Leading up to my move to New York, I had been consistently told that there is no good Mexican food in Ithaca. I was deeply saddened by this, but sacrifices had to be made. One of the chief complaints, and I have experienced this one first hand, is that restaurants here use only black beans, never refried. Now, I don't mind having a choice, but real Mexican food is fried meat with refried beans, salsa, and maybe cheese, onion and cilantro. Not that hard.
I did however think that I would be able to cook myself some decent (though admittedly not authentic) pseudo-Mexican food. Well first off, Jenni already had some meat. I would normally just use ground beef, but Jenni had procured some buffalo meat. I don't know how... I'm sure she told me at some point... I just remember it being from a very nice and persuasive local guy, possibly at a farmers' market. I know, senile already... where was I?
Anyways, in preparation to making buffalo burritos, I wanted some refried beans. Now in SoCal, refried beans take up 30-40% of the beans section. Large cans, small cans, name brands, generic brands. Oodles. At the grocery store we use here - Wegman's, a rather large chain something like a mix between Whole Foods and Vons - there are, at first glance, none. There is every kind of bean imaginable prepared in countless ways, but not refried. Only after pacing up and down aisles and muttering in disbelief to myself for 10 minutes did I stumble upon the "Latin-America Food" section. And there they were. A paltry selection, but refried beans nonetheless.
I had never realized that I grew up in Latin-America, or at least a place that is so influenced by Latin-American cuisine that the ingredients therefor are mixed in with the rest of the less "ethnic" food selection. Odd.
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