A ‘slice’ of New York in Guadalajara: meet Ben Schuder

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May 29, 2023

Slice Pizza Club in Guadalajara — Founded by an entrepreneur from California and a Mexican chef, Slice is a popular destination in Colonia Americana. (Photos by Craig Hackey)

Nestled in a quaint little square in the trendy neighborhood of Colonia Americana sits Slice, the newest addition to Guadalajara’s pizza scene. Beneath beautiful cascades of yellow cassia flowers, a long line of people are queued up to get a taste of Slice’s unique eats.

The eye is immediately drawn to a glowing red neon sign advertising the establishment as a “New York Pizza Club”, and the inviting aroma of fresh oregano and bread wafts through the air. Inside, the restaurant boasts a sleek and modern design, adorned with hardwood floors and marble accents.

Slice New York pizza club in Colonia Americana.

The nostalgic melodies of ’90s hip hop fill the space, and the walls are lined with portraits of the Empire State’s greatest rap troubadours. In a display case, patrons can glimpse the pizzas of the day while a cheery staff of young Mexican employees work expeditiously to serve piping hot pies to hungry customers.

Slice is the brainchild of Ben Schuder, an expat from Oakland, California. He’s one of the growing number of young Americans who’ve permanently relocated to Mexico, finding life south of the border more appealing.

While visiting Guadalajara during the pandemic, Schuder quickly fell in love with the Colonia Americana neighborhood. It’s easy to understand the attraction. Recently crowned “the coolest neighborhood in the world” by Time Out magazine, Colonia Americana is flush with varied gastronomy, mixology, and nightlife.

“It has a very European flair,” Ben tells me. “With all the little cafes and bistros, sometimes I feel like I’m in Paris when I’m walking down the street.”

Ben Schuder traded California for Guadalajara and opened a pizza place.

Aesthetics and cuisine aside, there were other factors that led him to settle in Guadalajara. Frustrated with the high cost of living in his native California, Ben saw Mexico as a way for him to accomplish something that felt increasingly impossible back home.

“It’s kind of ironic for me to say that I think there’s more opportunity here in Mexico than there is in the states,” Ben remarks. “So many Mexicans are trying to go to the United States for the same reason, but that’s the power of the dollar, right?”

“If I wanted to open something like Slice back home, I’d have to find a wealthy backer,” Ben continues. In Guadalajara, he was able to open a restaurant with just his savings, help from friends, and hard work.

“That’s the American dream. Right now, it feels like that dream is more attainable here in Mexico than it is in the USA,” Ben says.

Schuder and his Mexican partner have started with essentials on their menu, but look to expand.

While Mexico has always been a destination for retirees, the last few years have seen record leaps in the scale of the gringo diaspora – the number of U.S. citizens living in Mexico on a temporary or permanent basis has grown by a whopping 75% since 2019.

Much has been written about what’s driving this influx of immigrants, such as the ability to work remotely or the exorbitant prices of US real estate, but for Ben, a large part of his decision to move to Mexico was his genuine appreciation of the culture.

“I’m sure I could open a restaurant in any other country, but there’s something special about Mexico,” Ben says. “I love the people here, I love the culture, I love the music, I love the food. I’ve made so many friends and met so many amazing folks in the course of my time here. I think even if I didn’t have Slice, I’d still be living here. It feels like home to me now.”

And Mexico has taken kindly to Ben. His business partner, Rogelio Haro Quintero, is a seasoned chef and Guadalajara local who owns a micro-bakery specializing in artisanal breads and long fermentation processes. The pair met through an expat group on Facebook, where Ben hired Rogelio to make some bagels for him. They ended up becoming fast friends, and Ben eventually pitched Rogelio on his idea for Slice.

“I honestly didn’t know much about the concept at first, so, Ben showed me some videos of New York pizzerias,” Rogelio remembers. “I realized [then] that it could be a good idea, as the pizzerias we have here aren’t great.”

At first, Rogelio was a little skeptical about just offering cheese and pepperoni pizzas because he thought that locals would prefer more toppings, but they’ve had “a really good response so far,” Rogelio says. “Going forward, we both want to try to incorporate more local flavors into our pizzas. We just dropped a pizza with huitlacoche and squash blossom, for example.”

Slice pizza — Schuder says he wants his restaurant to be a place that brings everyone in the community together.

“Tacos al pastor came from shawarma, brought over to Puebla by Lebanese immigrants in the 1930s,” Rogelio tells me. “I look at what we’re trying to do with New York pizza here as a similar thing. It’s been a really fun adventure. It feels like we are doing something that we love, rather than just trying to get a business off the ground,” he adds.

A restaurant born out of friendship and cultural cross-pollination has proven to be a winning formula. I ask Ben what the future holds for Slice.

“Eventually, we’d like to franchise, but right now we’re focused on establishing ourselves in the community,” Ben says. Soon, he wants to rent out a nearby space where he can have a “pizza party” for the whole neighborhood. “I reached out to a bunch of local graffiti artists to paint some murals, and I’m looking for a local band to perform as well. I want this to be a place that brings everyone in the community together, locals and foreigners alike.”

Ben smiles, motioning at the bustling crowd lined up for pizza behind him.

“Building relationships, connecting cultures, growing your roots in a place you love…. that’s what I’m trying to do here…because that’s what life’s all about, right?”

Check out Slice on Instagram: @SlicePizzaClub and Rogelio’s Bakery: @lacocciongastronomia

Mexicans take to the streets to support the Supreme Court

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MND Staff

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May 29, 2023

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Defense of the Mexican Supreme Court march in Mexico City — Some 2,000 people marched in Mexico City alone. There were similar marches in at least 10 cities across Mexico. (Andrea Murcia Monsivais/Cuartoscuro)

Thousands of people took to the streets of cities across Mexico on Sunday to demonstrate their support for the Supreme Court (SCJN) as it comes under repeated verbal attack by President López Obrador.

