Sweaty tacos

It is the dream of every unskilled Mexican with no connections to establish a business selling food. Particularly profitable are stands on the street, because they require minimal investment and their owners are duty-bound to pay few taxes. Some don’t pay any at all.

The least adorned points of sale are those which dispense tacos sudados – sweaty tacos, so-called because after being fried in the morning, they sit steaming in a basket during the day until their vendors sell out. (They are also known as tacos de canasta, or tacos in a basket.) Most commonly stuffed with potatoes, beans, fried pork rinds or green mole, they are delicious and extremely cheap – usually 3.5 pesos, or about 23 cents U.S. at the current exchange rate.

Juan Monsalvo, the fellow who from whom I most commonly buy tacos sudados, reeks of humility. Missing a couple of front teeth, he is impeccably well-mannered and always speaks to his customers using the polite form of address. I once asked him how many tacos he sells a day. He said that on a good day he will sell out his ration of 250. At 3.50 pesos each, that represents gross earnings of over $50 US.

But then he told me that he gets up at four o’clock each morning and makes 2000 tacos. A phalanx of salesmen buy the rest from him at a peso each and vend them on their own streetcorners. His workday lasts twelve hours. Math is not my strong point, but I believe he makes more money than I do.

Department of self-congratulation

When you write a book, you never know what's going to happen. Sadly, most of them disappear into black holes, never to be heard from again. I am relieved that the critical response to First Stop in the New World, my panoramic look at Mexico City, published last June by Riverhead, was so overwhelmingly positive. (Click here to get to its Amazon page and read fragments of the reviews.)

There were more surprises at the end of last year. It was named one of the best fifty non-fiction books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle (click here) and one of the ten best books of the year by an internet site called The Globalist (click here).

My other book, Las llaves de la ciudad -- a collection of magazine pieces about some of Mexico City's most extraordinary citizens -- was named one of the 12 best books of the year by Críticas, a magazine that reviews books in Spanish in the U.S. (Click here.) It is in bookstores all over Mexico. After a long delay, it is finally available on Amazon (click here), at Barnes & Noble (click here) and at Borders (click here).

Aura Estrada and the ghost building

On Avenida Insurgentes, one of Mexico City’s most important boulevards, there is a fifteen-story building that, from certain angles, looks so fragile that it might fall down if you blow on it. Some rooms in the top four floors appear to have been victims of anarchists throwing Molotov cocktails. There are locales for businesses all around the ground level, but many of them have been empty for months or even years.

It looks so dangerous that no one in their right mind would go inside, let alone up to the top. No one, that is, except for Aura Estrada, an extremely talented writer who had Mexico City in her blood. I say “had” because she died in July of 2007, at the age of 30, as the result of a tragic accident (one that had nothing to do with her daredevil antics inside the building).

Aura was a friend, but I was also lucky enough to work with her as an editor on several occasions. She was one of those writers whose work you hardly had to touch -- maybe changing a punctuation mark, or splitting a long sentence into two shorter ones. For D.F. magazine, she wrote a very funny vignette about her experience upon entering the Condominios Insurgentes. Click here to find that piece and other examples of Aura’s writing.

After her death, Aura’s husband, the novelist Francisco Goldman, established a foundation which will award a prize in her name. If you are a woman writer, in Mexico or the United States, 35 or under, who writes in the Spanish language, you can throw your hat in the ring. Here is a link for more information about the prize.

Never let them see you sweat

The Roma Gym on Calle Orizaba, in the Colonia Roma between Calles Álvaro Obregón and Chihuahua, has picture windows that face the street. For years, the early-evening aerobics classes have attracted an audience of mirones – voyeuristic onlookers. For those who are merely watching, or those who want to replace the lost calories after exercising, the gym is located a few doors down from La Bella Italia, Mexico City’s best ice-cream parlor.

Hurdy-gurdy

Last week I posted about the sweet potato salesmen who announce their presence on the street with a shrill steam whistle, the same way they did in the 19th century. Another anachronistic apparition on the streets here, principally in the centro histórico, are various men and women in beige uniforms, who tend to work in pairs. One hand-cranks a hurdy-gurdy while the other seeks alms in an extended cap. (You can see this fellow's partner reflected in the plate-glass window.)

I used to believe that these machines were brought to Mexico during the invasion of the Hapsburgs in the 1860s, during the two or three years that Maximilian was emperor. But I subsequently learned that they came at a later date, around the end of the 19th century, as part and parcel of a substantial German immigration. Called Harmoni-Pans, they were manufactured by Frati & Co. in Berlin.

I was told that there was only one man in Mexico City that knows how to tune the instruments. However, when I worked as an editor at a city magazine, I sent two reporters to find him, and neither could. Given how out-of-tune most of the hurdy-gurdys are, I imagined that the people who operate them couldn't find him either. 

A friend of mine, the novelist Gonzalo Soltero (see a link to his blog on the list of friends to the right) tells me that there indeed was only one hurdy-gurdy tuner in the city, a Chilean -- but he died. So if you know how these things work, come on over. You job is guaranteed.

Those interested in learning more about the lives of the hurdy-gurdy men can look for a book called La vida de los organilleros, tradición que se pierde, written by Victor Inzúa and published by Dirección General de Culturas Popularese e Indígenas.