Aventuras en la Cocina a Go Go!

 NO I have not forgotten you, my darlings!  No no no.  I was just being lazy. Pure sloth on my part.

So slothful that my magnificent slothful zeal must be caged.   

During this period of inactivity I actually accomplished a lot.  Most of it was boring. I'll spare you that, and instead recount the thrilling tale of How The Biker and FirstNations discovered a meal so holy, so tasty, so satisfying and so filled with cholesterol and saturated fats that even the plaque forming in your bloodstream will feel shame. This manna from Heaven is known as

Birria.       

Our story:  One of the Bikers buddies at work was walking around carrying a styro clamshell which was giving forth an aroma born in Paradise. Naturally The Biker followed this guy around the plant until he trapped him in a filthy restroom stall, kicked him unconscious, swiped his lunch and took a piss on him.

NO!  Ha ha!  That is not what happened at all. Things like that never happen here.  

 WTF UK.  

(Taken from an article in the Mirror. A more sober, reliable source you will not find.) Also, what the fuck's up with the radioactive eyeball dog? WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING OVER THERE?    

Our local Birriaria is in the middle of a tiny little strip mall.  As soon as we walked in we knew we were in for a treat. How?  Because right next to the cash register was a cooler full of Mexican Coca-Cola. (Just - just, dammit, calm down! I'll tell you about Mexican Coca Cola in a sec.  Geeze.)  We get our birria plates. Our meals look...like they've been made by...people with a different food aesthetic. -fine. Not delicious. 

Oh, but they are delicious. 

It's twoo.

Oh, it is! It is!!!!!   

This is how it shapes up. Birria is made in an enormous, enormous pot full of spices, other stuff, lard and Beef. Around the sides of this pot hang colanders full of chicken, turkey, maybe goat, and pork, all simmering in the same consomme, as it's called on the menu (they sell it by the cup!!!!!) They add a little water, a little this and that if the pot gets low, and it just rolls on, getting more complex and tastier.

There isn't a picture in all the webiverse that reveals the true ugliness of birria, so brace yourselves. 

If you order birria cheese tacos, what you will receive looks like a plate full ancient Egyptian rehydrated pussy.

Oh how I wish I were exaggerating.   

 

It just does.  And the next paragraph is just as unnecessarily descriptive.

They grab a plastic platter and lay a piece of checkered paper on it. 

They then lay down one flour tortilla and put cheese on it. Queso Oaxaca, I think. Maybe plain Monterrey Jack.  

Then they lay another flour tortilla on top of that. 

Next they fish around in the truly vast, soul-swallowing vat of birria and pick out the protein of your choice, which has simmered to rags, and splorch it on top. A flood of Consomme mixes with orange - colored oil on the platter. 

They fold this pile of tortillas, cheese and meat in half and then dip it in their deep fryer for a three count.  

It comes out of the deep fryer the color of a flaming sunset (Let's say Pantone Orange 021 HC) and goes straight onto your flooded, paper-lined platter, with a little more of the protein of your choice on top of it all, then a ladle full of the consomme, PLUS six deep-fried serrano peppers in the skin.  

Now as someone who knows their ancient Egyptian dehydrated pussy, I can tell you a lot of things you'd expect from me after a lead in like that.   The thing is, you have to trust me. Birria is ugly, it is bad for you, and it is the most delicious meal The Biker and I have eaten IN. FREAKING. DECADES. 

Oh oh oh crap, yes, the Mexican Coca-Cola. OK.  

Here in the U.S., Coke is made by making Hello Kitty pee in a bottle.  And as tempting as that sounds, it isn't anything compared to the delicious, delicious flavor of Mexican Coca-Cola, which is made using the original recipe just as God intended!  

See the paper label?  That's what Mexican Coke has to have slapped on it in order to be sold in the U.S.A. Basically, they're shipping the original, delicious Coke in from a foreign country back to the country where the original recipe was invented - the same country which now drinks (in blind, market-generated ignorance) a hell-substance made of maltose, corn syrup, and LIES.   

Living on the West Coast, I've known about Mexican Coke since the Eighties, but I guess for a large part of the world this is voodoo magic, so let me be the one to clue you in. Coke used to be made using unbleached cane sugar - and that's it, just unbleached cane sugar - as a sweetener.  It's the Coke we all drank when we were kids.*  Those of you living in climes foreign might find Original Recipe Coke being sold as 'Kosher for Passover' Coke. Either way, BUY IT.  The difference in flavor is unbelievable and you will send me $9000.00 in gratitude for bringing light to your beveragey darkness. 

Now go forth and do whatever it is you do.

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*At least everybody but Miss Scarlet, who is only 16.