Carlos Arredondo is a 24-year-old self-taught artisan who crafts papier-mâché figurines. He sees his creations as counterweights to crime and violence; there is beauty and enchantment in Mexico, he says.
tradition
Face of Jesus appears on flour tortilla in San Antonio (photo, video)
Jesus Cristo has appeared on a tortilla in San Antonio, Texas. His burnt, crusty face showed up (photo) on a homemade flour tortilla just after his mom, La Virgen de Guadalupe, appeared on another flour tortilla in nearby Mexifornia.
Mas…Face of Jesus appears on flour tortilla in San Antonio (photo, video)
This is how my abuela makes those legendary tortillas (video)
My grandma’s tortillas are legendary in my family; she’s been making them since she was a little girl and has been feeding her family with them ever since. I thought I’d shoot a little video of her making them as she passes the tradition down to her great grandkids. — Video creator Rich Lee.
Happy Mexican Thanksgiving – Sansgiven – from @SaraChicaD (video)
POCHO’s Subcommandanta del Ñews, Sara Inés Calderón, shares everything you need to know about Sansgiven, the Mexican Thanksgiving. She’s @SaraChicaD on the Twitter.
Taco Tuesday Motown munchies? Visit Southwest Detroit (video)
In Southwest Detroit, a good lonchera isn’t hard to find. It’s taco Tuesday, Motown gente. Where are you headed for lunch?
PREVIOUSLY IN DETROIT:
¡Viva Calaca! It’s not only Dia de los Muertos, it’s Day of the Dead, too!
In Viva Calaca, an animated short based on the Voltaire tune from 2007, the dead be dancin’. [Video by Ritxi Ostáriz.]
Mas…¡Viva Calaca! It’s not only Dia de los Muertos, it’s Day of the Dead, too!
Como Cocinar Zats: How to catch and cook worms (video)
If you’ve been looking for info on how they catch, cook and eat worms in Chiapas, you are in luck! Como Cocinar Zats is the how-to video you’ve been looking for! You’re welcome.
Why in the world are sneakers hanging from telephone lines? (video)
The Mystery of Flying Kicks from Closer Productions seeks to explain a world-wide phenomenon. Why do people hang old sneakers on telephone lines?
SPONSORED: Take the worry out of gentrification – with GENTRÍFIA®
Gentrification is TERRIFIC with GENTRÍFIA®!
“I used to worry about gentrification squeezing out local businesses,” says Monica Galvanes of Eagle Rock, a Los Angeles neighborhood in transition. “And then I heard about GENTRÍFIA®. Now I don’t give a shit!”
Her reaction explains the great success of GENTRÍFIA®, according to its manufacturer, STFU PHARMA.
Carlos Robles up in the East Bay is also enthusiastic:
Mas…SPONSORED: Take the worry out of gentrification – with GENTRÍFIA®
Sweet cactus juice: The agave ‘sugar’ of Guadalajara, Jalisco (video)
Australian foodsters Sugars of the World made this video to promote Agave Sugar, and its birthplace, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.
Proudly presenting Rainbow Mariachi de Los Angeles (audio, video)
Somos here, somos queer, somos Mariachi Arcoiris de los Angeles — Rainbow Mariachi of L.A.
Maria Hinojosa and Camilo Vargas of LatinoUSA tell the story:
Mas…Proudly presenting Rainbow Mariachi de Los Angeles (audio, video)
Local girl crumbles under stress of learning cousins’ names
(PNS reporting from EL MONTE) The pressure was too much for Marisol Cruz, a fourth grader at Fernando Valenzuela Elementary, who collapsed on the playground Friday afternoon.
Friends said Marisol was a total stressball since her mother told her to memorize all of her cousins’ names before her upcoming primera comunión fiesta.
“I have like 80 cousins!” the Penn Mar Avenue resident told PNS after she had calmed down and accepted a bag of Takis as an incentive to talk.
“It’s not my fault Mama and Papa have like 20 brothers and sisters each! I just can’t remember them all. Call me ‘Mari’ by the way.”
Mari listed the names:
Mas…Local girl crumbles under stress of learning cousins’ names
Scientist’s quest to reproduce abuela’s mole recipe ends in failure
(PNS reporting from RIVERSIDE) After a decade-long quest to duplicate his Oaxacan abuela’s mole poblano recipe, UC Riverside food scientist Miguel Jimenez, 33, declared defeat Sunday.
Microbiologist Jimenez had hoped to identify the ingredients in the mysterious chocolate chile sauce his abuela puts on chicken.
“She won’t give anyone the recipe!” said Jimenez, as he kicked his chair and wiped away tears at UCR’s Chucheria Research Facility. “Abuelita just pinches my cheek and tells me to portarme bien and go to church more.”
Mas…Scientist’s quest to reproduce abuela’s mole recipe ends in failure
Angry area youth calls menudo ‘yucky,’ demands pizza
(PNS reporting from ALTADENA) Javier “Flaco” Hernandez outraged his family Sunday night when he refused to eat his bowl of menudo.
