of federal historical authorities.
Despite this, it had been neglected and used as a warehouse for many years. To restore the building to its former glory and make it workable as a restaurant required three years of renovation work under strict supervision.
Now in her 80s, Ramírez is still active with the restaurant chain, still travels and gives lectures and demonstrations, especially about food from Veracruz. Over the years, she has been invited to places such as the James Beard House Foundation in New York, the Ritz Hotel in Lisbon, the Mana Lani Bay Hotel in Honolulu, the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, the Marriott Hotel in Kuala Lumpur and the Les Dames d’Escoffier International in Atlanta.
She’s also done consulting work with various restaurants in the United States and Europe, won various awards in Mexico and was nominated by The New York Times as one of the two matriarchs of Mexican cooking. She has written two cookbooks in Spanish.
Her advice to cooks is to “never lack love, patience and a slow fire.”
The first time I ate plantains other than as chips was in Jamaica, many moons ago. I was on a press trip, and we’d been invited to a private home to have a home-cooked dinner of traditional local dishes.
One was a sort of stew, where instead of potatoes there were chunks of plantain. Slightly sweet, with a dense potato-like texture, they added a wonderful flavor to the spicy, savory mixture of vegetables and beef. I actually couldn’t figure out what they were and asked the host, who explained they were green plantains, used instead of potatoes, which don’t grow in the island’s hot tropical climate.
Since then, and especially since moving to Mexico, I’ve had plantains (platanos machos) cooked in many ways. One of my favorites is grilled in brochettas (what we’d call shish kebabs). Here in Mazatlán, vendors sell plantains baked in rolling ovens, which they serve drowned in sweetened condensed milk. I’ll buy them plain, then take them home to add butter and a bit of salt instead.
The first thing you need to know about this starchy cousin to the banana is that it’s completely different from the yellow fruit favored by monkeys. Plantains have a much higher starch content, and so must be cooked before eating. The texture and mouth-feel is more like a slightly sticky potato.
What happens, though, is that as they ripen the starches turn into sugars, and when cooked or fried those sugars caramelize and create an even sweeter yumminess. Depending on the stage of ripeness – which you judge by the color of the skin – your finished product will be more or less sweet. Plantains start out green, go to yellow and then turn completely black.
The plantain’s stages of ripeness.
The peel is thick and hard, and not easily peel-able like a “dessert” banana. Cut off the top and bottom ends with a sharp knife, then score one section from tip to tip and pry it back carefully with the knife. Once you have one section off, the rest should come easier and you can probably just use your fingers.
Peeling gets a little easier when they’re riper but you’ll still need to start with a knife. When the skin is very yellow or really black, it comes off easily and the plantain inside is sticky, soft and sweet; when fried, they’ll have pudding-soft insides and caramelized edges.
Plantains grow all over the Caribbean, West Africa and Latin and South America. In Puerto Rico and Cuba, you find mofongo, smashed fried green plantains with garlic and fried pork skin; in the Dominican Republic’s mangú they’re part of the traditional Las Tres Golpes breakfast; and in Ghana, where plantains are called “vegetarian meat,” street vendors hawk paper cones of spicy kelewele.
Pumpkin Spice Plantain Chips
Everybody’s favorite flavor, tropical style!
2 ripe plantains
2 tsp. coconut oil, melted
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. allspice
1/8 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. sugar
Salt
Preheat oven to 375 F. Peel and slice plantains thinly. Place in bowl, add coconut oil and mix well. Stir in spices. Carefully lay plantain slices on cookie sheet lined with parchment or lightly greased. Sprinkle with salt. Cook 20-25 minutes until crispy. Watch carefully as they burn easily.
Plantain chips: pumpkin flavor tropical style.
Bacon-Wrapped Plantain Bites
2 very ripe plantains
12 oz. uncooked bacon
1-2 Tbsp. maple syrup
Preheat oven to 375 F. Line a baking sheet with foil or parchment. Peel, then slice plantains into ½-inch chunks. Cut strips of bacon in half. Wrap each plantain chunk with ½ piece of bacon. Carefully place rolls on baking sheet, seam side down. Brush each with a little maple syrup. Bake for 30-40 minutes until bacon is crispy. Stick a toothpick in each and serve. – www.ambitiouskitchen.com
Caribbean Plantain & Bean Boats
2 Tbsp. coconut oil
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup thinly sliced red onion
½ tsp. ground cumin
Salt & pepper
1 cup sweet corn
About 2 cups cooked or canned black beans
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 jalapeno, chopped
2-4 medium-ripe plantains
Preheat oven to 375 F. Without peeling, slice plantains in half longways, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. On a greased baking sheet, lay the sliced plantains, skin on, face-down. Bake for 35 minutes or until fork tender. –www.nutritionstripped.com
Meanwhile, in a small pot, cook coconut oil, garlic, and onion for about 7 minutes or till onion begins to brown. Add corn, beans, tomatoes, cumin, salt, pepper and jalapeno. Cook for 10 minutes, adjusting seasonings to taste.
