High Altitude Cooking

The aims of this blog are sharing what I'm learning and communicating about what I'm doing.  Some of what I'm doing is everyday living, but frequently there's a twist to it that involves figuring stuff out and/or trial and error.

You may not know this, but Mexico City is one of the highest altitude national capitals.  Denver is called the "Mile High City" because of its altitude (we learned in elementary school that there are 5280 feet in a mile).  Mexico City's altitude of 7350 feet makes it the almost-one-and-a-half-mile high city.  So here's a little bit of physical science information that you might or might not know:  the higher the altitude, the lower the air pressure.  Big deal, you may be saying.  But if you're trying to cook and even moreso if you're trying to bake, it is a very big deal.  Lower air pressure makes water boil at a lower temperature, thus making it more difficult to cook things in or over boiling water--it takes longer because the water is not as hot as one would expect at a lower altitude.  Why is this an issue in baking?  Well, when water or any other liquid boils, it evaporates.  Thus, in baking a cake, for instance, liquid begins evaporating sooner and this can cause the cake to be dry.  What's more, lower air pressure also affects the leavening process, where certain ingredients produce gases that make the cake rise.  What happens here is that gas is produced faster (which is really what water boiling is as well--water changing from a liquid to a gaseous state), the cake rises faster, but because this is happening at a lower temperature that it would at or near sea level, the rest of the chemical reactions are out of synch.  The structure of the cake is created by the starches in the flour, the sugar, and the fats.  If the cake rises too fast, the center falls because it isn't as done as it should be.  So, there are various adjustments that one can make to a cake recipe to change the chemistry to try to account for the lower boiling, faster rising, etc.  (a little more flour, a little less sugar, a higher temperature, a longer cooking time, etc.).  Okay, end of first physical science lesson.

Remember above when I said Mexico City's altitude is 7350 feet?  Well, to the local population, it's 2240 meters.  That's right--they use the dreaded metric system, not only for distance but also for weights and dry volume (grams) and liquid volume (liters).  Sure, we know about how much two liters is (a two-liter bottle of Coke/soda/pop--duh!), but how do teaspoons and measuring cups compare?  For most of the cake ingredients, if you have measuring cups and spoons for the English system of measurement and your recipe is written in the English system, everything works fine.  But if the fat you are using is butter, the usual way it is measured is by the stick (which is 1/4 pound, 1/2 cup, or 8 tablespoons).  The wrapper of a stick of butter is conveniently marked into tablespoons with additional markings indicating 1/4 cup and 1/3 cup.  But if the butter is sold in a country that uses the metric system (which, by the way, is almost every country in the world except for the US), turns out a box of butter is not one pound and the four sticks of butter in the box are not 1/4 pound each.  With nothing to compare it to in the grocery store, the box looked about the right size.  However, when I opened it at home, the sticks looked like they were flattened--about the right dimensions in length and width but not in height.

All of this is to say, it's Doug's birthday and he was returning from the US, so I was going to surprise him by baking one of our favorite cakes.  First I had to try to buy an appropriate pan for it because, as I may have mentioned previously, there is NOTHING to bake in, in this otherwise very fully-furnished apartment.  Last weekend I found a pan that's not exactly right but I thought it would work.  First I made sure I could get all of the ingredients for the cake.  Then I got my sister to fill in some details in the recipe (via Facebook, of course). 

Saturday afternoon I started to bake the cake.  First step, as my mother taught me, is turn the oven on.  Uh-oh--the oven temperature is measured in degrees Centigrade and my recipe calls for 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Yes, we learned the conversion from Fahrenheit to Centigrade in school, but it's one of those things that I don't really remember.  I could figure it out, but I don't remember it.  Luckily, though, we now have the internets, so I quickly found a conversion calculator.  If I remember correctly, it was 224 degrees C.--something like that.  So I turned the oven on to that temperature.

For this particular cake, making the batter involves melting the butter with water and powdered cocoa.  After this mixture boils, it's added to the sugar and flour and then the rest of the ingredients are stirred in.  So I usually start the butter melting with the water and cocoa, then measure the sugar and flour, etc.  I opened the butter box and dumped out the--oops--flattened sticks of butter.  Shit!  Read on the stick of butter (mantequilla) that it's 90 grams.  Great--how much of a quarter pound is that?  Internets to the rescue once again.  Of course I needed to round somewhat and eyeball where to cut the sticks of butter, but I had enough for both the cake and the icing.