“It’s yucky!” the 8-year-old shouted as he repeatedly banged his spoon on the dinner table and insisted on pizza instead.
Flaco’s refusal ticked off his mom, who had spent hours preparing the beef stomach broth in the kitchen of their tidy suburban Los Angeles County bungalow.
Beetles with rhinestones are the living jewelry of Mexico (videos)
Bugs. Bugs with backpacks of rhinestones. Bugs with backpacks of rhinestones on gold-plated chains. Bugs with backpacks of rhinestones on gold-plated chains you wear as jewelry. Does Mexican PETA know about this?
“Meet the Makech, the Bedazzled Beetles Worn as Living Jewelry,” writes The Smithsonian.com. “The unusual bugs from the Yucatán have a backstory as colorful as their rhinestone-studded rumps.”
Mas…Beetles with rhinestones are the living jewelry of Mexico (videos)
Ask A Mexican: Do all Mexiguys want a woman who cooks? (video)
Dear Gustavo ¡Ask A Mexican! Arellano:
Is it true that the way to a Mexican guy’s corazon is through his panza? And if so, why?
[Possible F Bomb at the tail end of this video.]
The Pocho Ocho craziest cosas we found in the Rosca de Reyes
Today is Three Kings Day, Dia de Los Reyes Magos, AKA Epiphany, the day when Los Tres Reyes dropped by the manger to gift up the original Anchor Baby, El Baby Jesus.
Check out the Pocho Ocho Craziest Things we found in the Rosca de Reyes here at the POCHO world headquarters:
8. Rosca’s Chicken and Waffles
7. One long black hair
6. Hot new Kanye West musical discovery “Paul McCarthy”
Mas…The Pocho Ocho craziest cosas we found in the Rosca de Reyes
Ask A Mexican: Why do Salvadorans and Mexicans hate so much? (video)
Gustavo ¡Ask A Mexican! Arellano steps back into the video limelight to ponder the question: Why do Mexicans (and Mexican-Americans) and Salvadorans (and Salvadoran-Americans) hate each other so much? Is it because Salvadoran horchata is better than Mexican horchata? And the fact that pupusas kick gorditas’ culinary nalgas? Or are they just following an age-old American tradition of hatin’ on the newbies that goes back at least to Benjamin Franklin?
Mas…Ask A Mexican: Why do Salvadorans and Mexicans hate so much? (video)
Woman needs stricter hubby test than ‘not a drunk, won’t beat me’
(PNS reporting from SAN ANTONIO) Sandra Ceballos made a shocking discovery Friday night when she was out with her girlfriends.
The standards she’d been using to find a good husband were, as her friend Jenny put it, “appallingly low.”
Ceballos, whose family is from Mexico, was raised to believe that if a man is not too much of a drunk, works hard, and doesn’t beat you, he’s “good husband material.”
Mas…Woman needs stricter hubby test than ‘not a drunk, won’t beat me’
Small-town Oaxaca mayor marries crocodile princess for fish (video)
Brides can often get a bit snappy on their big day – and one Mexican crocodile is no exception. She’s marrying the mayor of a Pacific coast fishing town in a traditional ceremony.
The fishermen of the town of San Pedro Huamelula, Oaxaca, believe the crocodile is a princess, and a wedding ritual will bring plenty of fish for them to catch along the Pacific coast. And then there’s the part when the mayor talks about the parade of “morenos” bearing croc statues.
South Carolina’s Live5 CBS reports:
Mas…Small-town Oaxaca mayor marries crocodile princess for fish (video)
Cold war chills Rio Grande Valley town as raspa rebellion heats up
(PNS reporting from EDINBURG, TX) Eddie’s Raspas, the sunny yellow shack out on Sprague, used to be the place to be on a scorching Valley afternoon.
“People would come from all around and say, ‘Eddie, which of your five delicious flavors shall I have today?’” Eddie Cardenas recalled fondly. “It was great.”
Until six weeks ago, that is, when an electric-blue trailer moved in across the street.
Cardenas said that newcomer Chuy’s Famous Raspas is stealing his business, and shaming the shaved ice industry as a whole.
“It’s trashy,” he said, speaking over the pop music coming from the nearby trailer. “You give people so many flavor options, they feel paralyzed! Now I’m hearing whispers about burritos and Frito pies? It’s war, I’m telling you.
Mas…Cold war chills Rio Grande Valley town as raspa rebellion heats up
Don’t call me a ‘Mexican,’ America! Also, I’m not a ‘Latino’
It’s a phenomenon older than the United Estates of America. We’ve named it Looking Down On More Recent Immigrants Syndrome:
- In 1751, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, a North American colonial with British roots, disparaged “stupid” and “swarthy” recently-arrvied German immigrants, who, he wrote, were too dumb to learn English, and did we mention they were “swarthy”?