Some 2,000 people marched from the Monument to the Revolution to Mexico City’s central square, the Zócalo. Some demonstrators clashed with anti-court activists outside the Supreme Court headquarters, located just off the Zócalo.

Así el tamaño de la marcha en defensa de la @SCJN pic.twitter.com/4tIqVglSN1

— Víctor Cabrera (@victorcabreramx) May 29, 2023

Mexico City protesters march toward the Zócalo in defense of the Supreme Court.

Among the other cities where pro-SCJN marches and/or demonstrations were held were Guadalajara, Monterrey, Querétaro, Morelia, Cancún, Xalapa, Oaxaca, Chihuahua and León.

“The law is the law, hands off the court,” shouted march participants in Mexico City, most of whom were dressed in white.

The demonstrations in the capital and elsewhere were a forceful denunciation of López Obrador’s frequent criticism of the SCJN, which has recently handed down rulings against the transfer of control over the National Guard from the civilian Security Ministry to the Defense Ministry, part of his electoral reform package and a 2021 presidential decree that protected government infrastructure projects from legal challenges and scrutiny.

López Obrador, who has been an outspoken critic of the judiciary since early in his presidency, has responded to the rulings by calling the Supreme Court “rotten” and asserting that it is at the service of criminals and the country’s powerful elite rather than “the people.”

Defense of Supreme Court protesters in Mexico — In Oaxaca city, protesters gathered in front of the courts to defend the SCJN’s autonomy. (Carolina Jiménez Mariscal/Cuartoscuro)

He also issued a new decree to shield certain infrastructure projects, including the Maya Train railroad, in the wake of the SCJN’s decision against his 2021 decree, which was deemed unconstitutional.

The president’s overarching goal is to overhaul Mexico’s judicial system, and as part of that plan, he intends to propose a constitutional change so that citizens are tasked with electing the country’s Supreme Court justices and other judges. The success of such a proposal hinges on the ruling Morena party and its allies winning a congressional supermajority at next year’s federal elections.

Alejandra Morán, president of the civil society organization Chalecos México and an organizer of Sunday’s march in Mexico City, told the newspaper El Financiero that it was important to defend Mexico’s judicial power as it is the “last bastion we have as citizens in the face of a possible dictatorship.”

Raúl Mendoza, a 71-year-old lawyer who marched in the capital, told the Associated Press (AP) that he and other demonstrators are “asking the justices to withstand the onslaught” from López Obrador.

defense of the National Electoral Institute in Toluca, Mexico — Sunday’s march was the latest in multiple marches since last year by activists, who say AMLO’s controversial initiatives aim to dismantle Mexico’s democracy. In February, thousands marched in various Mexican cities in defense of the National Electoral Institute (INE), another institution in the president’s sights. (Crisanta Espinosa Aguilar/Cuartoscuro)

“We need to conserve the last remaining bastion of this country. If the court falls, Mexico falls,” said Mendoza, who claimed that the president’s attacks on the SCJN are designed to distract people from Mexico’s real problems.

Business owner Cristina Velázquez told AP that the Supreme Court justices enforce laws and “don’t bend to the will” of López Obrador, and “he doesn’t like that.”

According to an AP report, a clash between pro-SCJN demonstrators and anti-court activists took place after the latter, who were camping out in front of the Supreme Court, began throwing objects at the former and insulting them.

There were scuffles between members of the two sides, and the pro-SCJN demonstrators expelled the anti-court activists from the site of their plantón, or sit-in protest. They proceeded to take down their signs, with messages disparaging justices, which had been stuck to the doors of the court building.

Mexican Supreme COurt Chief Justice Norma Pina Hernandez, left, pro-democracy march in CDMX, right. — Supreme Court Chief Justice Norma Piña, left, (whose surname in Spanish means “pineapple”) has become a symbol of the Court’s recent rulings against AMLO’s executive decrees, both for those fighting the president’s initiatives and for the president’s supporters. She was frequently invoked by both sides at Sunday’s march. (Andrea Murcia Monsivais/Cuartoscuro)

Other anti-SCJN protesters burned an effigy of Chief Justice Norma Piña — of whom López Obrador has been especially critical — at an event in the Zócalo in March at which the president spoke, and some have carried mock coffins featuring her image at marches against the court.

While demonstrators on Sunday succeeded in showing their support for the Supreme Court, a street vendor, Belén Esquivel, asserted in an interview with AP that the march in Mexico City “mobilized almost no one” compared to pro-AMLO rallies.

The president himself participated in a march last November to celebrate four years in office. That parade, which Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum reported attracted around 1.2 million people, was dubbed a contramarcha, or countermarch, because it took place two weeks after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest a proposed (but ultimately unsuccessful) electoral reform bill.

López Obrador on Monday criticized the demonstrators in Mexico City for “provoking” anti-court activists and removing the signs they had posted to the country’s top tribunal.

Work on Mexico's Maya Train in progress — Among AMLO’s initiatives that the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional include an attempt to shield public works projects like the Mayan Train, seen here, from scrutiny, as well giving control of the National Guard, a civilian police force, to the military. (Elizabeth Ruiz/Cuartoscuro)

“We have to see who they are, not to go after them, not to suppress them … [but] no one should be evicted [from their place of protest]. Everyone has the right to demonstrate,” he said.

With reports from El Financiero, AP, El País, El Universal, Milenio and Expansión

‘Black fentanyl’ blamed for overdoses in Chihuahua state

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MND Staff

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May 29, 2023

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Black fentanyl — The black fentanyl paste, also known as "black apache" is reportedly purer than other forms of the drug, warn authorities. (FGR/Twitter)

Seven people who suffered overdoses in the northern state of Chihuahua had taken an illegal substance containing fentanyl, known as “black apache” or “black fentanyl”, according to state authorities.

Three of the victims were in the city of Chihuahua, while a further four were at the border city of Ciudad Juarez. All victims are in treatment for addiction, but nothing has been released about their current condition.