Once plantains have finished baking, remove the skin. Top with bean and corn mixture, and garnish with fresh cilantro, sliced avocado and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Serve warm with rice or salad.
Cinnamon-Caramel Baked Plantains
If you like, top this easy dessert with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
2 very ripe plantains
2 Tbsp. coconut oil, melted
1-2 Tbsp. sugar or grated piloncillo
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. salt
Preheat oven to 350 F. Peel plantains and cut into rounds about ¼-inch thick. In a bowl, toss gently with coconut oil. Lightly grease a baking sheet and spread out plantains in a single layer. Combine sugar, cinnamon and salt. Sprinkle evenly over plantains. Bake for about 25 minutes, turning once. Check often to make sure they don’t burn. Remove from oven, let cool and serve warm.
Baked Plantain Cubes
Use as a taco or tostada filling, on a salad, as a garnish for chili or just as a delicious snack.
Preheat oven to 400 F. Peel and slice unripe plantains into small cubes. In a bowl, drizzle with a little olive or coconut oil. Toss to mix and transfer onto a greased baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 minutes, stirring a few times, until browned and slightly crispy.
Janet Blaser of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, has been a writer, editor and storyteller her entire life and feels fortunate to write about great food, amazing places, fascinating people and unique events. Her work has appeared in numerous travel and expat publications as well as newspapers and magazines. Her first book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, is available on Amazon. Contact Janet or read her blog at whyweleftamerica.com.
Fake honey pouring into the Mexican market is becoming a serious problem for beekeepers and honey producers in Mexico.
The 100,000 tonnes of fake honey sold in the country each year have caused the national apiculture sector to lose an estimated 10.7 billion pesos (US $576 million) annually, according to the Bee Honey Regulatory Council.
With the national consumption of 100% natural bee honey in 2018 at 26,000 tonnes, the council calculates that the ratio of fake to real honey was four to one.
Jalisco led the country in honey production in 2017 with 5,815 tonnes. Other big honey producers were Chiapas, Veracruz, Yucatán and Oaxaca.
With 80% of Jalisco’s production being exported, it’s been deemed especially important to control the quality of honey produced in the state.
In September 2018, the Mexican Organization of Livestock and Food Certification gave its seal of approval to six producers in the state for good practices in the extraction and packaging of bee honey. Jalisco thus went from having zero such certifications to being the state with the most.
Former state Rural Development Secretary Héctor Padilla Gutiérrez said in 2018 that certification was a mandatory step in regulating the quality of Mexican honey, but the process has apparently been ineffective in combating the influx of fake honey into the market.
The production cost for a liter of real honey averages around 150 pesos while fake honey can be made for around a quarter of that price.
The worst part of the situation, according to Víctor Abarca, spokesperson for the honey council, is that the consumer is usually unable to tell the difference between real and fake honey, since the texture and makeup of the two are quite similar.
“Instead of consuming a beneficial product, they are [negatively] affecting their health because of the types of sugars the honey is adulterated with,” he said.
The Mexican Association of Honey Exporters said while the crudest form of adulteration, with sugar or corn syrup, is slightly detectable, other falsifications, made with syrups from beets, rice or potatoes — usually originating from China, Vietnam or India — are more difficult to notice.
CORRECTION: Estimated losses to honey producers were incorrectly reported in the earlier version of this story, although the headline was correct. The letter “b” became an “m” in the text of the story. We regret the error.
A major restoration project is required to repair quake damage at the cathedral in the city center.
The Institute of Engineering at the National Autonomous University (UNAM) will work with a private restoration company to repair earthquake damage at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City.
Facing the central square in the capital’s historic center, the cathedral sustained serious damage in the two major earthquakes that rocked southern and central Mexico in September 2017.
The bell towers and some of the walls of the cathedral were affected by the twin quakes as was the facade of the side chapel known as the Sagrario Metropolitano. In addition, crosses that adorned the eastern tower of the cathedral broke off and three sculptures created by the Spanish architect and sculptor Manuel Tolsá were damaged.