- Discrimination against Irish Catholic immigrants by their English Protestant predecessors was one of the reasons 200 fresh-off-the-boat Irish United States Army draftees switched sides and fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. These deserters/heroes formed the famed Saint Patrick’s Battalion (Los San Patricios.)
- Hoity-toity German and Sephardic Jews who immigrated to the U.S.A. in the 18th and 19th Centuries were ashamed of the Hebrew homies who arrived later from Eastern Europe; the assimilated Jews banded together to “Americanize” the Russian and Polish immigrants in the 1880s.
Last week three latter-day Looking Down Syndrome sightings lit up our screen, INSISTENT MESSAGES from people who want you to know THEY ARE DEFINITELY NOT THOSE OTHER PEOPLE OVER THERE — those Mexicans and/or Latinos.
Mas…Don’t call me a ‘Mexican,’ America! Also, I’m not a ‘Latino’
Exploring the sound of the mariachi grito in ‘El Rey’ — solo (video)
Chicago artist Diana Delgado Pinada writes:
Listening to the quintessential charro song El Rey accompanied with occasional “gritos Mexicanos” or “mariachi howls” would not be an unusual event. However, when the gritos are performed by a Latina in a Midwest suburban kitchen, in full charro attire, the isolated, elongated cries or howls resonate a little deeper.
Mas…Exploring the sound of the mariachi grito in ‘El Rey’ — solo (video)
Mexicans: 7-Up is good for whatever TF that thing is you have (video)
Alonzo Alcaraz (no relation to POCHO Jefe-in-Chief Lalo Alcaraz) is the spokesman in this new commercial for 7-Up.
PREVIOUSLY ON 7-UP:
Mas…Mexicans: 7-Up is good for whatever TF that thing is you have (video)
Pocho Ocho signs you grew up in a Mexican family/household
Here is a listicle partially inspired by a mas longer listicle on BuzzFeed, because they are the listicle professionals, tu sabes.
¡Mira! The Pocho Ocho signs you grew up in a Mexican household/family:
8. Virgen de Guadalupe veladoras.
7. Your first introduction to dramatic acting was a telenovela.
6. You always wondered why gringos celebrated Cinco de Mayo more than your family.
5. You can recognize the Aztec princess Iztaccihuatl AND the warrior Popocateptl (photo) on sight.
Mas…Pocho Ocho signs you grew up in a Mexican family/household
¡Japi Januka! A kosher carnitas y nopales burrito inside a donut (video)
The signature foods of Chanukah, which begins tonight, are potato latkes — as prepared by Hebrew homeboys Jaquann and Luis — and sufganiyot, Israeli-style donuts. Both foods, tu sabes, are fried in oil, commemorating the milagro at the heart of the Chanukah story.
Which is why, two years ago, before we thought of Mexican Turducken-style gag dishes we could attribute to Rick Bayless, Mexikosher chef (and Chopped winner) Katsuji Tanabe created a nopales and kosher carnitas burrito stuffed inside a donut/sufganiyot. Really.
Explorers find pyramids of ‘Lost City of Giants’ in Ecuador rain forest
A team of explorers has found a gigantic stone pyramid (and gigantic stone hammers) in the Amazonian rain forest of Ecuador, an ancient complex which corresponds to a local legend about a City of Giants.
At the discovered site there is one extremely large pyramidal type structure of approximately 80 metres square base and 80 metres height, with steeply inclined walls. This structure is made up of irregular shaped large cut stone blocks, each currently calculated to be approximately 2 tonnes in weight; many hundreds of such blocks make up the walls of the building.
Mas…Explorers find pyramids of ‘Lost City of Giants’ in Ecuador rain forest
Tia Lencha’s Cocina explains El Dia de Los Muertos for you pochos
Happy Day of the Dead! Is Tia Lencha here. Many people ask me questions about Dia de Los Muertos. I answer the questions today.
Question numero one: Tia Lencha wass this Dia de los Muertos? Is it the Mexican Halloween?
Gwell, kind of, I say. Except that the Day of the Dead celebrations come from the indigenous pagan rituals that trace back 2,500 to 3,000 years ago. Way before Duane Reade sold Halloween candy.
Question numero two: Tia Lencha, wassup with the calaveras (“skulls” for you pochos)?
Bueno, before Jesus came along, people used to keep skulls of their loved ones (and maybe not so loved ones) as trophies. They showed off the skulls during the rituals as symbols of death and rebirth. Kind of heavy, no? I never say my history was all tequila shots and tacos.
Also, calaveras can be short poems, like epitaphs like to mock your friends. Like you can make fun of them on their tombstones. Like for mijo’s daddy, I wrote a calavera about him call “Oscar Meyer” because he like to stick his weenie ebrywhere! He no think it was so funny.
Mas…Tia Lencha’s Cocina explains El Dia de Los Muertos for you pochos