Fentanyl pills — Both Mexico and the United States have struggled to crack down on the trafficking of fentanyl, which is highly potent in small doses. (CBP)

Earlier this month in Ciudad Juárez, the federal Attorney General’s Office seized an unidentified black paste which they later identified as containing fentanyl. The same substance was also discovered by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents at the El Paso, Texas border crossing.

“The raw material comes from Asia and arrives through [our] ports, [and once it is] here, [fentanyl] is clandestinely manufactured in laboratories,” State Commissioner for Attention to Addiction, Javier González told a press conference.

While little is known about this new form of the drug, health authorities in the United States have warned that the chemical composition suggests that it is a purer, and therefore more dangerous, form of fentanyl. Other forms of fentanyl that are frequently found in Mexico and the United States are distributed as blue or rainbow-colored pills.

The Public Safety Minister of Ciudad Juárez, César Muñoz Morales, said that while authorities detected its presence and distribution at the northern border, the drug was likely being produced in the states of Michoacán, Jalisco and Sinaloa.

The U.S. has been exerting increased pressure on Mexico to stymie the smuggling of fentanyl into the country, where according to the DEA, nearly 200 citizens die every day from overdoses. In April, the DEA said that the Jalisco New Generation (CJNG) and Sinaloa cartels represent the “greatest criminal threat the U.S. has ever faced.”

President López Obrador has said his government is actively working to combat illegal trafficking of fentanyl, and that the synthetic opioid is not manufactured in Mexico but rather in China, and then smuggled into the country, a claim their government has denied.

With reports from Aristegui, Excelsior and Infobae

Monterrey Tigres win 3-2 in Liga MX championship against Chivas

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MND Staff

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May 29, 2023

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Tigres holding up the trophy. — Tigres completed an incredible comeback, after falling 2-0 down in the first 20 minutes of the game. (Fernando Carranza Garcia/Cuartoscuro)

Monterrey’s Tigres have won the Mexican Liga MX title, after defeating Guadalajara — or “Chivas” as the team is more ubiquitously known — with a score of 3-2 after two games, in an enthralling comeback in Jalisco late on Sunday night.

Having avoided defeat in the first leg in Monterrey after a 0-0 draw, Guadalajara was feeling confident, heading to their home field, the Akron Stadium, in Zapopan, aiming to lift a record-equalling 13th national championship title, which would make them even with their bitter rivals, Mexico City’s Club América.

Argentina’s Guido Pizarro sent Tigres fans across the country into raptures as he capitalized on a goalmouth scramble to bury the winner late in extra time. (Edgar Negrete Lira/Cuartoscuro)

The electric atmosphere in the stadium — something for which Chivas fans are famed — reached fever pitch after Guadalajara’s Roberto Alvarado buried the opener after only 11 minutes. When Víctor Gúzman scored a second for the Jalisco side, nine minutes later, it seemed as if Chivas was well on its way to victory.

Los Tigres, however, had other ideas. Two half-time substitutions shored up the formation, with Nico López and Fernando Gorriarán providing much-needed stability for the Monterrey side. Twenty minutes into the second half, André-Pierre Gignac, a veteran of the French national team, scored a penalty to narrow the score, before a 71st-minute equalizer from Sebastián Córdova sent the game to extra time.

Córdoba’s goal came at the expense of Chivas wingback Alan Mozo, who left the striker unmarked at the far post, with devastating consequences.

Tigres piled on the pressure in extra time, before finding their reward in the game’s 110th minute, as Argentina’s Guido Pizarro smashed the ball home after a frenetic goalmouth scramble, sending Tigres’ fans into delirium and silencing a previously uproarious Akron Stadium.

A Chivas fan looks sad as Tigres win 3-2 — Chivas fans were despondent after Tigres grabbed the winning goal in extra time. (Fernando Carranza Garcia/Cuartoscuro)

The fifth goal of the game proved to be the last, as Guadalajara looked defeated, playing out the remaining 10 minutes offering little attacking threat.

Victory against Guadalajara marks Tigres’ first title since 2019, and their eighth national title overall.

With reporting by El Universal

Field trip: your neighborhood tienda

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Janet Blaser

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May 29, 2023

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corner store in Mazatlan, Mexico — Lorena has been the happy proprietress for 36 years at her little abarrotes store in Mazatlán. (Photos by Janet Blaser)

Today we introduce, “Field Trip,” a new monthly series by Janet Blaser that explores the everyday adventures of shopping in Mexico.

Need a Band-Aid? Ten pesos worth of Chihuahua cheese? One big black garbage bag for some extra clean-up?

Head to your neighborhood abarrotes store, where you’ll find all of these things — and so much more.

Inside a tienda de abarrotes — Dog kibble and eggs by the kilo, batteries, fresh-baked pan dulce, produce and cleaning supplies and much more! Your corner abarrotes store is most likely owned by someone in your neighborhood who pays close attention to what locals want.

My favorite is Lorena’s, a little tienda (mom-and-pop store) in the neighborhood where I used to live. Even if I don’t see what I’m looking for, chances are it’s back there behind the counter somewhere and Lorena knows exactly where to find it.

Queso fresco, paper towels, a baggie of home-cooked frijoles…you name it, chances are she’s got it.

And, miracle of miracles, and oh-so-convenient (and surprising!): you can buy just one. One ibuprofen or aspirin, one egg, one disposable diaper, or even one cigarette.

You might wonder what the difference is between these abarrotes stores and an OXXO, Kiosko or even a big farmacia (pharmacy). For starters, they’re privately owned, not part of a big national chain like OXXO is, and they’re often connected to the owner’s house.

A man stands in the door of a tienda de abarrotes. — Don’t be fooled by a building’s humble appearance — your local abarrotes store is a wealth of produce and products.