So, how'd the cake turn out?  Well, let me tell you that although I knew that high altitude baking is tricky, I learned all of the specifics that are in the first part of this post WHILE THE CAKE WAS IN THE OVEN.  When I noticed that it looked funny (like, the outside edge was tall and the middle 90 percent of the cake was much shorter).  Needless to say, it's not the right consistency, but it tastes better than several others I made experimentally when I was 13 or 14 (once I got baking powder and baking soda mixed up and used the wrong one, resulting in a two-layer cake that was only about an inch tall and somewhat the consistency of sawdust; once I decided to substitute green food coloring for the red that's called for in a Red Velvet Cake--that cake looked like it was made of spinach).  I think I was so preoccupied with the differences in measures that I was having to deal with that I forgot to explore the OTHER difference--the effect of the altitude!  My mother always said "Live and learn" (as she choked down chocolate sawdust/spinach velvet cake).  Only time will tell whether I learned!

Random Tidbits

I don't think I have anything major and new to write about, which maybe is an indication of settling in here.  However, I have written some notes to myself about observations I've made--small, curious things that don't amount to much individually but, taken together, do communicate more about the context and the essence of the place.  Sometimes things that are curious or strange to me may have more to do with living in a huge city for the first time than with living in Mexico, but people who have lived in New York City or Chicago will have to judge that.

Grooming in Public
Every day that I go to my university, I use the Metrobus, one of the many types of public transportation here.  It is a double- or triple-sectioned bus that uses a dedicated lane (the extreme left-hand lane) on a two-way street.  Buses going in both directions share stops that are between the northbound and southbound lanes.  The bus is usually quite crowded (I mean, seriously packed).  The front "car" is supposedly reserved for women, children, older people, and people with disabilities, which is more or less respected by the rest of the men.  The way many people drive in Mexico (especially taxi drivers--and there are a LOT of taxis) is go about as fast as you can until you have to stop.  The brakes must be really good here (or replaced frequently) because stops are sometimes quite sudden!  The Metrobus drivers drive the same way, I think.  Thus, it's not exactly a smooth ride.  Everyone holds on, usually with two hands (everyone who is standing and has two hands, anyway).  What is really amazing to me is that women frequently are putting on their makeup as they are riding the Metrobus!  If they are standing, they may have one arm wrapped around one of the upright poles that are for holding onto. And they are putting on eye shadow, eye liner, mascara--even curling their eyelashes.  It looks eye-endangering to me.  I'm not sure what's more curious--the putting on of eye makeup in this setting itself, or the fact that sometimes they are using a metal teaspoon instead of an eyelash curler.  The first time I saw this, I thought, "Oh, she must have just forgotten her eyelash curler but had a metal spoon in her purse...".  But when I was remarking to our Spanish teacher about the applying of mascara, eyelash curling, etc. she asked whether they were using an eyelash curler or a spoon--apparently, it's a common practice (and I've seen it several times since then).

Just Call Me Teri
Everybody else does.  I introduce myself as Theresa, but most people, even if they are meeting me for the first time, almost immediately change it to Teri.  I've accepted it--I know it's a friendly shortening of the name.  Really, I have nothing to complain about because it's easier to have a name that people can pronounce rather than one such as Doug ("Doog") or Jeff ("Ypts"). 

This Ain't No New York Deli
In one of the restaurants we've been to several times, I asked one of the managers why all of the music they play is in English (it's '80s pop mostly) and he said, sounding surprised that I didn't know this, it's because the restaurant is supposed to be like a New York deli.  Let me describe it and see if you think it's like a New York deli:  it's on a rounded corner and open on close to 180 degrees of a circle; the tables are all probably 3-4 feet by 3-4 feet and at least three feet apart;  there's a full bar; there's a large, upholstered couch in an area in the corner facing a big, flatscreen TV; there's a glass case with some meats and cheeses in it; the place advertises its specialties as coffee and mezcal; I don't think they have cheesecake.  Really, the only thing that seems remotely like a New York deli is the case with meat and cheese.  I think it's mostly for decoration.  To be fair, I wasn't looking for there to be a New York deli here, and perhaps it's payback for the authenticity of many, many Mexican restaurants in the US.

