I find it interesting to walk around in grocery stores in different countries and see the different products and specialties each country has. I think with just going into a grocery store abroad you can already see what the food culture is like in that country. It’s also fun to try to think and guess which ingredients are used in each dish that is special to that country. In this post, I want to point out a few of the common things you can find in a Mexican grocery store but are not as common in my home country, Finland.

CHILI

In Mexico, one of the most used ingredients is chili. You can buy it in many different ways as fresh, dried, powder… and it’s used in many different products. Even though before going to Mexico, I knew that the food is going to be spicy and chili will be a common ingredient, but I had no idea how much and which all products have chili. The products that most surprised me were candies and ice cream. Most of the candies in Mexico are spicy and they are made with chili. The first time I tried a special Mexican candy, I didn’t like it at all. I thought I was eating some kind of spicy sauce, not a candy. It wasn’t sweet at all, more like spicy and a bit sour I’d say. After telling my candy tasting experience to my host sister, she got upset because she loves the Mexican candies.

I also brought some Mexican candies as a souvenir to my family back in Finland to taste but they weren’t big fans either. The candy they liked the least was a candy made with tamarindo (very commonly used in Mexican candies) and chili. They said it was too spicy with a very strange taste. The other candies I brought them were candies with milk, they were a lot better. But a strange thing about one of those candies was that the caramel filling was inside of “church bread” or at least it tasted exactly the same as the one you get in church and gets stuck in your mouth. So, I have to say that the Mexican candies are a bit strange.

NOPAL

Cactus, as in Mexico more commonly known nopal, is often used in Mexican cooking. Before going to Mexico I didn’t know that cactus can be eatable. When I arrived in Mexico and sat on the bus for 3 and a half hours from Mexico City to Querétaro, I saw many cactus plantations. In the countryside, cactus was growing everywhere. First I thought, that it is just a common plant that adjusts well in the hot climate, but later on, I learned that it’s eatable. In the Mexican grocery store, you can find fresh, flat nopal pads. The nopal pads can be used for example to make a delicious cactus salad.

TOMATILLO

Tomatillos look like green tomatoes covered in a husk, but they are more closely related to gooseberries than they are to tomatoes. In Mexican cooking tomatillos are often used in salsa verde, giving the beautiful green color to the green sauces. The price of tomatillos is around 40 pesos for a kilo, which equals to ~2 euros per kilo.

CHICHARRONES

Chicharrones are crunchy, fluffy pork rinds. Mexicans eat chicharrones as a snack. They can be bought in a bag of one kilo which cost around 142 pesos, which equals to 6,5 euros. In grocery stores they are also sold in smaller bags with different flavors, for example, chicharrones with a taste of chili and lime (very Mexican combination).

LIME

In the grocery store in Mexico, there can be found large shelves of limes. Lime is a very common ingredient in Mexican dishes. It is usually squeezed on top of the dish, for example on tacos but also on many other dishes. In restaurants, limes are often ready on the table, so they can be squeezed on the food you eat. Another common way to use lime is to make lime water. For that, you only need water and lime (squeezed in the water) and if you want the lime water less sour, sugar can be added.

These were some of the products and ingredients that mostly took my attention while walking in a grocery store in Mexico. I would like to know if you have these ingredients in your home countries or were these new to you too? Also, what are your country’s special products? Please write your thoughts down on the comment box, I cannot wait to hear them!

Love, Emilia