The people working behind the counter are usually the owners or family members, not employees, so they have a vested interest in your being a satisfied customer who will return again and again. Prices will be competitive or often lower than a bigger chain, or even the mercado (neighborhood open-air market).

They’ll also have more products and more local handmade products than those aforementioned other options. Fresh produce, delivered once or twice a week; pan dulce, tortillas and bolillos fresh every morning; tortas — either made on the spot and grilled (the best!) or, again, brought fresh every day or so from a local person making them at home.

Often small stores like this still source their goods from local producers. At Lorena’s, a dairy farmer delivers twice a week, unloading fresh cheeses and yogurt from big coolers in the back of his beat-up blue pickup. Still-warm, fresh-made corn tortillas from the tortillería a few blocks away arrive each morning too, to be wrapped in cloth towels and stored in a cooler. Where? Behind the counter, of course.

You’ll also find pay de queso, flan and bolis — plastic bags filled with agua fresca and frozen. Yes, you’ll also find the requisite bottles of Coke in every size, bags and bags of chips, commercial dairy products, canned goods and cleaning supplies.

And, when you go to pay, the counters are often overflowing with a mélange of completely unrelated items: a few fragrant, ready-to-eat mangoes, packages of flour tortillas, a couple of small containers of spicy-looking salsa roja, open bags of candy clipped shut so kids can use their pesos to buy just one of their favorites, a stack of conchas inside a big plastic bag. It’s impulse buying at its most basic!

A tienda de abarrotes — These small grocery stores are found in every neighborhood and town throughout Mexico.

One caveat is that sometimes these stores are, well, not the cleanest. Do the ceiling-high shelves full of canned goods ever get dusted? Is the scale calibrated properly? Hmmm. Look past what you can and just remember to disinfect!

Lorena offers informal credit to regulars, writing the day’s total on a tiny square of neon-colored poster board. This has come in handy when I’ve run in intending to just get a handful of cilantro but then decided I needed/wanted some tortillas, that perfectly ripe papaya on the counter, a new purple broom and — hey, why not? — one of the still-warm tamales de pollo.

She’s run the tiny, two-room store for 36 years and lives with her family in the attached house that extends out the back. She knows all the locals — her neighbors — by name and has watched many of them grow up and start their own families.

And she remembers your eating habits — that you seem to eat a lot of bananas and like to try new things, for example. It was because of Lorena that I discovered Suaves, Mazatlán’s iconic coconut marshmallows that remain an addictive favorite of mine to this day. Her tiendita (little store) is open seven days a week for more than 10 hours a day, and although sometimes her husband or daughter are behind the counter, most often it’s Lorena. She loves what she does, and it shows. When you enter, there’s always a smile on her face and a happy greeting by name.

The Mexican government’s official statistics for 2022 say there are 987,616 tiendas de abarrotes in the country. So it’s safe to say there’s an abarrotes store on almost every street corner in Mexico, in every state, city, town and pueblo, and you owe it to yourself to scout out the ones nearest you, then become a regular.

Janet Blaser is the author of the best-selling book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, featured on CNBC and MarketWatch. She has lived in Mexico since 2006. You can find her on Facebook.

US and Mexico seek WHO help with fungal meningitis outbreak

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MND Staff

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May 29, 2023

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WHO office in Geneva — The World Health Organization (headquarters in Geneva pictured) has been asked to declare a public health emergency in order to better coordinate international efforts to handle the outbreak. (WHO/Flickr)

Mexican and United States authorities have asked the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a public health emergency over a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak linked to two clinics in Matamoros, Tamaulipas.

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Friday that two people in the U.S. with probable cases of meningitis linked to the outbreak had died.

Centro Médico K3 — Centro Médico K-3 in Matamoros is one of the clinics that was shut down following the outbreak. (Clínica K-3/Facebook)

President López Obrador said Thursday that meningitis cases among people who underwent surgical procedures at the River Side Surgical Center and Clínica K-3 in Matamoros were caused by contaminated medication.

“A substance, a medication used as an anesthetic for plastic surgery, was contaminated. It was discovered that it was in a bad state,” he said.

The CDC said there were 11 probable meningitis cases in the U.S. linked to “procedures performed under epidural anesthesia” in Matamoros, 14 suspected cases and 195 people under investigation.

Both the River Side Surgical Center and Clínica K-3 were shut down by Mexican authorities on May 13.

The federal Health Ministry said Thursday that health authorities in Matamoros had identified 547 people who underwent surgical procedures at the two private clinics between Jan. 1 and May 13. It said there are five confirmed cases of fungal meningitis in Mexico, four suspected cases and five probable cases.

CDC epidemiologist Dallas Smith said Friday that Mexican and United States authorities had asked the WHO to declare a public health emergency of international concern because people in Canada and Colombia – in addition to Mexican and U.S. Citizens – were at risk of developing meningitis, an infection of the protective membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord.

“Because patients in Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Colombia were on the exposed list, we wanted to make sure these countries were aware, and provide such situational awareness, through a public health emergency of international concern,” Smith said during a webinar for scientists and medical providers.

It was unclear whether the WHO would make such a declaration, which would require a committee to first be convened.

Dr Margaret Harris WHO — Dr. Harris has said the WHO will review the request to declare a public health emergency. (United Nations News)

“[We] are notified of hundreds of events every day and assess each one,” WHO spokesperson Margaret Ann Harris told CBS news.

Most of the U.S. residents potentially exposed to meningitis are women who traveled to Matamoros to undergo procedures including liposuction, breast augmentation and Brazilian butt lifts.

Smith said that medications used in the epidural for anesthetic purposes or complementary drugs such as morphine could have been contaminated.

“There’s a shortage currently in Mexico, and there could be potential for a black market that could have contaminated medicine,” he said.

The epidemiologist said that the current meningitis outbreak is “pretty similar” to that in Durango last year that claimed 39 lives among 80 people confirmed as infected.

