Superama - New Food Experience

On Wednesday night, Dave's friend, Fernando, his wife, Rosie, and their daughter, Erin, came over to our house to welcome us to Mexico. Fernando lived in the US for two years while working at BASF with Dave. I was able to meet them once at one of Drag Day's gigs.

We showed them the house and discussed our trip here and talked about doctors, schools, etc. Then they took us to Superama. Dave had been to Superama before (and it is the closest store to our house, but Wal-Mart and Commercial Mexicana are both just a few more kilometers). He didn't like it the first time he had been there because the store is small and it was crowded. Dave was trying to look at all it had to offer and he said it was too congested for him at that time.

Going through with Fernando and Rosie though was very different though. Although the store is small and more busy than Wal-Mart, it felt like we were the only ones in the store. I hope they weren't embarrassed with showing us around as we were definitely foreigners. It was just so nice to have Spanish speaking people with us!

I had a lot of questions with the produce, although it is not THAT much different than in the US. The few things that I did notice that were different were cactus and these little orange fruits that I have never seen in the US. Rosie said they are a traditional fruit to have around Christmas although she is not a fan. Fernando said that they make a punch at Christmas time and these are usually in them.

As I was curious about the cactus, Fernando said we should get some and he would cook it up for us. He also got some pumpkin flowers to also try.

We continued through the store and another big discussion came with cheeses. Mexicans have a lot of different kinds of cheeses! Superama especially has a large variety of them. I think we got three different types that night. My biggest problem with their cheeses is that they are not all pasteurized. I have already broken enough rules with this pregnancy it seems that I am not willing to try an unpasteurized cheese. Thankfully, we did find a goat cheese that was and the other cheeses were of a mozzarella/provolone type.

The last thing I wanted to find out at this store was how to buy bread. They had nice loaves sitting out, but I didn't see any bags nearby and the bread almost looked like decoration sitting there! Well, you need to go over to the counter and get tongs and a tray to put the bread on, then you bring it back to the counter and someone bags it, weighs it, and puts the price on it. I suppose if I had stood there long enough, I would have seen someone do this, but having some added guidance made it so much easier.

One thing else to note about the store...January 6th is Day of the Kings. For this day, everyone buys a special loaf of bread in the shape of a large oval. It is somewhat sweet and had cherries on top. They had at least 50 boxes of this bread and it was the end of the day! Dave said that the price of the biggest box was 250 pesos (or $20). Inside this bread is a charm of a baby and whomever finds it must have a party at their house on February 2nd with tamales. Also, kids get more presents on this night from the Kings. Claire did not, her presents will come with the shipment!

Back to our house we went. Fernando cooked up the cactus (which you saute in a pan until it isn't slimy), pumpkin flower/cheese tortillas, and just cheese tortillas. We had three different kinds of cheese for dinner. One for the cactus (a sort of fresh mozzarella), a white cheese with the pumpkin flower, and manchela (another white cheese) in the tortillas. Thank goodness we also cooked up some battered fish too, otherwise I think I would've been still hungry after they left!

I tried the cactus first. It wasn't spit out gross, but definitely an acquired taste. I thought the consistency was similar to asparagus/green beans, but more slimy. I can't really describe the flavor, except that it was a bit bitter. The pumpkin flower was next on my plate and that wasn't too bad. I think the hardest thing to get over with that is the texture of eating flowers. Of course, all this was somewhat masked with salsa and sour cream.

We had a great time with Fernando and Rosie, but they had to leave because Erin (who is almost 2) was, understandably, getting fussy and Claire needed to get to bed too! I am very thankful for the insight they gave us, even though it seemed so obsolete to them. More importantly, it was just nice to have company!