Show WHAT MEXICANS EAT The Queer Things Upon Which They Wax Fat FORTUNES IN PULQUE ATI CENT The Origin of the CocktailHotels and How i r They are Kept Something About Prices MEXICO CITY Aug 30Special correspondence f corres-pondence SCXDAT HER ALDJ Mexico has the best and cheapest beer in the world You can buy it all over Mexico for a cent a glass and there are a thousand licensed shops m Mexico city The city gets 1000 I day revenue from these shops and 250 000 pints or this liquor are sold hero everyday every-day This makes two tumblers to each mon irnmnn and child in the capital and the consumption throughout the remainder of the country is proportionately great The Mexican beer is called pulque I is natures own beer and it is made from the sap of a cactus plant of the same species as the century plant This grows in Mexico to 1 height of from eight to fifteen feet It is made up of great green leaves which aio a foot wide at the bottom and which are often eight Inches thick and eight or ten feet long These loaves start np from I the ground around a green cone which is a Toct thick at the base and which ends in a i point as sharp as a needle I takes about ten years for this cone to grow to Its proper size and if it is left a rower grows upon it and the plant after blossoming dies Just before blossoming however it is ready for pulquemaking This is done by cutting the cone out of the plant and this leaves a great bowl in the plant about as largo as u two gallon crock Into this bowl the sap of the leaves runs In streams and each plant will produce from eight to fifteen quarts of juice per day it continues to yield this amount for six months and ono plant will produce barrels and sometimes hogsheads of liquor This liquor is the natural beer I flows into the bowl as sweet as sugar and as clear as crystal After twentyfour hours however its color has changed to that of skimmed milk It has begun to ferment and it tastes like buttermilk but-termilk I begins to smell and its odor end strength increases as it grows older so that for a block around a pulque shop you have the smell of a limburger cheese factory fac-tory and you can shut your eyes and find the saloons by your nose The beer has about the same effect as good Bavarian bock It makes you feel comfortable and too much of it goes to your head I acts on your liver and kidneys and aids digestion diges-tion I you take it towards night it cures your tonic insomnia and I find it an excellent PULQUE PEDDLARS AND SHOPS The pulque is raised on big plantations There are tens of thousands of acres of the plants growing near Mexico City and one railroad receives 1000 a day for carrying pulque into the capital I traveled for miles through these pulque platations and I saw the Indian Peons gathering the liquor Each man Had a bag of untanned pigskin on his back and the juice was drawn from the plant into this by means of a long gourd which acted as a siphon The Indian would poke one end of this gourd Into the hole in the plant and suck the air and the juice out ana then turn it into this dirty pigskin bag These bags were made of tho hide of 1 whole hog and some of them looked as though they were not more than two or three days old The legs and the mouth of the skin were sewed up and when the bag was full of the liquor these wobbled about making the bag look like alive I a-live animal The pulque ferments in these bags In them it is carried into the city Iud it is served either from them or tram barrels The method of dealing it out to the customers is no more appetizing than the mode of gathering it A dirty Mexican Mex-ican in his shirt sleeves with his arms bare to the biceps takes a glass the size of schooner and thrusts his arm in the barrel up to the elbow and gives you the pulque with his hands dripping I you can conquer con-quer your nose you drink it and the result is not at all bad These pulque shops are found In every Mexican block They are open from early in the morning until C oclock at night and at this time they are closed by law and are not opened again unti the next morning Mexico has excellent excel-lent police regulations in regard to the peons or common people The pulque shops are patronized chiefly by them and you find less disorder in Mexico at night than in any city of its size in the United States The highpriced saloons which sell all kinds of liquors are kept open until midnight and later and I hear the billiard balls clicking and the rich foreigners and welltodo Mexicans carousing in the Iturbide barroom bar-room early in the morning and all day Sunday The pulque product however is the most profitable of any liquor production in Mexico and many of these pulque plantations bring in from 10000 to 512000 a year I know of one man who gets 5200 a day from his pulque hacienda and I am told that R M Pul I sifer of the Boston Herald is connected with a company of Americans who propose pro-pose to go into pulque making The pulque plant is one of the most useful plants of the world Its fibre makes excellent thread end the Aztecs use its thorns as needles They thatch their houses with its leaves and in the days of Cortez they made paper out of it This paper was like papyrus and there are old Aztec manuscripts in existence which were made in this way A number of other liquors in addition to pulque