“It has the capacity to have this high mortality rate, and just devastate families and communities,” Smith said.

Mexico’s Health Ministry said that the confirmation of five cases of fungal meningitis in Mexico came via the detection of the fungus Fusarium solani, which also sickened patients who underwent procedures in four private hospitals in Durango last year. Most of the victims in the Durango outbreak were pregnant women who received epidurals during childbirth.

The CDC advises anyone who had epidural anesthesia at the River Side Surgical Center or Clínica K-3 between Jan 1. and May 13 to go to their nearest health care facility to be evaluated for fungal meningitis, even if they don’t currently have symptoms. MRI scans and spinal taps are commonly used to diagnose fungal meningitis, a non-contagious illness treated with anti-fungal medicines.

Symptoms of fungal meningitis include fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, and confusion, the CDC said.

“It can take weeks for symptoms to develop, and they may be very mild or absent at first,” the public health agency said.

“However, once symptoms start, they can quickly become severe and life-threatening. Early testing and treatment can save lives.”

With reports from CBS, Infobae, BBC and The New York Times

Carlomagno Pedro: the man who broke the ‘art’ ceiling

By

MND Staff

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May 27, 2023

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Sculptor Carlomagno Pedro working in his studio. — Pedro's sculptures in barro negro clay faced initial struggles to be accepted in Mexico's fine art world because of prejudices against handcrafts. (Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art)

Mexico’s handcraft tradition is so much more than eye-catching wares displayed for sale on the street. Rather, it is a testament to millennia of both history and aesthetic evolution.

Mexico’s best artisans do not simply have impeccable craftsmanship, but they are artists in their own right.

Sculptor Carlomagno Pedro's workshop in Coyotepec, Oaxaca — Various members of Pedro’s family are noted artisans, such as Adelina Pedro Martínez, pictured here at the family’s home and workshop. (Alejandro Linares García)

Artists need a nurturing environment, and the central valleys of Oaxaca certainly fit the bill. The region is home to multiple cultures, along with outstanding handcraft and fine art traditions. It also has a large cultural tourism industry, providing a perfect marketplace for creators.

Among Oaxaca’s many notable creators, Carlomagno Pedro deserves recognition for a lifetime dedicated to breaking the barrier between handcrafts and fine art.

Pedro, born in 1965, is from the town of San Bartolo Coyotepec, made famous in the mid-20th century by Rosa Real Mateo, or Doña Rosa, as she was better known.

She put the town on the map internationally, by learning to burnish the local clay to a shiny black and creating decorative objects called barro negro.

Sculpture by Carlomagno Pedro — Although his figures lack faces, Pedro’s works evoke strong emotions (Alejandro Linares García)

Born in 1965, Pedro is the son of Coyotepec potters, but rather than a biological son of the doña, he is more her artistic heir.

His name means Charlemagne, like the French emperor. Despite his grand name, Pedro is a quiet, unassuming man, happiest when he works with, and talks about clay.

I had the pleasure of meeting him for the first time in 2016 at his workshop in Coyotepec. When I told him that my students and I had created an article about him on Wikipedia, he responded “That was you? I did not know what Wikipedia was, but my grandchildren found the article and were very impressed that I was in it.”

But underneath his humble demeanor is a fire. Leading Mexican folk art expert Marta Turok recounts that he was “a precocious child,” always asking questions and learning about the culture of his region’s culture.

His early training in barro negro was traditional, although his father made (and still makes) figurines. As a child, he began to experiment with the possibilities that the clay represented, and convinced that it had potential, decided to study fine art at the Rufino Tamayo Workshop in Oaxaca city.

That training, along with his innate talent, has resulted in the interpretation of traditional themes of Oaxacan life and death in a much more nuanced way. Many of his works are skeletal figures, but these are not mere Day of the Dead decorations; they are expressions of how Pedro sees the world.

barro negro clay sculptor Carlomagno Pedro — Pedro with a skull cross mural that can be seen at the museum he directs. (Friends of Oaxacan Folk Art)

But working with clay did not open doors among Mexico’s artistic elite, certainly not early on in his career. Turok met him around this time and notes that his attempts to participate in fine arts events were rejected until the highly regarded abstract artist Manuel Felguérez chastised his fellow artists for their narrow-mindedness.

Once recognition began, the honors came quickly. By age 25, he was regularly winning awards, including the National Presidency Youth Award, and his work was praised by Francisco Toledo, a fellow Oaxacan and one of Mexico’s greatest sculptors.

In 2014, Pedro received Mexico’s highest honor for artisans, the National Arts Prize (Popular Traditions category), for his work “elevating” Zapotec and Mixtec indigenous cultures. Pedro says that winning the award vindicated all the struggles that he suffered throughout his decades as an artist.

Pedro regularly creates works for museums, fine art galleries and major art collections, but his magnum opus is a 3-by-5-meter mural for the exterior of Oaxaca’s Baseball Academy in Coyotepec, depicting the Mixtec version of the Mesoamerican ballgame, the history of Coyotepec and a portrait of Babe Ruth.

Pedro’s contributions to Oaxacan culture do not stop with pottery. When the state decided to open a folk art museum almost 20 years ago, Coyotepec was chosen as the site and Pedro as its founding (and current) director. The Museo Estatal de Arte Popular de Oaxaca has since sponsored hundreds of exhibitions, cultural events and workshops.

Although the workshop is much larger than that of his parents, it is still a simple affair — four cinder block walls and a roof under which to create the magic, using nothing but his hands and a rudimentary potter’s wheel, consisting of a plate balanced over a bowl, a Mesoamerican technique unique to the region.

Sculptor Carlomagno Pedro’s magnum opus, a tribute the role of baseball in modern Oaxacan culture at the Baseball Academy in the state capital. — Pedro’s magnum opus, a tribute the role of baseball in modern Oaxacan culture at the Baseball Academy in the state capital. (Academia de Beisbol Alfredo Harp Helú)

Turok sees Pedro’s work and legacy as invaluable to the barro negro tradition of Coyotepec.

