it's morning in mexico

 

Ham is a cook's best friend.

Like its cousin bacon, it can dress up almost any dish. To me, bean soup without ham is just a bowl of broth.

When I first moved to Mexico in 2009, ham was one of my several staples I could not find here or in Manzanillo. There was plenty of pressed pork sliced as lunch meat, but it was not ham. I thought that odd because the local butcher shops are filled with other pig meat products. ("Pig meat" is what my porcine-adverse mother calls all pork products.)  

During the last few years, that has changed. Alex at Hawaii buys some great ham offerings at Costco when it is available -- usually around Christmas for those of us who would like something other than turkey for our Yuletide dinners. But its appearance is rare. For the same reason it is not sold regularly in the butcher shops.

A reader, whose identity I do not recall, suggested using readily-available smoked pork chops as a substitute. The taste worked, but not the consistency of the meat.

That is why I broke one of my basic travel rules yesterday. Whenever I am preparing for a trip (as I now am -- on Saturday), I do not buy any perishable food. After all, what's the point in buying something alluring only to allow it to rot in my absence? (I have had too many relationships like that.)

But I could not avoid buying what I found at Sam's Club yesterday. Real ham. From Mexico. I justified the purchase with a promise to slice and freeze it. But not before a sandwich yesterday afternoon -- and an egg concoction this morning.

Thanks to the good services of Hawaii and Sam's Club, I had a rather exotic egg muffin to start my day. Mexican ham. Tillamook extra sharp cheddar. English muffins. French marjoram. It was an international fiesta.

At this rate, I might be through the entire ham before I board my Alaska flight tomorrow. I notice that Omar has cooked up some beans for his lunches at the construction site. I may tart up some of them for him with genuine ham chunks. (I will ask first. I have learned that most Mexicans of my acquaintance do not take kindly to someone else messing with their beans.)

The best think about freezing slabs of ham is that I will have some at the ready when I return from Oregon to live my almost-isolation life here. 

And that will not be a bad thing.

After all, it will be something to accompany my mornings in Mexico.