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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 11 



number normally ranges from two to four, and 

 the hours commonly are: a very light meal (often 

 only atole and tortillas, or coffee and sweet rolls), 

 known as desayuno (breakfast), eaten between 

 5 and 8 in the morning; a more substantial meal 

 (commonly including tortillas, beans, and perhaps 

 meat or eggs), generally designated as almuerzo, 

 at about 10 in the morning; what is often the main 

 meal of the day {comida) in the early or mid- 

 afternoon between 1 and 4; and an evening meal 

 (also known as comida, and as cena) sometime 

 between 6 and 9. Most foods are prepared by 

 boiling or frying. Since the variety of dishes is 

 restricted for most families, there are compara- 

 tively few foods that are consumed only at some 

 particular meal, e. g., steak may show up at 

 breakfast rather than at dinner, and breakfast 

 cereals are commonly lacking (other than the thin 

 gruels or atoles). Where a number of dishes 

 constitute the meal (true for only a minority of the 

 families) , these are brought to the table in separate 

 courses — from soup to dessert. A sweet dessert 

 usually is lacking. There is a wry saying that 

 beans are "el plato de los pobres y el postre de los 

 ricos" (the main dish of the poor and the dessert 

 of the rich), and stewed beans are the most com- 

 mon dessert. 



As mentioned, the leading nonintoxicating 

 drinks are atoles, coffee, milk, and chocolate. 

 The maize atoles (ground nixtamal mixed with hot 

 water or boiled, and strained to various consist- 

 encies) are very numerous since dozens of items 

 may be added for sweetening, flavoring, and color. 

 Among the favored flavorings are cinnamon, 

 chocolate, native plmns and cherries, ground 

 cacao husks and mamey seeds, and seed of the 

 Peruvian pepper tree. The atoles undoubtedly 

 constitute the national drink of Mexico, if quantity 

 consumed and number of consumers are the cri- 

 teria. Coffee drinking (most commonly black, 

 often with the cold coffee extract added to boiling 

 hot milk) has had a remarkable development in 

 Mexico during the past one hundred years. In 

 1800 no coffee was raised commercially in Mexico 

 and only a little was consumed in some of the larger 

 cities; in 1823 the upper classes were drinking 

 perhaps half as much coffee as chocolate, and 

 coffee shops were to be found in the larger towns 

 along stage routes; by the 1840's Mexico (including 

 Michoac^n) was producing enough coffee for local 

 consumption, but the common people were as 



yet not drinking coffee; after the 1860's coffee 

 planting increased greatly (Mexico is now one of 

 the top six or seven producers in the world) and 

 coffee entered rapidly into the life of the common 

 people with the exception of the veiy poorest. 

 Now it is difficult to find a community in which 

 coffee is not consumed. In Quiroga and its 

 ranches coffee ranks only after atoles. Druiking 

 of milk (other than human) was introduced by the 

 Spaniards. At present milk is fairly common, 

 although the quantity consumed per capita is not 

 large. Chocolate, an aboriginal drink, has never 

 been common with the majority of the population 

 because of its restricted cultivation and compara- 

 tively high cost. There are many other food 

 drinks and cool soft drinks (among which Coca- 

 Cola has had an enormous increase in popularity 

 in recent years), but they do not compare with 

 those mentioned above. 



Much has been written about pulque as the na- 

 tional intoxicating drink of Mexico. It is not and 

 never has been the principal alcoholic drink of the 

 majority of the Mexicans. Prehistorically fer- 

 mented maize drinks were more widely spread and 

 were more consumed. At present in Quiroga there 

 is a slight consumption of pulque in season, but 

 a number of other alcoholic drinks are more impor- 

 tant. The leading intoxicating drink in Quiroga 

 and in all of Mexico at present is European-style 

 beer, as distinguished from native beers made 

 from maize. In the early 1820's there were no 

 breweries in Mexico ; now there are more than 20 

 large breweries, and beer of many types and prices 

 is available in all but the most remote and smallest 

 communities. Most of the beer consumed in 

 Quiroga is in bottled form, from breweries in the 

 Federal District, Orizaba, and Monterrey. Dark 

 beers such as Corona Negra and XX are preferred, 

 but there is a fair consumption of light Corona, 

 Carta Blanca, etc. Wines are not important in 

 Quiroga. However, the term wine {vino) is ap- 

 plied to the distilled product of the agave. This 

 vino de mescal (which includes tequila, bacanora, 

 and other mescals from specific areas) is not locally 

 so popular as a number of drinks made by distilla- 

 tion of bro^\^l sugar, molasses, and cane juice. 

 The most popular "hard" drmk in Quiroga is 

 ckaranda, a colorless drink of high alcoholic 

 content made in one distillery in Uruapan from 

 fermented brown sugar. However, the term 

 charanda is commonly applied to similar drinks 