“He portrays tradition but in a unique way, one that gives the clay a spirit, showing his fellow artisans another path, that there are many paths to develop the art form.”

Leigh Thelmadatter arrived in Mexico over 20 years ago and fell in love with the land and the culture in particular its handcrafts and art. She is the author of Mexican Cartonería: Paper, Paste and Fiesta (Schiffer 2019). Her culture column appears regularly on Mexico News Daily.

Film review: ‘¡Que viva México!’ — visceral, bleak and darkly funny

By

Sarah DeVries

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May 27, 2023

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Still from film "Que Viva Mexico!" by Luis Estrada — "¡Que Viva Mexico!" is the latest film by veteran director Luis Estrada, known for making biting satires of Mexico's government and society. (Bandidos Films)

There’s a popular and cynical joke told often in Mexico, and it goes like this:

A man goes to the market to buy some live crabs. At the first stall, he finds them stored in a tall basket with a slab of wood laid over it.

“What’s the wood for?” he asks the vendor.

“Those are gringo crabs,” the vendor replies. “They’ll climb their way out one by one if I don’t keep it covered.”

The man goes to the next stall and finds another tall basket, this one with an extra heavy slab of wood and a couple of bricks on top.

“What’s all this for?” he asks the vendor.

“These are Japanese crabs,” he says. “If I don’t keep them covered, they’ll pool all their strength and work as a team to all escape together.”

At the third stall, he finds a short crab-filled basket with no lid at all.

“Why aren’t these covered?” he asks.

“These are Mexican crabs,” says the vendor. “If one tries to get out, the others pull it right back in.”

The joke is not at all flattering. But it’s so popular that when someone refers to cangrejos mexicanos (Mexican crabs), most people know exactly what they’re referring to and nod their heads vigorously: “Oh yes, that is what we do. It really is a shame.”

Mexicans might fall all over themselves to be polite and display all the niceties they’re famous for, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that most are deeply suspicious of each other, a natural consequence of a stratified society in which so many of the ways to get ahead involve “special favors” of dubious legality.

“Cangrejos mexicanos…” my partner muttered as we watched Luis Estrada’s new film, “¡Que Viva México!” Honestly, it might as well have been the name of the movie.

The film’s a long one, clocking in at over three hours. Like all of Estrada’s films (that I’ve seen, anyway), it’s visceral, bleak and darkly funny.

I’ve been a fan of Estrada’s work for a while now, which is as easily recognizable stylistically as any movie by Quentin Tarantino. The first movie I saw of his was “La Ley de Herodes” (“Herod’s Law”), a biting critique of the PRI’s long and corrupt rule over Mexico.

The next one was “Infierno” (“Hell”), a story set during Felipe Calderón’s bloody reign. The others in the saga are “Un Mundo Maravilloso” and “La Dictadura Perfecta.” All are satire, and the same actors star in most of them.

“La Ley de Herodes” and “Infierno” in particular do a brilliant job of getting you to sympathize and root for the main character until the bitter end, even after he’s clearly become one of the “bad guys,” kind of in the same way we kept hoping Walter White of “Breaking Bad” would finally come out on top.

Estrada is a candid and creative chronicler of various Mexican “moments,” and this film was the latest in the saga. He has an innate understanding of how cultural norms play out when framed in the politics of the time and just knows how to weave a great, many-layered story.

In a lot of ways, the film itself is simply a different telling of the crab joke: everyone in the film is self-serving, jealous and hypocritical, preferring for others to fail than to share good fortune when it comes up — unless someone else is picking up the tab, of course.

Without spoiling the ending, here’s a quick synopsis: Pancho, the film’s protagonist, is a man who left his small, humble town named La Prosperidad (Prosperity) and found success in business in the big city.

When his grandfather dies, his family convinces him to travel back home for the burial and reading of the will, after he’s been away for 20 years. He does so with his wife, his two children and their housekeeper/cook/nanny/generally abused and oft-insulted servant in tow.

The impoverished town, made up almost exclusively of Pancho’s family, is full of colorful, dirt-poor, ethically questionable characters (“caricatures” is more like it, actually). When the will is finally read and Pancho learns he’s inherited the entirety of his grandfather’s much-greater-than-expected estate, pandemonium ensues, ultimately leading to the kind of ending typical in a Luis Estrada film.

The movie is not flattering to anyone. Nobody is morally righteous, and many of the scenes seem tailor-made to elicit feelings of disgust and contempt for all these foolish and selfish humans. Who’s worse: the ones pretending to be good people or the openly self-interested ones? It is truly hard to decide which character to hate the most.

It’s not flattering to the upper-class bourgeois couple (portrayed by Alfonso Herrera and Ana de la Reguera), and it’s not flattering to the husband’s poor relatives.

And it’s certainly not flattering to AMLO and his “Fourth Transformation.”

The film borrows much of the president’s own rhetoric: the couple are accused several times of being fifis (a derogatory term for elites), and the extended family often refer to themselves as “the wise and good poor.”

AMLO himself — the real one — was not amused by the film, calling it a flop made for “conservative consumption.” This is not surprising, of course, as he’s well-known for taking criticism very personally.

And while Estrada’s previous films were all at least partially financed by the very governments he was satirizing, that support was predictably withheld for this one as this presidential administration has stopped supporting the Mexican film industry in general.

In “¡Que Viva México!,” no one is morally upstanding: it’s all villains and no heroes, soliciting, for the most part, only the most cynical of laughs. Like I said, bleak.

That said, I highly recommend it. Aside from being a great film, it’s a brilliant, absurd distillation of some big aspects of the culture.

Estrada, for his part, seems fine with the criticism he’s received as a result, even from the president.

