Cinco De Mayo: Five Fiesta-Worthy Foods To Make Or Try

by Laurel Miller on

In the United States, Cinco de Mayo (“fifth of May”) is essentially yet another excuse to get hammered. In the Mexican state of Puebla, however, the holiday commemorates the Mexican Army’s victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

Cinco de Mayo is also celebrated in other regions of Mexico; as in the States, it’s a day of honoring Mexican pride and heritage. This year, instead of the standard chips and guacamole (and crippling hangover), try some beloved Mexican foods that are well suited to serve a crowd. They’re easily made, or purchased if you live in a community with a sizable Hispanic population. Buen provecho!

1. Flor de Calabaza (squash blossoms): Available now at your local farmers market or specialty produce shop, and a favorite of Mexican home cooks. Try sautéing them and tucking into quesadillas or dipping in batter and frying (stuff them with fresh goat cheese mixed with chopped herbs for a really special treat; click here for the recipe).

2. Elotes: Whether served as whole, grilled ears of corn or kernels-in-a-cup, these mayonnaise, lime, and chile-slathered street eats are worth every ripple of cellulite they produce. True, corn isn’t in season right now; see if your favorite local farm stand, market vendor, or specialty grocer has frozen kernels for sale.

3. Churros: Fried, sugary goodness in phallic form: what’s not to love? Uh, except maybe churros con cajeta (filled with caramelized goat milk).

4. Antojitos: Traditionally found in the fondas, or beer bars of Mexico City, these small, fried or griddled masa dough “cravings (antojos)” or “little whims” are now more commonly associated with street food, and have regional adaptations. The differences in shape and fillings are often subtle: a chalupa (not to be confused with the Taco Bell concoction) is a thin, fried cup with a slight depression for holding meat and/or beans, shredded cabbage, crumbled fresh cheese or crema, and avocado or guacamole, while a huarache is like a slightly thicker tortilla in the shape of a sandal (hence the name). In Oaxaca, regional antojitos such as tlacoyos (like a skinny huarache) and memelas (think round huarache) may be topped with black beans and complex salsas indigenous to the region. In a word, addictive.

5. Michelada: Forget margaritas. This refreshing beverage has hair-of-the-dog built right in, and indeed, it’s a traditional Mexican hangover helper (as is a steaming bowl of menudo). Combine one icy cold Mexican beer (My pick: Pacifico) with fresh-squeezed lime juice, tomato juice or Clamato, a dash of hot sauce and a pinch of kosher or celery salt. The variations are many, but this recipe from Food52 is a winner.

[Photo credit: Flickr user the queen of subtle]

Want more antojitos? Check out this assortment, below:
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Cisk Lager: The Worst Best Beer In The World

by Dave Seminara on

Is it possible that the world’s best beer is brewed in Malta, a nation of just 400,000 souls?
There’s a bus driver named Steve in the Maltese capital of Valletta who is quite certain it is. I was chatting with Steve, a half-Maltese, half-English immigrant who’s lived in Valletta for 25 years this week and as we passed a brewery on the outskirts of town, I asked him if their brew was any good.

“Good?” he said, stunned by my apparently dumb question. “They make Cisk Lager – it’s the best beer in the world.”

I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t.

“It’s brilliant,” he said. “You’ve got to try it while you’re here.”

“It’s the best beer in the world?” I said, still not quite believing it.

“Absolutely it is,” he repeated in his thick English accent. “They had an international contest and it won – best beer in the world. It was in the papers here.”

The sun was shining and we were enjoying a glorious day in a beautiful city. I wanted to believe him. If someone tells me that I have to try some beer I’ve never had, they don’t have to ask twice.

I waited until later in the day when I’d build up a nice thirst and then went into a shop and picked up a can of the stuff for 1 euro. It was a warm day and I expected it to be a thirst quenching lager, if nothing else. Upon first taste, it seemed excessively bitter and almost completely devoid of any discernable flavor. I thought that perhaps I just needed to get used to it, so I kept sipping away.But The Best Beer in the World, or The Best Beer in Malta, if you like, didn’t get better. With half left, I found myself grimacing each time I willed the bright yellow can up to my lips for another sip. I wanted to throw it away, but it didn’t seem right. Throw away a can of The World’s Best Beer? How could I do that, when the whole rest of the world outside Malta can’t even get a can of this stuff?

