Attending to the Coronary heart of Mexico, One Chile at a Time
The fruity chile odor crammed my nostrils as I took a sip of the mezcal that Juana Amaya Hernandez had poured for me. I used to be ingesting it out of a chile de agua, a big lime-colored chile native to Oaxaca, its rim dipped in selfmade sal de gusano, a spice made with floor agave worms, and it tickled my tongue with its tinny taste. “That is how we drink mezcal within the countryside,” Ms. Hernandez mentioned.My pals and I have been within the courtyard of a restaurant within the sleepy Oaxacan city of Zimatlán de Álvarez, on a lip-burning two-week journey to get to the guts of Mexican chiles. We have been the company of Ms. Hernandez, 67, a stout girl sporting thick glasses, a colourful costume and earrings manufactured from strings of dried blue-corn kernels. As soon as a prison lawyer...