“If you dish it out, you’ve got to be able to take it too,” he says.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com

Dragon fruit and pitaya: pretty outside, delicious inside

By

Janet Blaser

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May 27, 2023

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Pitaya is unusual in almost every way, from how it grows to what the fruit looks like and how it tastes. — Exotic dragon fruit, or pitaya, will be the talk of the table, however it’s served!

Even after so many years, I still love going to the mercado and wandering the aisles looking at everything and everyone. There are a handful of vendors I shop with regularly, and they smile and wave when they see me or hold up something new or different they think I might be interested in.

Such was the case with dragon fruit. Of the several varieties available, the torpedo-shaped type with bright red and neon green “scales” are the most exotic looking. The scaled skin can also be luminous yellow-gold or matte red, and each kind will taste slightly different. In some parts of Mexico, pitaya, another variety, is more common, and although it tastes similar, it is rounder in shape, comes in a rainbow of colors inside and out and is covered with spiky spines that are usually removed before they go to market.

Turns out they are deliciously edible, and you owe it to yourself to try ‘em. This unusual tropical fruit is native to Asia, Central America, Hawaii and Mexico, and grows on the Hylocereus cactus, hanging from the plant’s long spiky fronds like prehistoric Christmas ornaments. The plant, also known as the “Honolulu Queen,” only blooms at night, and once the flowers die, the fruits form. A mature plant can bear fruit four to six times a year, so they may come and go and then suddenly appear again in your local market. Pitayas, though, have a much shorter season and produce for only 6–8 weeks, so buy ‘em when you see ‘em!

Dragon fruit’s unusual bright red skin with chartreuse “scales” are what gives it its name. Inside, the crisp flesh is either white speckled with tiny, crunchy black seeds or a deep, dark pink with the same seeds. Both types are beautiful added to a fruit salad or smoothie, and also work well eaten alongside something salty and savory or as a palate cleanser between courses. Dragon fruit’s mild flavor is a sweet mix of watermelon and pear, with a delicate, tantalizing floral aroma. Commercial growers cultivate big fields of dragon fruit, but it’s also possible to grow the plant at home, in the ground or in large pots. Dragon fruit is high in antiinflammatory antioxidants, low in calories and naturally contains probiotic bacteria that promote gut health.

Ripe dragon fruit will be firm but give slightly when squeezed, like an almost-ready avocado. They’ll also have a sweet aroma, like a ripe peach. Store ripe fruit in the refrigerator until eating or using. Wash carefully, then simply slice it in half lengthwise; there’s no pit, and the crunchy black seeds are edible and fun. Next, either scoop out the flesh to use in a recipe or eat as-is with a spoon. If you like, save the shell to use as a dish for guacamole, fruit salad, etc. The deep pink-fleshed variety will have the most “wow” in a recipe, but the white-fleshed type is just as delicious and makes almost as unusual a presentation. You’ll be happy to add dragon fruit to your roster of regulars in the kitchen!

Dragon Fruit Margarita

1 dragon fruit (with pink flesh if possible)
¼ cup fresh lime juice
1 shot of honey or simple syrup
2 shots tequila
1 cup ice

Slice dragon fruit in half, scoop out the flesh and add to a blender with lime juice, honey/syrup, tequila and ice. Blend on high until combined, divide between 2 glasses and serve.

Dragon Fruit Salsa

1 cup dragon fruit, cubed
½ red or white onion, chopped
5 sprigs cilantro, minced
1 Tbsp. fresh lime or lemon juice

Combine all ingredients and mix gently. Let stand an hour or so to blend flavors.

Dragon Fruit Guacamole

For a striking presentation, add chunks of dragon fruit to your next batch of guacamole—and use the skins for serving.

3 medium avocados
½ cup diced dragon fruit
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/3 cup chopped red onion
2½ Tbsp. fresh lemon or lime juice
Salt to taste

Using a fork, mash avocados in a bowl. Add lime/lemon juice, cilantro, onion and salt to taste. Fold in dragon fruit. Serve immediately with tortilla chips.

Berry Dragon Fruit Salad

Pretty, flavorful and aromatic, dragon fruit is a delicious addition to any fruit salad.

2 dragon fruits, white or red, scooped with a melon baller
1 pint strawberries, halved
1 pint blackberries or raspberries
1 pint blueberries
6 mint leaves, minced

Combine fruit in a medium bowl and stir gently. Top with mint leaves and serve.

Asian Shrimp & Dragon Fruit Salad

1 dragon fruit
8 large shrimp, deveined and skins removed
3 cups spring salad mix or other lettuces

Dressing:

3 Tbsp. plum or hoisin sauce*
2 tsp. apple cider or rice vinegar
1 Tbsp. honey
1 tsp. water
Small bunch of fresh cilantro leaves roughly chopped
¼ red onion, thinly sliced
Toppings: 1 Tbsp. sesame seeds, ¼ cup roasted peanuts unsalted

Prepare dressing by mixing the ingredients in a bowl; set aside. Cut dragon fruit in half, peel off the skin and cut flesh into large cubes; set aside in refrigerator.

Steam the shrimp over high heat for about 2 minutes or until pinkish and cooked through. Cool.

Place greens in large bowl. Add onions, cilantro, cooked shrimp and dragon fruit. Drizzle with dressing just before serving and sprinkle with sesame seeds and peanuts.

* If plum or hoisin sauce are not available, try teriyaki sauce or, in a pinch, apricot or peach jam mixed with 1 tsp. minced fresh ginger.

Janet Blaser is the author of the best-selling book, Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats, featured on CNBC and MarketWatch. She has lived in Mexico since 2006. You can find her on Facebook.

Looking for fresh beer in Querétaro? Head to Hércules

By

MND Staff

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May 27, 2023

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Hércules Beers — Hércules Cervecera is a craft brewery in Querétaro City, also known for its popular beer garden. (Courtesy)

Compañía Cervecera Hércules is an independent brewery in Querétaro City that makes a wide range of lagers and ales that are poured fresh at its on-site beer garden.

