Mexicowoods—An Expatriate Life

A Famous Fish Market

Joe Patti arrived in Pensacola from Sicily in the 1920s. He fished for shrimp, opening his namesake fish market in 1935. Today, it is a Pensacola institution. When we visit Laura's folks, we always try to shop at Joe Patti's Seafood, because it is one of the finest fish markets in the country.

 

No kidding. The amount and variety of seafood sold here is staggering. Nine years ago (the only numbers I could find) the sales volume was $14 million.

I tagged along with Laura and her mom early one morning as they shopped for dinner.

I have never found anything so fresh as these redfish in San Miguel de Allende, but then our town is located in Mexico's midwest, hours from any fishing port. People tell me the fishmonger at the tianguis is good, but buying from him requires a leap of faith I have been unable to make. Things run downhill from there: the seafood composting at Soriana perfumes the entire supermarket.

Joe Patti's sells a half-dozen species of shrimp, either cooked or uncooked, shelled or not, with or without heads. They sell more varieties of just shrimp than all of the kinds of seafood offered at Mega.

I've never seen wild-caught salmon in Mexico. We only get fish that were farmed in Chile. And look at those prices! The Sonoma Market in California sells salmon for three times as much.

I don't know what mullet gizzards are. No doubt they're a bargain at $3 per pound. I'm game to try some, if I only knew how to prepare them.

Blue crabs are caught locally. Customers take the ones the counterman selects. You don't get to pick the ones you want for only a dollar each.

Frank Patti, son of founder Joe, is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He sets the rules for his customers (like no picking) and shows them exactly what to expect when they ask to get their fish cleaned.

Make sure you ask for the backbones, and expect to pay 40¢ per pound to have the black cleaned out of the bellies, whatever that is. Oh, and keep in mind that once your fish is cleaned, it's yours. No backing out.

Customers take their dripping, fishy purchases to a bank of checkout stands where everything is weighed and priced, and packed in ice for the ride home. Forgot to bring your cooler? Cheap Styrofoam ones are for sale at nominal prices. A sobering refund policy greets purchasers: it features the word "no."

Nobody is put off by Frank's rules. The fish is too good and the prices are right.

The store sells more than fish. A "gourmet" section offers spices and condiments, breads and cheeses.

Here's a typical offering:

They still operate their own fishing boat, but much produce is bought from local fishermen who transfer their catches right onto Joe Patti's dock where it travels about twenty feet to the store's counters. Fish doesn't get any fresher than that.

Joe Patti's is a major tourist attraction. But for locals, it's just the place they buy their fish. Lucky Pensacolans.

Two Gulf Coast Beaches

Laura was born and raised in Pensacola. Her parents still live there. One can hardly go farther west and still be in Florida.

We come here a couple of times a year to visit the folks and old school friends.

We're staying inside the city limits, but today we're driving south across the Pensacola Bay Bridge to Gulf Breeze. Cross another bridge and we reach Santa Rosa Island the barrier island and Pensacola Beach. We want to swim and get some sun.

A water tower sign informs us we've reached our destination. I feel odd coming all the way to Florida to enjoy sand and surf, given Mexico's gorgeous and extensive beaches. But San Miguel de Allende is at least a day's travel from any of them, whether by automobile or airplane. Laura's mom lives less than a half-hour drive from Pensacola Beach. From her house, a trip to the coast is much easier.

This is an urban beach. Hotels and condos front the water. The sand is a beautiful white and the turquoise water is clear. Pensacola Beach is not as famous as the South Florida beaches, but knowledgeable vacationers come here to escape crowds and save money.

A hurricane-resistant pier provides a viewing platform for strollers, but fishing is not permitted. Surfers are welcome west of the pier, but wave action is gentle; there'll be no shooting the curl here.

The beach is dragged every morning, leaving smooth, clean sand. Life guards watch over visitors from elevated stations. Yellow 4WD trucks enable rescuers to execute rapid responses anywhere along the long stretch of water. The green flag flying from this truck means we picked a good day to swim: the water isn't hazardous.

Or is it? While swimming, Laura and I receive many tiny stings. Suddenly attentive, we realize we're surrounded by jellyfish. I prove to my satisfaction that I'm incapable of photographing jellyfish bobbing in the waves (although to my chagrin Laura captures one beautifully). I have to settle for a washed-up specimen to document what was biting us.

The City Fathers want Pensacola Beach clean, safe, and hassle-free. No booze allowed, a proscription widely ignored by guys whiling away the afternoon in beach chairs, hands periodically dipping into coolers for cans of Bud Light.

Immaculate restrooms, an architect-designed snack bar, abundant trash barrels bearing signs: "Leave Only Footprints," and rows of rental lounges under identical blue umbrellas are signs of civilization imposed on nature.

I like beaches a little more remote, a little more natural. Usually none such coexist with cities, but arrayed along Santa Rosa Island on either side of Pensacola Beach we have Gulf Island National Seashore. Driving west from the high rises, housing density begins to drop. We enter a region reminiscent of Seaside FL, that squeaky-clean town where Jim Carrey lived in The Truman Show.

Houses soon peter out A sign announces the border of the National Seashore. An old life saving station serves as park headquarters where a garrulous ranger is happy to recount an exhaustive history of the place.