But I couldn’t finish it. I made it 2/3rds of the way through the can and tossed it. I haven’t really quaffed much cheap, bland lager since college, other than the occasional crappy beer at a sporting event or wedding, so maybe I’m too picky, but this beer tasted like something that dripped out of a sewer. A few hours later, I conferred with my wife, who had tried the same brew, but on tap at a bar and she concurred that it was swill.

I wanted to board the #52 bus to Mdina again to track Steve down, ask what on Earth he was thinking, dubbing this beer the world’s best. But the more I thought about it, Steve was right to be stoked about his hometown beer.

I’m a seeker – the kind of person who is always convinced that there’s something better on the next block. Sometimes it takes me an hour to settle on a restaurant while traveling because no matter how good a place looks, I always have this sneaking suspicion that there’s someplace better and cheaper right nearby. Even when I make a great discovery, I tend to wonder if I might have missed something even better.

That mentality is a ticket to unhappiness and a lifetime of restless wandering. There’s nothing wrong with satisfying one’s curiosity through travel and exploration but you have to learn how to master the art of appreciating what you have in your own backyard. Maltese Steve really believes that Cisk, the beer he drinks, is the world’s best.

When I lived in Macedonia, the locals were certain that Skopsko, their national beer, is the best in the world. And thousands or perhaps millions of other people around the world are convinced that the local beer they drink is the best. The point is that there is no best beer in the world – there is only the one you drink. And figuring out how to believe it’s the best one might be one of life’s great lessons.

British Brewery Campaigning To Save Traditional Pubs

by Sean McLachlan on


I’ve talked before here on Gadling about how British pubs are in danger. In 2011, an average of 14 per week shut down, and the trend is continuing. This is due to a number of factors, including the economic downturn, competition from cheap supermarket alcohol and ever-increasing taxes.

Now Wychwood Brewery has started an online petition to “Stop the Beer Duty Escalator.” Taxes on beer go up annually at 2 percent above the rate of inflation. The petition says this adds “considerably more pressure on the British pub, the cornerstone of many of our communities” and asks for this practice to stop.

“Going to the pub is a core British tradition and so is enjoying great beer,” the petition states. In a company statement, Wychwood Brewery said, “Imagine a world without pubs. Imagine communities with no heart. Imagine thousands of livelihoods affected.”

While this sounds like exaggeration, anyone who has lived in the UK for any length of time knows that it isn’t. Pubs really are a cornerstone to the national culture. The majority of people are regular pub goers, either for a quick pint of real ale or to watch a game or to enjoy a Sunday roast. They’re also a great way for tourists to experience the country and meet locals. The withering of that culture is reducing quality of life. I spend every Easter and summer in Oxford and every year I see prices go up and pubs close. It’s depressing.

Wychwood is aiming for 100,000 signatures, which will force the petition to be heard in the House of Commons. So far they have 27,517. If you’re a resident of the UK, I say sign this petition. You’ll be fighting for one of the nation’s cultural institutions and helping independent businesses.

[Photo courtesy Andrès Moreno]

Drink With The Ghosts Of Napoleon, Marilyn Monroe And Mark Twain: A Pub Crawl In Heidelberg

by Dave Seminara on

In Germany, one can go on a pub-crawl and claim to be sightseeing. There are centuries old pubs the size of postage stamps, beer halls one could land a plane in and more beer gardens than post offices. One could spend a lifetime exploring Germany’s historic drinking emporiums but if you’re looking for a medium sized city to base yourself on a beer tour, consider Heidelberg.

Heidelberg is a college town that boasts one of the oldest universities in Europe, founded in 1386, and where there are students there are great bars. Students, and wannabe students, have been guzzling prodigious amounts of beer in Heidelberg for centuries. And if you stay in the altstadt, you’ll hear them singing and partying at all hours of the night. Mark Twain, who spent three months studying German and art in the town in 1878, documented student drinking habits in hilarious detail in his travel narrative “A Tramp Abroad.”

“At a signal they all fall loading themselves with beer out of pint mugs, as fast as possible, and each man keeps his own count,” he wrote. “When the candidate can hold no more, a count is instituted and the one who has drank the greatest number of pints is proclaimed king. I was told that the last beer king emptied his mug 75 times.”

