Our Fiery Neighbor to the South

Si mon

At least once a year, for the past ten years or so of my life, I have been fortunate enough to find myself in a foreign country. People have a hard time understanding this. They cannot understand A) how I can afford so lavish an arrangement and B) why I would want to. Well the answer to A is simple: I was blessed with an interesting family of relative means who often find themselves with similar wanderlust, and consequently allow me, their man-child of a son, to tag along whenever our schedules prove sympathetic. The rest of the time I use money that I saved my own damn self (editors note: please read that last line in your head like a petulant black girl for optimal literary effect). And the answer to B is simple as well: foreign countries have black market organs at far, far cheaper prices than one could ever hope to encounter in the U.S. of A!

But Adam, you say, I figured yours must be a sexual perversion, one so completely depraved only lax Southeast Asian “laws” could satiate it. No, friend! Not at all. Also, why? Are you buying? Ha ha, just kidding! You see the truth is I do so much cocaine that doctors have recommended I receive bi-annual septum transplants, as a mere three months of my standard blow usage leaves my septum looking like a wad of Big League Chew wedged beneath a second-run movie theater seat.

Course I also like seeing new stuff.

And so it was that I found myself in Mexico City last week, with my friend Gabe, who has accompanied me on many such far-flung expeditions.

“Adam,” Gabe said. “There is plenty  of time to find a new septum for you in this country. But seeing as it is Sunday, do you mind accompanying me on a hunt of mine own?”

See Gabe’s a bit of a foodie, and an associate of his who is an even bigger foodie had informed him that on Sunday in Mexico City, not ten blocks from the central zocalo, there is a market that takes place called La Lagunilla, and somewhere in the bowls of that howling swap-meet there is a man, with a cart, who sells tortas de bacalao.

Yup

As in salted cod sandwiches. I immediately agreed. Such a delicacy, while strange, and admittedly, not all that enticing sounding (Mexico City street cod! Who do I give my credit card information to?!), was too unique a food item to pass up. And so we set off, through the mammoth Langunilla, asking every stranger we saw donde podemos encontrar el hombre con las tortas de bacalao? We were the only gringos in the place and so most people looked at us like we were crazy, that classic why-the-fuck-are-these-white-boys-bothering-me-about-cod-at-four-in-the-afternoon-on-a-Sunday face. But Gabe and I thrive in such situations, so we paid it no mind. Others in the market told us that the bacalao man was only there seasonally, and now was not the season. Still, every inquiry led to one or two chilangos who would point us this way or that way, seeming to know what we were talking about, and so our zig-zag treasure hunt marched on, past stalls hawking bright plastic childrens toys, past bootlegged CDs and DVDs, down antique row where we contemplated the purchase of a stuffed lion’s head for a mere $200, past a stall that disturbingly sold nothing but authentic, American military garb and trinkets – canteens, dog tags and knives. People soon began packing up their stalls, but as no bacalao had yet hit our palettes, the cod-quest continued.

Then bam! There it was, right next to the guy with the bootleg soccer jerseys. Of course! Why hadn’t thought we of that in the first place? Everyone knows salted cod vendors always hang out by the Messi jerseys! Fucking duh. Homeboy wasn’t even packing up or anything; he was open and ready to serve, a cart full of steaming cod and olives and onions, ready to dish up at the drop of twenty pesos.

Best ever?

“Dos de bacalao, por favor.”

And the sandwiches were…surprisingly delicious. A little chewy on the tail ends of the whole endeavor, perhaps briny in small quadrants, but all in all, pretty damn tasty. We sat there chewing happily, pouring perspiration in the unforgiving wall of Mexico City heat, sipping cokes out of glass bottles and smiling. Smiling at how far we were from our homes, how out of our elements we had taken ourselves. I wish someone had taken a photograph of me and my buddy sitting there street-side on our plastic chairs, the only white people for blocks upon blocks, completely content and satisfied in our unique experience. That’s why I travel right there. For a simple little experience like that. Moved by a similar sentiment, I imagine, my friend felt inclined to talk to the bacalao man in Spanish. He informed him that we had heard about his tortas all the way back in the United States, and so with one or two of the very few hours we had in Mexico City we decided to seek him out, to sample his unique delicacy and bask in the off-the-beaten-path authenticity the experience mandated.

“That’s great!” the man told us in Spanish. “Ever since Anthony Bourdain put us on his show a lot of people do that.”

Where the fuck haven't you been?

We finished up in silence, wiped our mouths with thin, Mexican servilletas, and walked off back into the market.

“Come on,” I said to Gabe. “I gotta see a man about a septum.”