How Come Our Travel Disasters Never End in Unexpected Food Tours?
How Come Our Travel Disasters Never End in Unexpected Food Tours?
Pasita in Puebla
First it was cemita, a huge round sandwich that Poblanos, inhabitants of Puebla, are so proud of. Then it was cremita, a vanilla pudding, in a place called California that resembled one of those U.S. restaurants from the 70s that I had only seen in movies. By the time we stopped in a candy shop to treat ourselves to coconut rolls, I was so full I didn’t want any more food for the rest of the day.
But my gastronomic tour wasn’t over yet. “You’re going to try the best drink of your life,” Dario assured me after my faint objection. My feet were burning and the sweat was starting to leave stains on my shirt but I followed him without a word. After all, he was my hero.
My trip to Puebla had not started well. About half an hour before arriving at the bus station, I started sending messages to the guy who was supposed to be my Couchsurf host. “Hello, Martina here, I’m about to arrive to Puebla.” No response. After the third message I knew things were not going to go smoothly. By the time I was dragging my backpack to the waiting hall, he had turned off his phone.
Without a clue of how to get the center and where to look for a room, I messaged Fernando, who had hosted me two weeks before in Merida, asking him for advice. And that’s when Fernando’s friend, Dario, entered the story. Dario invited me to stay in his home and showed me all the sights. La Pasita was definitely the strangest one so far.
We entered a small, dim place without windows, tables, or chairs. It was the oldest still-operating bar in the city, and served an invention that was more than a century old: raisin liquor. “Until today the recipe remains a secret,” Dario said. “There have been some attempts to copy the original drink, but they all resulted in failure.”
I leaned over the counter and stared at the chipped souvenirs and old bottles, while the owner, a grumpy old man, carelessly served us the brown liquid with a cube of goat cheese. Strong but sweet, the liquor went down smoothly. We ordered another one, and while Dario shared anecdotes from his childhood visits to the bar with his grandparents, I thought to myself that it was probably nostalgia that drove people to drink pasita.