The brewery, which also sells canned and bottled beer online for direct delivery to homes in Querétaro and Mexico City, has built a reputation as one of Mexico’s best producers of craft beer.

A big part of Hércules’ success today is head brewer Josh Brengle, who moved to Mexico from the United States in 2016. I recently chatted with him via email for this interview, which has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Peter Davies:

Hi Josh, thanks for speaking to Mexico News Daily. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your career as a brewer?

Josh Brengle:

Hey Peter, thanks for the opportunity. I’m a Florida native and started brewing at a pretty young age. I brewed at home a lot in my early 20s and helped out in some Orlando brewpubs while I had a non-beer related day job. I was also heavily involved in entering and organizing beer competitions.

By my mid 20s I was working at Cigar City Brewing in Tampa, where I started as a night shift brewer, later became lead brewer and finally worked as production manager. I spent about six years there until I met my future wife and moved to Mexico and started at Hércules in 2016.

PD:

I had the chance to spend a few hours in Hércules’ beer garden a few years ago. The beer and food was great, and the brewery/beer garden site, an old textiles factory, was equally impressive. What’s the history of Cervecera Hércules and its unique location?

Hércules brewery in Querétaro — An old textile factory is now the site of Hércules brewery and beer garden in Querétaro. (Courtesy)

JB:

Hércules is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city of Querétaro. It has pre-Hispanic roots and the property we’re on was once the property of Conín, an indigenous Otomí conquistador, and his sons. His sons had a mill here … and it was a convent for a while as well.

The textile plant itself was opened by Cayetano Rubio in 1846 and continued to operate until 2019. I am told it had around 8,000 employees at its peak and that it was the second biggest industrial textile plant in all of Latin America.

There is a ton of history here and it’s definitely one of the most interesting places I’ve ever been.

The brewery was founded in 2011 while the textile plant was still operational and placed inside one of the big production spaces that was no longer in use. Sales were slow but steady until 2016 when the beer garden opened. That created an avenue to get the freshest beer to our customers.

Hércules brewery — The brewery makes between 70-80 styles of beer each year. (Courtesy)

PD:

Hércules brews some very interesting beers including a Mexican porter with black corn, a cerveza de jamaica (hibiscus beer) and several spontaneous fermentation beers. Can you give us an overview of the brewery’s range of beers and what inspires you and your team to make them?

JB:

We make between 70 and 80 styles per year. We get tons of inspiration from local agriculture and our culinary surroundings here in Mexico, but we also try to base ourselves well within the idea of ‘beer flavored beer’.

Brewer Josh Brengle — Josh Brengle at work. (Courtesy)

So we make a ton of traditional European styles such as lagers, pale ales and saisons.

When we brew conceptual beers, we try to make sure the base beer or base style shines.

Aside from all of the ‘clean’ beers we make we also have a program called Cervezas Salvajes Hércules (Hércules Wild Beers), which consists of spontaneously fermented beers (think Mexican lambic/gueuze/kriek) and other beers with alternative yeasts and local fruits and spices. All of those beers are fermented and aged in wooden barrels and/or foeders.

PD:

Can you recommend a couple of your beers that are especially good to drink during the hotter months of the year?

Beer garden — The beer garden at Hércules is a popular place – for beer and food – in the city. (Courtesy)

JB:

Wow, there are a lot! At the top of my list would be Faro, a helles (traditional German pale lager), our summer ale Caballo Blanco, Lagermaíz, a lager with local corn, Buen Chofer, a witbier and Ráfaga, an American pale ale.

I guess any beer can be a hot weather beer if you are thirsty enough!

PD:

Craft beer is becoming increasingly popular in Mexico with independent breweries located across much of the country. What’s your view of the industry and what changes, if any, do you expect to see in the next few years?

JB:

I think it’s similar to other countries, it’s very regional. The beer culture in Monterrey is a lot different than say, Chiapas. In our part of the country we see people opening up more and more … to new styles and many people embracing fresh local beer.

But in general it’s still a pretty conservative area and beer consumption per capita is much lower than further north.

The trends are confusing as our best-selling beer in Querétaro is Macanuda, a brown ale. I can’t think of anywhere else in the world where a brown ale could be a brewery’s flagship beer.

In Mexico City, Súper Lupe, an IPA (India Pale Ale), is our top seller, which shows that the customer base is very different.

Trying to understand the market has been one of my goals since I arrived here in 2016. We spent time making many different styles – close to 100 unique beers some years – so that we could see which did well.

There were many styles that we adored but just didn’t sell, and vice versa. During the past two years we’ve reduced the list … to styles that sell well and that we like to make.

I think in the next few years I expect to see something similar to where the U.S. is now – more locality, more tied houses and [the opening of] new locations from existing breweries, (such as Hércules’ Lagerbar in Mexico City).

PD:

The craft beer industry seems to be quite collaborative with breweries often working together on limited edition beers. Has Hércules produced any beers with other breweries?

And, finally, could you recommend two or three beers made by other independent Mexican breweries?

JB:

We’re big fans of collaborations as they’re an opportunity to learn and make new friends, and sometimes revisit old ones. I think we’ve done close to 100 collaborations since 2017 or so.

This includes working with breweries in Europe, the U.S., Canada, South America and, of course, Mexico. The collaborations have sometimes influenced us to change a process or recipe, or even build a new brand from scratch.

There are a ton of great breweries in Mexico and plenty of great beers so picking three is tough! Here are five.

Aguamala (Ensenada, Baja California): Astillero Double IPA

Wendlandt (Ensenada, Baja California): Harry Polanco Amber Ale

Cyprez (Mexico City): Saison

Cuatro Palos (Querétaro): Good Day Session IPA

Cosaco (Mexico City): Flamenca

This interview is the first in a new series called “The Saturday Six”: six-question interviews to be published in upcoming Saturday editions of Mexico News Daily.

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