are produced from the plunt and in one district dis-trict a very fine brandy called Mescal is produced from it and Tequila is another liquor much like Scotch whisky which comes from the Maguey plant The leaves of this plant contain thousands of fibres and these make the strongest kind of bag gin and ropeswhich are equal in strength to linen THE ORiGiN Or THE COCKTAIL The title or our most popular drink comes from Mexico The Aztec word for pulque is pronounced much like octail and General Gen-eral Scotts troops called the liquor cocktail cock-tail and carried the word back to the United States It is said that the liquor was discovered by Toltec noble and that ho sent it to the king by the band of his daughter Miss Cocktail Xochitd The king drank the liquor and then looked at the maiden The first tickled his palate the second enamored his heart It was a case of love at first sight in both instances and he married the girl and started a pulque plantation From that day to this the Mexicans have kept themselves saturated satur-ated with pulque and Miss Cocktail is one of the Venuses of Mexican tradition Mexican brandies are very strong There is one called Aguardiente which is made from sugarcane and which ra as strong as itis cheap 1 had a sore throat a lew days ago and was advised to bathe my neck in this brandy I found that it made the skin smart and concluded to see how much alcohol there was in it I poured a wineglass full of It on to my marble washstand wash-stand and touched a match to it I exploded ex-ploded like coal oil and blazed away for ten minutes Two million dollars worth of this brandy is made in Mexico every year I produces drunkenness very quickly Mexicans have some good wines but they are very dear and an ordinary claret costs 1 a bottle The chief drinks at meals are coffee and chocolate and the Mexican chocolate delicious It is flavored with o cinnamon and is served quite sweet There is always a foam at the top of the cup and in all the Mexican markets you wilt find chocolate mixers a little wooden stick with knob on the end much like that of a I babys rattle You stand these on end in the chocolate and make the knob go around bywhirling the stem between tho palms of your hands WHAT THE MEXICANS EAT Before I came to Mexico I was told I would find nothing good to eat in the country coun-try Everyone said that the hotels were horrible and my friends patted their stomachs stom-achs gnd looked at mo with commiserating 4 It eyes They said that everything Mexican was a mixture of red pepper and grease and that the only good hotels in the country were those kept by the Americans who had gone down there I ventured into the land with fear and trembling and at first patronized patron-ized the American hotels I found them dear and nasty The cooking was abominable abomin-able and the service was worse I then tried a Mexican hotel and found it excellent excel-lent Some of the best meals I have ever had I have eaten in Mexico and I shall not soon forget a dinner at Toluca where a pretty Mexican boy gave me a dinner often of-ten courses and where the cuisine was equal to that of a good Paris restaurant Throughout southern Mexico I found splendid hotels They were often kept in old monasteries and at Zacatecas I slept in a big room off a cloister whore the door was four inches thick ana the key weighed a pound Oue end of my room opened out on a garden which constituted the centre of the building and every night I could walk around this in the moonlight and see it soften the outlines of the great Moorish dome of the monastery which looked down upon me The cooking hero was good and the same was the case at Guananuato The Mexicans serve their meals one dish at a time in table dhote style and they begin dinner with soup and end it with beans The waiter at the hotel brings a bowl of soup to you and you ladle I put as much as you want After soup you nave a hal a dozen different Kinds 01 meat and vegetables served separately and yeu close with a dessert and coffee Mexican frijoles always form a part of the meal These are pronounced freoholies and they are Mexican black beans They arc superior to the boston baked beans and every one eats them They are never eaten on the day they are cooked and they are always served in great abundance They close the meal as rice closes a dinner in Japan and I suppose the idea is that the man who has not had enough of other things can fill up on beans QUEER MEAT AGO SOnly S-Only the better classes of Mexicans eat meat and one of the great fields of American can investment is in the packing interests of Mexico Ham and beef bring high prices and the meat business of the city is managed man-aged by monopolies Good beeves are worth from 25 to SoO a head and there is I more mutton eaten than beef A great deal of the beef comes from Guanahuato and the meat wagons of this city are mules I Take one of the greasiest dirtiest mules I you can find and fasten a framework of hooks to u saddle on his back Let this I framework extend about a foot above the mule and on the hooks hang thu halves and I quarters of beeves so that the blood drips from them on tho ground and so that when tho mules are small the meatalmost touches smal the ground and you have the Mexican butcher cart of the mountains The butcher or meat pedler wears a great