[Latest News][6]

Biz
Celebrity
childcare
crime
Health
others
Politics
relationships
Religion
sports

Mexico's Ancient 'Drink Of The gods'

Those who are familiar with pulque will tell you that it won’t get you intoxicated – not exactly. Mexico’s oldest alcoholic beverage works in strange ways. “You can sit there and drink pulque for hours and you just don't get drunk,” said my friend Donnie Masterson, an expert in Mexico’s epicurean delights. “Then you get up to leave and realize your legs don’t really work right. Your mind is completely clear, but your body doesn’t work.” Pulque also has a penchant for making gringos like myself sick. In fact, whenever I mentioned the beverage during a recent trip to Mexico, I was usually met with the kind of tempting warning an evil older brother gives his younger sibling – something akin to, “I don’t know if you should try it. It’s only for real men.” Obviously, I had to try it. Pulque is the stuff of legend. The frothy white beverage predates the arrival of the Spanish by at least 1,500 years; it’s the ancient ancestor of mescal and tequila. All three drinks come from the same family of plants, but pulque is made by fermenting – as opposed to distilling – the sap of maguey, or agave. The maguey plant can take eight to 12 years to reach maturity and produce sap, or aguamiel – literally honey water. Fermentation starts almost immediately after the plant is cut and the aguamiel begins to run; the beverage continues to ferment – and become more alcoholic – as it makes its way down your throat. It’s usually between 2% and 8% alcohol but tends toward the lower end of the spectrum. For some Indians of the central highlands, pulque was once at the centre of their religion and the cure for just about everything – from diabetes and intestinal problems to sleep disorders. (Pulque is reportedly a great source of probiotics, protein, and various vitamins and minerals, too.) In its long and strange life, it’s been used as an aphrodisiac, a fuel for celebrations, and to ease the pain of sacrificial victims. Because it’s so vitamin- and mineral-rich, it was once consumed in arid parts of Mexico when water was scarce, and some pregnant women and new mothers still drink it to promote health and lactation. While it’s known as the Aztec drink of the gods, to the uninitiated, pulque seems anything but divine. Before I ever tried it, I listened to dozens of people struggle to describe its texture. Descriptions were invariably of the sexual or scatological variety – filthy and vivid enough to make a ranchero blush. My first battle with pulque was in the centre of Mexico City at a pulqueria called La Risa, whose saloon-style swinging doors have been open to pulque faithful since 1903. For years, pulquerias like La Risa flourished in Mexico, with more than 1,000 in Mexico City and the surrounding farming regions. But between the early 20th Century and early 21st that number tumbled to around 80. Cerveza (beer), which arrived in Mexico with the Spanish, took pulque’s place behind the bar, thanks to beer’s relatively long shelf life and status-symbol image. But in the last five or six years, pulque has made a small resurgence, thanks mostly to young artists and punks who view the ancient drink as everything beer is not — fiercely Mexican. Inside La Risa, tattooed and pierced punks, a man in a business suit and a crowd of teenage girls who insisted they were “old enough” to drink were gulping down pulque. Murals of dragons and Mayahuel (the goddess of maguey), and pictures of the Virgin Mary, surrounded small, stained metal tables. A metal bucket of pulque was soon placed before me, along with an accompanying pink scoop. In colour and texture, the drink resembled the top of a pancake just before it’s ready to flip; it certainly didn’t resemble anything meant to be drunk. When my nose first got a whiff of its pungent, acidic odour, my stomach began to churn. Source:bbc

About Author Mohamed Abu 'l-Gharaniq

when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Start typing and press Enter to search