Few visitors and no amenities disrupt our solitude here. Absence of lifeguards (or for that matter any other person who might render aid) keeps us out of the choppy water. We settle for walking in the surf line for a mile or two, enjoying fresh salty air and the cries of seabirds.

 

Drifts of shells testify to the low number of beachcombers. Pensacola beach, by contrast, has long been picked clean.

 

A frieze of Sea Oat seed heads runs along the length of the barrier island. These native grasses—true wild oats—anchor the dunes against the storm-driven waves that wash over the land.

Pensacola Beach or Gulf Island National Seashore—they're just a few miles apart along the same stretch of sand. Which would you choose for a seaside outing?

Organic San Miguel

Sonoma County, in the wine country north of San Francisco where I used to live, has always been in the forefront of the organic food movement. From the mid-'60s on, small farms have offered organic produce. Many of us grew our own veggies, if not for health reasons, then at least because the food tasted so much better. Just compare a home grown tomato with the strip-mined supermarket variety, and you'll see what I mean.

When I moved to San Miguel in 2003, I had to give up hormone-free grass-fed beef, those incredibly sweet Sierra strawberries grown by Korean gardeners, eggs direct from farms where chickens were allowed to eat bugs. I left behind the French market lettuces grown in raised beds at Mustard's Grill in the Napa Valley. Italian chicory forced in darkness, Cox's Orange Pippin and Pink Pearl apples, Yukon Gold potatoes—I said goodbye to all.

Little or no locally grown food was available in San Miguel when I arrived, much less organic food. Mercados received most of their food from large distributors. Supermarkets and tienditas alike offered the output of corporate farms, often in a state of incipient decay.

Today this is changing. First there was Bee Natural (now Natura), a small store offering organic veggies. Then a few restaurants recognized the market opportunity, given that so many expats mourn the loss of healthy foods. They began offering locally grown foods. Now, a major player has entered the game: Via Orgánica.

Via Orgánica is an organization dedicated to promoting organic food production through workshops, an organic certification process, and a producers' network. Most Sanmiguelenses though know of it through their café and tienda in Colonia Guadalupe.

The sign says, "Eat healthy. Eat organic." And indeed you can, from a breakfast and lunch menu of unique dishes all prepared from locally grown ingredients.

In the tienda proper, shoppers won't find Log Cabin genuine artificial maple-flavored syrup. Or Jif peanut butter, or Smuckers jam. All the canned and bottled stuff is from organic producers.

(The shelves of prepared foods make me nervous. They smack too much of the offerings of Whole Foods, an Austin based nationwide organic supermarket chain (oxymoron!) that has managed to give the organic movement a bad name, with its ties to agribusiness and its mistreatment of employees.)

Via Orgánica offers dairy and bakery products, most of them locally made. Hormone free beef and line-caught fish are available (unfortunately, frozen). For me the fresh fruits and vegetables are the stars. Vine-ripened tomatoes, little white-and purple striped eggplants, tiny sweet carrots, tender "non-shippable" lettuces—these products make eating vegetables attractive again.

Today's shopping basket: tomatoes, zucchini, spinach, broccoli, bananas (!) and wax beans I snatched out of the box the minute they were delivered. They had been picked just a few hours ago.

After buying my groceries, I always sit down at Tapas Café for lunch: a small veggie pizza, a green salad, fresh fruit juice, maybe a blackberry tart.

Our community contains 5,000-10,000 expatriates, many of whom have shopped organic in the States and have grown to appreciate healthy foods. So San Miguel is a natural place to get started with Mexico's organic movement. Via Orgánica, with its community-wide vision, is positioned to accelerate change.

But it's not just brown-rice Californian expats making this all happen. Mexico already has organic markets, many of them small but all responding to ever increasing demand by discerning Mexicans. A list of them can be found at the Red Mexicana de Tianguis y Mercados Orgánicos website. (The Mexican Network of Organic Stores and Markets).

A Ruin on Chorro

Rarely do I see decaying buildings in nicer American neighborhoods—like San Francisco's Pacific Heights for instance. Houses in probate or encumbered by ownership disputes may get to looking rough for a little while, but time is money, so such issues tend to get wrapped up quickly. Then the houses get spruced up and sold, or sold and spruced up, and streets regain their usual manicured look.

Not so in San Miguel de Allende. It's not uncommon to see a decaying ruin right in the middle of a row of elegant homes, standing out like a bad tooth in a starlet's smile. Behind this door on Chorro, a street of million-dollar homes, lies an urban wreck.

Mexican houses can remain in neglect for decades. I noticed a large home on Aldama seven years ago, the roof of which had already collapsed indicating many years of disintegration. I find this incomprehensible. Even as a ruin, the house is worth a small fortune.

How come? Are owners too poor to keep up their properties? Probably not—wealthy people own the houses in these neighborhoods.

Maybe some are in limbo over ownership disputes. Civil matters can drag on interminably in Mexican courts.

I think the most probable explanation is that these homes are owned by Mexico's aristocracy, whose holdings are so extensive they don't have time to attend to all of them. Maybe they simply lose track of them.

Whatever the immediate causes of property neglect, owners seem uninterested in making investments work. Norteamericanos are averse to idle assets: property should serve a need or produce income. Apparently for some Mexican people, just holding it is enough.