Some minor repair and reinforcement work was carried out in late 2017 and 2018 but a major restoration project hasn’t yet been carried out for a range of reasons, among which was an administrative issue related to obtaining resources, according to Antonio Mondragón, a director of the Historic Monuments division of the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).
However, 54 million pesos (US $2.9 million) in funding is now available for the required restoration work and INAH will contract a company to collaborate with UNAM engineers in the first half of this year, Mondragón told the newspaper El Universal.
However, he conceded that the project might not actually begin for another year and estimated that the work itself could take “several more years.”
Mondragón said that specialists at the UNAM Institute of Engineering know the cathedral and the subsoil upon which it stands very well but explained that it is unable to carry out the restoration work on its own due to complex administrative and technical requirements.
“We need a company that can comply with contracts for large amounts [of money], with a consolidated technical and administrative team that can handle … such a big project,” he said.
Hundreds of historic buildings were damaged in the September 2017 earthquakes, which killed close to 500 people and rendered thousands homeless.
The federal government last year allocated 800 million pesos for the restoration of 279 important buildings in 10 states that were damaged either in the powerful 2017 quakes or the 7.2-magnitude temblor that caused damage in Oaxaca in February 2018.
Made internationally famous by Frida Kahlo’s painting of herself in the traditional dress of the region, Oaxaca’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec and its abundant multiculturalism served as the inspiration for the current exhibit at Mexico City’s Salon of Fine Arts (Salón de la Plástica Mexicana).
Inaugurated on February 13, the exhibit features over 50 photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures and objets d’art by members of the Salon and other artists, including Francisco Toledo, Rina Lazo, Mariana Yampolsky, Arturo García Bustos, Aurora Reyes, Blanca Charolet, Heriberto Rodríguez, Francisco Zúñiga, Álvaro Cortés, Helen Bickham, Roani, Salvador Pizarro and Enoc Mendoza.
Themes include women in traditional dress, fantastic animals, landscapes, and images from myths, legends and regional festivals.
Cecilia Santacruz, the director of the Salon, stated that the exhibit “… exalts the culture of the people of this region, one of the most culturally rich …” in Mexico.
Before the conquest the region was part of the Zapotec Empire which controlled important trade routes between what is now central Mexico and Central America. Today it is home to communities of Huaves, Mixes, Zapotecs, Zoques and Chontals, among others.
“The idea is to demonstrate the beauty of the region, of some of the most resilient cultures in the country, which has resisted many changes and even a (recent) earthquake. Culture that has been transmitted from generation to generation. Women and men who are proud to preserve tradition.”
Santacruz added that the exhibition also “… points to the dignity that people have through their traditions, which means a constant struggle.”
“On this occasion, the creators developed their own discourse. Some exalt the beauty of the landscape or traditional women’s garb. It includes a graphic work by the maestro Francisco Toledo that references the earthquake the region suffered and a photograph of a girl playing with a crocodile.”
Running until March 1 at the institution’s building at Colima 196, Colonia Roma, Mexico City, the exhibition is free and open to the public.
The Salon of Fine Arts is a government-sponsored society that was begun in 1949 by such artists as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Gerardo “Dr Atl” Murillo and Frida Kahlo. It has inducted over 400 members past and present, particularly among the generations of the Mexican muralism movement and the following period known as La Ruptura (“The Breakaway,” 1950-1970).
The sinkhole has become a permanent fixture in a neighborhood of Pachuca.
Residents of Pachuca, Hidalgo, are demanding government action almost five years after a sinkhole opened up in the northeastern neighborhood of Minerva.
They complained that the street remains closed and that the hole is affecting the lives and safety of over 1,000 citizens who live in the area.
Nery Silva Martínez, who has lived nearby since the ground collapsed, said that the sinkhole initially measured 12 meters in diameter and 25 meters deep.
After four and a half years of negligence, it has now grown to 40 meters in diameter and 100 meters deep.
Silva said that the sinkhole was partially repaired but the work was never finished, and the growing pit has only become more dangerous in the meantime. She and other residents have asked the government to repair the sinkhole many times but their calls have not been heeded.
The hole forces neighbors to take longer routes to avoid the hazard and blocks access to emergency services.
On February 12 state Deputy Roxana Montealegre submitted a request to Governor Omar Fayad and the mayors of Pachuca and the neighboring city of Mineral de la Reforma that the government reveal the results of a geological survey of the opening.
Having received no response, they threatened to protest outside the state claims court in Pachuca to demand that the problem be resolved.
