My first visit to Mexico, back in 2013, was pretty tame affair as far as eating goes. Imprisoned in a labyrinthine relaxation compound by well-intentioned, generous parents, I was able to snag one good local meal (turkey in chilmole) from the resort's 'traditional' Mexican restaurant, some respectable tacos and a few smoky glasses of mezcal. Otherwise the trip was marked by bizarre poolside burgers, serviceable selections (coldcuts, tinga taquitos and nance in syrup, among many others) from a breakfast buffet catering to a mixed American and well-heeled, cosmopolitan Mexican clientele, and the odd snack item from the Oxxo across the street. Here I went a bit overboard, purchasing Pinguinos, Gansitos and Bimbuenelos, the latter drying out in the plane's cargo hold and collapsing into a sugary dust, which slipped through my fingers Treasure of the Sierra Madre style. None of these products were very different from the American snacks they seemed to be emulating, and none of them were very good. On this trip, with so much else to eat and so little stomach space to waste on frivolous junk, I mostly opted out of digging into these mass-market nooks and crannies. That doesn't mean I stopped documenting, and compulsive photography under poor lighting did yield some new information, such as the fact that 'nuez de la India' is not a flavor but an alternate name for cashews, as well the much-less-snackable candlenut, which several translation services improbably claim are also known as 'hombre nervioso.' The hot chile and citrus pairing seems to be a popular one; I bought a bag of corn and cactus derived snack sticks which utilized it, and it also applies to the Takis wave which has swept north to consume so many American adolescents. There's something irresistibly low-rent about the packaging of Pizzerolas, which utilizes a tripartite series of colored rings to draw the eye toward its central picture window. This window is fake, of course, substituting an idealized image of perfectly formed tortilla chips for the actual contents of the bag, although the chips themselves are remarkably sturdy and not much prone to fracturing. They're also pretty good for a pizza-flavored snack, a genre which I'm always drawn to and which always seems to disappoint. Pizzerolas have apparently been absorbed by the Doritos brand via their shared parent company Sabritas, a Frito-Lay subsidiary since 1966, with their flavor recipe used to create the Doritos Pizzerola flavor. The old-fashioned Pizzerola still seems to be sticking around however, and hopefully it's simple retro packaging is here to stay. My familiarity with barley soda doesn't stretch much further than Malta, still one of the nastiest beverages I've ever tasted. There's also the similarly-produced, rye-derived Slavic kvass, which I'm not much of a fan of either. I therefore approached this offering from Cristal, a Mexican Coca-Cola subsidiary, with some trepidation. The packaging isn't much, but it did manage to pull off the feat of making barley taste good in soda form, sort of a milder root beer with a slight wheaty undertone. Finally, purchased at the Cancun airport, were a simple bag of red Doritos. These were slightly different from the American preparation, with a more pronounced spice kick, and for those for whom even this upgrade wasn't enough, a bonus hot sauce pouch to further ramp up the heat.
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The coded language of snacks, sandwiches and seasonings, in NYC and beyond.
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