Paletas de Michoacán street vender
Paletas de Michoacán
In the early 1990s I spent several summers as a graduate student living in Guadalajara, Mexico (in central Mexico) learning Spanish and exploring the cuisine. Eating paletas de Michoacán (popsicles from Michoacán) represented one of my favorite Guadalajara memories. Paletas are indigenous to the region of Michoacán, Mexico. These are water or cream based popsicles on steroids made with pieces of fresh tropical fruit. I purchased mine at corner store bodegas found on most street corners in the city. They come in flavors like coconut, lemon, guava, strawberry, mango, Kiwi, and pineapple. Coconut still remains my favorite; it’s like eating chunks of coconut in coconut creamed milk frozen solid. After you remove it from the freezer in the bodega, take off the plastic rapper, and step out into the hot Guadalajara sun, the heat quickly softens the rock hard coconut treat on a stick enough so you can take bites out of it. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. About five years ago, I started seeing Mexican street venders like the one pictured above pushing small white freezer carts advertising paletas de Michoacán on the side in Harlem and the South Bronx. Their presence is a good indicator that the population of Mexican migrants has increased significantly in New York City and the variety of ice cream in the big apple has greatly improved.
Mexican town runs on ice cream: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-01-12-icecream_N.htm
0 comments:
Post a Comment