According to Twain, students settled their drunken quarrels by dueling, and those who were particularly unruly were sent to the studentenkarzer, or students’ prison. (see photo) On my first day of beer crawling in Heidelberg I emptied my mug only four times, but managed to guzzle four tasty beers in four of the city’s most interesting drinking emporiums, all within a 400-meter radius. The total cost of the four 1/3-liter beers was just under 12 euros. (My kids drank juice and their drinks cost the same.) This beer crawl is long on beer and short on crawling.

Zum Roten Ochsen (Red Ox Inn) – 217 Hauptstrasse – This dark, inviting bar/restaurant is one of the city’s oldest student drinking clubs. It was opened in 1703 and has been owned for the last 170 years by the Stengel family, some of who live upstairs. When you walk in, take a look at the stained glass windows – each devoted to a different field of study – and take a lap around the place to check out the black and white photos of some of the famous people who have supposedly quaffed beers here. Surely this is the only bar in the world that can claim Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Otto Van Bismarck and Mark Twain as former patrons.

Nearly every inch of wall and table space is scarred with the graffiti carvings of drunks from the last few centuries. I had a Heidelberger dunkel on draft that I didn’t want to put down. Our waitress explained to us that the club used beer tokens as tender until 1965, largely because the family who runs the place didn’t trust their waitresses so they’d make them buy the beer with tokens and then resell it to patrons.

Zum Sepp’l – 213 Hauptrasse – In a perfect world, everyone would have a bar like this in their neighborhood. The stunning stained glass windows, antique signs and dark, oak tables – all carved with generations of graffiti – make this place an incredibly atmospheric location to have a drink. The place was founded in 1642 and the history of the place oozes out of the carved up walls.

Our waitress told us that Napoleon used to frequent the place but said she’d never heard of Mark Twain or John Wayne. Other than a tiny little TV inside a picture frame silenced on mute, the only sounds we heard were the clinking of glasses and the conversations of other patrons. I wanted to move into the place, but settled for just one beer – a deliciously tart Easter beer brewed by the Kulturbrauerei, our next stop, right around the corner.

Kulturbrauerei – 6 Leyergasse – The current incarnation of this microbrewery dates to 1998 but breweries have existed on these premises since 1235. The main dining room has an ornately tiled ceiling, massive wood columns and atmospheric chandeliers. The food is first rate and the beers are even better. Try the maibock or the cloudy lager.

Vetter Brauhaus – 9 Steingassee – This microbrewery, which has indoor and outdoor seating, dates only to 1987 but you’d never know it. The long, candlelit tables, high ceilings and beautiful old bar give the place a timeless quality. I had a marzen beer that sent me into a reverie so deep that I almost wanted to do the old “SNL” sprockets dance – almost. It was so good that I could almost imagine how a beer king could down 75 mugs of it.

New York’s Longest-Running Craft Beer Festival Takes Place This Month

by Jessica Festa on

For the past 15 years, the New York Craft Beer and Fine Food Festival (TAP New York) has been taking over Hunter Mountain in New York. On April 28 and 29, the event is back again with expectations to be the biggest festival to date.

TAP New York began as a small gathering of about 200 beer enthusiasts and a few breweries. Over the years, the occasion has grown enormously. Now, the entire Base Lodge of Hunter Mountain is needed to hold all of the attendees. Additionally, this month over 70 breweries will be representing more than 140 individual beers so you’ll be able to sample both old and new favorites.

According to TAP New York, “The resurgence of craft brewing, spawned in part by the creative brewers at Saranac and Boston Brewing, has lead to fuller bodied, flavorful brews featuring rich colors, bold flavors, and imaginative ingredients. New craft breweries are opening every year, and we’re both happy and proud to welcome them aboard.”

For those who like to nosh while drinking, this year’s food theme is Caribbean Food. Delicious cuisine and cooking demonstrations will be part of the programming. Also, a beer competition run by qualified judges will award the best breweries and individual craft beers in the state.

Tickets are $64 for Saturday, $52 for Sunday and $105 for the entire weekend. A designated driver pass is $20, regardless of date. To purchase, click here. If you would like to register your brewery for the event, click here.