Class Differences?
If you've read my blog previously, you might remember that I was really bothered by the shoeshine guy who tried to polish my black tennis shoes while I was trying to walk away from him and Doug and I were yelling "NO!"  Well, one time I was at the previously-mentioned restaurant that is not a New York deli and noticed a shoeshine guy getting the business of some businessman, while the businessman was seated at a table.  The businessman also was enjoying the cigarette-lighting services of the wait staff. 

Speaking of Cigarettes...
There are several startling differences between the food service operations at UNAM and what I'm used to in the US.  For one thing, the prices are extremely reasonable--I pay the equivalent of about 60 cents for a cup of coffee (okay, it's not good coffee, but neither is anything available at OSU in my opinion!).  Today I had lunch for about $1.60.  It seems they aren't trying to get every penny out of the students that they can.  The other really strange thing is that the food outlets sell cigarettes--single cigarettes.  At one of the food places, there's even a lighter on a string, hanging on the potato chip display.

Ah, as I'm writing this, I'm hearing the sound of another roving vendor, which I just identified last night.  The sound is one of those bulb-and-horn things that sometimes used to be on bicycles.  It's on a bicycle-cart-thing that has a big, round basket on the front and one of those big thermoses like you see Gatorade dumped out of onto the winning football coach.  In the basket are somewhat sweet breads of some kind (our doorman said donuts, but I doubt they're actually donuts) and in the thermos is coffee.  It's a fairly typical thing for people to have for dinner--around 10 p.m.

Social Action--There and Here



One of the younger Fulbright-Garcia Robles fellows lamented, as he posted an update about Occupy Wall Street, "Why am I not there?".  It's a strange thing to watch what's going on, and with the technology of live streaming video, we were able to do just that last weekend when hundreds of people were arrested/detained/whatever on the Brooklyn Bridge.  As I told my younger friend, this is the first time a movement like this has sprung up in the US in my adult lifetime and I have hopes that it really amounts to something.




This grafiti refers to the casualties in Pres. Felipe
Calderon's war on narco traffickers--50,000
deaths and counting, it says.



Meanwhile, back in Mexico, there's social action worth mentioning, too.  One current movement is called "Moviemento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad" (movement for peace with justice and dignity).  This is a movement established by Javier Sicilia, a poet whose son was murdered earlier this year in narco trafficking related violence.  The movement recently held "Caravan por la Paz," which was a road trip of some 630 people in 14 buses and seven cars, for 10 days, from Mexico City through central and southern Mexico.  With approximately two stops per day, the group marched and held demonstrations in a number of cities, towns and villages that have been savaged by violence.  In some of the locations, the violence has been at the hands of narco trafficking; in others, the conflict is more longstanding, based in oppression of indigenous people, and at the hands of the state or entities sponsored by the state.  Part of the process was to hear the experiences of people in the various locations.  One of the Fulbrighters whose research is related to state response to violence experiences accompanied the delegation.  Here's a link to more information:  http://movimientoporlapaz.mx/.  It sounds like it was very interesting and moving.  (The website is in Spanish but has plenty of pictures.)

What I really wanted to write about this time, though, takes us back to 1968.  The Olympics were to be in Mexico City--a first for a developing country.  At the same time, there was a very active student movement that was seeking more support for education, more freedom, and more democracy.  The students had had large demonstrations in the Zocolo, but the government was unwilling to budge an inch.  Finally, on October 2, 1968, another demonstration was planned in another location in the city--the Plaza de Tres Culturas (plaze of three cultures, which has Aztec ruins, structures from the Spanish colonial period as well as modern Mexican; photo left).  The crowd gathered was reportedly smaller than those earlier in the summer, but still numbered 1000-2000.  Various regiments of the army arrived and surrounded the plaza, and a massacre occurred with a yet-unknown but large number of deaths.  After that, the student movement (what was left of it) went into hiding.  (Here is a link to a very moving NPR story about the massacre:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97546687.  The story is in English, with some Spanish speakers translated.)  It's chilling listening to accounts of what happened and the almost total secrecy that has existed since 1968 (I was in the third or fourth grade, to give you an idea of the scale of time here).  Sure, we had a national guard shooting during a protest in the late '60s (or early '70s?) in the U.S.--in Ohio, even.  Four students were killed and a number of others were injured.  It was definitely a shock and awful, but here possibly more than 1000 people died or were "disappeared".  This effectively ended the student movement.  Most of the Olympians had no idea it had happened because it was immediately covered up.  Reportedly, this affected Mexico for many years.

