TheBanyanTree: The Great Taco Search of 2008

[Julie Anna Teague]

Quoting Mike Pingleton <pingleto at ncsa.uiuc.edu>:


> Why they were the best tacos may have been that whole synergy of
> eating another country's food while in that country, while watching
> the macho charros on their high-stepping caballos, and the pretty
> senioritas in their lace-heavy dresses.

That's exactly it.  That's the reason a cold Dos Equis tastes better 
when sitting on a seawall in Cozumel, the sun setting over the sea 
behind me, purple sky and sea turning from deep aqua to black.  When 
the lights of Mardi Gras are dancing off a million sequins and 
feathered headdresses in colors no bird ever wore are fanning the hot, 
humid tropical air. When street vendors are hawking drinks, balloons, 
flickering lighted balls, plastic dogs, and taste treats that are 
unidentifiable to the two touristas drinking beer on the seawall.  
"What are those?" I'd try to ask, summoning up the little Spanish I'd 
gleaned through travels, which was not nearly enough to understand the 
answers.  We'd shrug, and try a bag of fried somethings or spiced 
somethings, enjoying the mystery.

That's the reason, when I hear someone say, "I don't like fish," I want 
to advice them to try it again on a beach in Tobago or Grenada or 
Jamaica.  Order a fish that was caught that day by a guy in a small 
boat named Jolly Mon, and carried to the restaurant in an old plastic 
bucket, and cleaned by the chef a few minutes before he covered it in 
tropical spices and threw it on the grill with onions and peppers, laid 
it on a bed of rice, and brought it out to your table a few feet from 
where the waves are smoothing out the sand over and over and over and 
over, smoothing out your cares over and over and over.  Try it then, 
with a Red Stripe and your best traveling buddy.  Tilt your head back 
and see a million stars and laugh out loud and say, "This is the best 
thing I've ever eaten."

Julie