blanket about his shoulders abroad a-broad brimmed hat on his head and his feet are bare I you buy a quarter of beef he will carry it into your house on his head and if you want a slice he will hack off a piece for you and charge you about the same for the neck an the loin The Mexicans sell every part of the animal and in every market you will find little cook shops in which shreds of beef are fried and offered for sale These are for the Indian customers who stand about and eat the greasy morsel with their fingers and without with-out the use of knife fork or plate In Mexico Mex-ico City the butchering is more carefully done and beef is comparatively cheap You can get a roast for 18 cents a pound but pork is more expensive The pork business of Mexico City is controlled by a Mexican who has made millions out of it and he is now putting up one of the biggest packinghouses packing-houses in the world He has his agents allover over the city and he imports his hogs from Kansas THE LAND OF THE FRT Mexico Is the land of the fry Nearly every kind of meat is cooked in lard and the consequence is that lard is very high priced I costs 31 cents a pound and it largely takes the place of butter It is very hard to find good butter in Mexico That made by the natives is largely from goats milk It is as white as smear case cheese and is dressed without salt A smart American has started a dairy in Mexico City He has Jersey cows and gets from 8 cents to 1 a pound for his butter and proportionately as high prices for his milk My sister accompanies me during my Mexican tour and she has not eaten a bite of butter since we entered the republic repub-lic about two months ago I was in connection con-nection with her that I had a very funny experience at the hotel at Monterey I had understood that there was an American dairy near the town and I noted that the butter on the table was of 1 beautiful yellow yel-low and that it tasted much better than the goat butter I had been eating at other points I urged mpsister to try i saying that it was American butter and that it came from the dairy and at this I took 1 big bite out of a piece of bread that was spreaa with it This moment a burley Texan across the table interrupted me saying Stranger that aint American butter thats margarine You find good chicKen all over Mexico and there seems to be plenty of game Chickens are peddled round in coops on the backs of men and now and then you will see an Indian with perhaps two dozen tied together by the legs and thrown over his shoulders He goes with these from house to house and sells them Eggs are sold in the market in little piles of four to the pile and not by the dozen as we sell them and I note that in some places the eggs are placed in corn husks for shipment Everything Every-thing in the Mexican market seems to bo sold in piles and I could find no standard of measurement except the eye There were piles of four tomatoes of six little potatoes of n handful of red peppers and of other like things around each peddler and these peddlers were Indians and the Indians seem to be the market mar-ket men of Mexico They carry their wares for miles into the city on their backs and a dollars worth of market stuff is carried for days in order that it may be sold here The buying is done in the same picayune way as the selling and this city of 300000 people live from hand to mouth I dont believe there is a cellar in the whole town and every morning the servants go to market and buy en ouch for the day They buy for cash and before going to bed you have t leave enough silver with your servants for the morning marketing It is not fashionable for ladies to do their own marketing and everything is bought by the servants The result is that housekeeping house-keeping in Mexico is very expensive and between the prices charged and what the servants steal the outlay is oven greater than it is in the United States THE UNIVERSAL SIESTA The Mexicans themselves live much more cheaply than we do Tho morning meal even among the richest classes consists of only a cup of chocolate or coffee with plain bread or sweet cake The Mexicans eat this by dipping it into chocolate and they oren take this in bed Coffee is served in your rooms at all the hotels if you desire it and if you live like the Mexicans you will find charges much less wIl fnd your The second breakfast is served at73 or 1 oclock and at this all the family sit dfcvvn and it is really a dinner rather than realy a breakfat Soup is always served at It and the Mex cans have I hundred kinds of soup The evening meal is taken about 7 oclock and at this the family meet as at the second breakfast No work is done by any one in Mexico for about two hours after this midday breakfast and the business hours hero are from 9 to 12 and from 3 to 6 Between Be-tween 1 and 3 the whole city sleeps or gossips and after 7 oclock you will find none of the stores open Mexican bread is almost altogether made by the bakers is fairly good and tastes very much like the French bread I have not had a waffle nora nor-a griddle cake since I came into the country and I look in vain on every bill ot fare for hot biscuits and pie I do not find the Mexican dishes half as hot as they are painted and I doubt not but that their cuisine is fully as healthful asjoure FRANK G CARPESTER |