"Don't pardon and don't forget"



October 2 is remembered here through several different events.  I had learned of a demonstration in the Zocolo, from a student group at the school of social work.  Doug and I were planning to visit a different historical site, but in figuring out how to get there, we realized that it was very near La Plaza de las tres Culturas, so we decided to head there instead.  This was early afternoon and we were thinking that probably anything that had been happening at Plaza de las tres Culturas would be over.  However, the large police presence at the Metro station indicated otherwise. 

Groups of (mostly) young people were in formation for a parade, with banners for various (mostly leftist) political parties, facemasks, and flags.  We learned that the theme of the demonstration was opposing increased militarization of the country and campuses.  We decided to observe for a while--Doug was taking pictures we were both trying to figure out what some of the banners meant.  The march started moving and we moved alongside.  We were pretty near the end of the marchers when they started moving.  At first, the police presence was minimal, with some vehicles following the marchers and a few officers on foot here and there.  However, the closer we got to the Zocolo, the more police there were, and the more heavily fortified. 

Five or six blocks from the Zocolo, the march turned down one of the narrow streets in the main historical center (Cinco de Mayo).  Large, metal walls had been put up to protect the buildings, which also made the street several feet narrower.  At times, we could walk behind the police (like in the photo to the left here), but other times there wasn't room for that and we had to walk in front of the police who were dressed in riot gear.  Some of them had large fire extinguishers.  Note that we were not participants in the march, but rather observers accompanying the marchers (it's illegal for foreign nationals to participate in protests).  Because we have been to Mexico a number of times and attended large, public events, this is not the first time we have seen a large police presence in riot gear, so I'm less freaked out about it than I would be otherwise (the first time was at an event that translates as the Night of the Radishes, a festival in which groups compete for prizes with scenes constructed from large, carved radishes--some of which are up to two feet in length.  That time, the riot police were shoulder to shoulder around the radish displays.)  However, this was the first time that we have been more or less inside a protest march.


This kid is painting something akin to "F the police".
Note the gringa in the pink tee shirt and the men walking
 in the opposite direction.

The marchers were well-behaved and the police were, as well.  I had interacted with several of them--one who moved over to make room for me to get up on a curb alongside where the marchers were entering a long underpass under several crossing streets (I was not about to accompany them through a tunnel!  Way too paranoid for that.).  As I said, the marchers, overall, were well-behaved, but there were a few people along who were spray-painting grafiti as they went, as the photo to the left illustrates.  This was one of a series of tags and I was walking ahead, trying to get further away from the tagger. Very shortly after this picture was taken, the tagger ran ahead of me, and the two men walking toward us grabbed him.  They were police in civilian garb.  Doug and I ran to the other side of the street (which was also lined with police in riot gear.  The marchers, seeing that someone was being detained, turned on the police and began yelling insults at the police (one of which was "Pitufos!", which is the name for the Smurfs in Mexico,  others were, of course, more profane).  The police on that side of the street closed ranks and raised the riot shields; reinforcements also ran to that side.

We had come a long way with the marchers, but at this point, we wanted to leave.  The first street we tried to turn down was blocked by officers who would not let us through, but a block later we were allowed to exit Cinco de Mayo down another side street.  Highly adrenalized, we figured out where we were and made our way to the nearest Metro station that was not in the direction of the marchers.

I think the Mexican flag with crosses in the center represents
people who have died, such as the protesters of 1968

The incident with the tagger apparently was an isolated one as the newspaper the next day reported a peaceful march (and the newspaper I read is one that would have reported widespread conflicts between the marchers and police).

 The banner below is from the school of social work at the university with which I'm affiliated.  I think the one further below is from another social work program outside of Mexico City.  As I understand it, my school is the only one in Mexico City.  It has a LARGE undergraduate program and a smallish master's program.  I plan to write about social work education in a later post. 
  



"Stop the militarization of academia and the country"
Escuela Nacional de Trabaho Social
"National School of Social Work"
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
National Autonomous University of Mexico

"If you want security, don't ask the police, demand education"



"Social Work--We are preparing to improve the dignity of the people"