St. Louis Riverfront Times

Tag: Columns

Ask a Mexican: Why don’t Mexicans give good handshakes?

Dear Mexican: While vacationing in Mexico, a couple of times I have had vendors or waiters address me as chica. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but while relating a conversation with one of these guys to a Mexican friend of mine back in the U.S., he insisted that chica is WAY too familiar, and that these guys were insulting me by addressing me in this way. I was a little surprised to hear that, since I think I’m a very respectful person, and wouldn’t have given anyone a reason to disrespect me. What do you think? Were they just being friendly, or taking advantage of my ignorance? Any advice for the next time I get chica-ed?
La Chica Blanca

Dear Gabacha: While chica isn’t the most formal of expressions (it translates as “girl” in Spanish), it’s also hardly the most insulting Mexican Spanish term a male stranger usually use to get a woman’s attention. The starting lineup, in devolving order, are doña (ma’am), señora/señorita (missus/miss), mujer (lady), querida (darling), linda, (pretty), chica (girl), chula (honey), mamacita (cutie), pendeja (“dumb” by itself; “bitch” when modified by), bruja (witch), mamona (cocksucker), puta (whore), piruja (slut) and Thalia.

Dear Mexican: I’m wondering what’s going on with Mexicans and their seeming discomfort when presented with a handshake as a greeting. Most of the brown guys that I have been around seem like they don’t know what’s going on when it’s time to shake hands. They are slow in taking the hand that is offered, and when they finally do raise their hand for the shake, they don’t look you in the eyes. The worst thing about it is their grip — limp wrist and fingertips only. It’s like you have a wet noodle in your hand. Do guys in Mexico not shake hands at all, or do they just do it differently than Americans? Should I stop trying to shake hands with these guys? What’s up?
Not Shook Up

Dear Gabacho: Two types of handshakes exist for Mexican hombres — the firm, look-you-in-the-eye one, and the chokala, which is where the men exchange a light handshake, cock their manos upwards and grip each other’s thumbs, do another mini-handshake involving just the fingers, and finally end with a fistbump (sometimes, it’s reduced to just three steps, with the fingers part dropped). The firm handshake is the hallmark of the older generation and chúntaros; the latter is practiced by the younger generations. You do get the occasional aversion of the eyes, but that’s just a vestige from the Spaniards who took anyone looking at them directly in the ojos as a sign of disrespect, but fuck Spanish traditions. But Mexicans, limp wrists? Are you sure you weren’t shaking hands with Puerto Ricans?

¡ASK A MEXICAN! VIDEOS ARE BACK!: Gentle cabrones: after a years-long hiatus, I’ve relaunched the video version of this columna. Follow my weekly rants on Twitter by clicking the hashtag #askamexican and ask away. Enjoy!

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

05/29/2014
Ask a Mexican: Is “sancho” a euphemism?

Dear Mexican: I’m a pocha and my husband is a gabacho (by the way, we loved your explanation in your book on why Mexicans and Irish get along so well — it really explained a lot about our marriage). We had the rehearsal dinner for our wedding catered by one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. Two guests from Santa Fe thought our choice of caterer was hysterical because the restaurant is called Sancho’s. They explained to us that in Santa Fe, a sancho is a “back door man.” I had never heard this before. Is sancho a term just in Santa Fe, or among all Mexicans (except for, apparently, me)?
Don’t Need No Sanchos

Dear Pocha: Sancho as a euphemism for anal sex? That’s a new one for me — and I know all the pervert sexual euphemisms out there, from the infamous Dirty Sanchez to even the Angry Dragon. I’m more familiar with sancho as Mexican Spanish slang for the other man in a relationship — in other words, the man that a husband or boyfriend knows his mujer is cheating with when said husband or boyfriend isn’t around (the female equivalent is sancha). The palabra comes from a Mexican Spanish farming term for a “male animal raised by a female animal that isn’t its mother,” according to the definition offered by the Real Academia Española (RAE), the world’s much-fabled custodians of Cervantes (they’ve yet, for instance, recognized the term chúntaro to describe country bumpkins). It’s a perfect description of a cheater: after all, the woman is taking care of someone that’s not theirs. The mystery for the Mexican, though, is why sancho — which is also a proper name ala Sancho Panza — took on such a strange meaning. The RAE only says it comes from sanch, which they say is the call used to round up pigs. The Mexican thinks the researcher who wrote that etymology had his sancha underneath his desk when brushing up THAT entry…

Dear Mexican: I’m a white middle-class guy from a part of the country that very obviously used to be Mexico — and might again someday, if some people there get their way. I don’t think it was any accident that my forebears ended up where they did — I’m proudly told we have a long pattern of being less-white white people. But that does not mean that people in my family do not grow up to wear American Eagle and name their children things like Harper, Logan, and Madison. They are also white in other ways: stuck up! When I moved to Denver, I called my second cousin to hang out. I was very friendly with most of that side and our dads grew up together in New Mexico. Well, we did not hang out because she thought I was calling up to date her.

Mexican, I am sad. Not sad that my stuck-up cousin won’t hang out with or date me, but that we went from being so interesting to so sterile. I understand white people who wish they were ethnic, but I don’t know that I’m qualified to get a tattoo of the Virgin. Some white people shave half their head and join other white people who want to be more “real” or more “gutter” or something, but I may not join them because most of them are also named Logan and Harper. What can a white guy do to take a stand for decency and hang on to whatever is left?
White Guy

Dear Gabacho: Who says you’re not ethnic? Trying to mack on your second cousin is a VERY Mexican thing to do! Mexicans encourages gabachos to be proud of their ethnic heritage, whether you’re a mick, honky, limey, goombah, squarehead, armo, ruski, or whatever chingada slur is used against Croats. That’s different than expressing general “white pride,” a term loaded with supremacist overtones, undertones, and every tone except sense.

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

05/08/2014
Ask a Mexican: Why do Mexis hang out in the front yard instead of the back?

Dear Mexican: I am a butt-white Irish guy, happily and stoked to be married to a beautiful Chicana. Her familia is from a gorgeous rancho deep in the corazón of Zacatecas, and I’ve been wanting to experience all of the ranchero lifestyle I keep hearing about from my acquired familia mexicanos (and from those songs at all of the truly awesome parties we attend just about every weekend). HOWEVER, our State Department has warned Americans to NOT travel into Mexico due to the violence by the drug cartels. Tales of decapitated bodies strewn across highways throughout Mexico has aired on just about all of the Spanish-speaking noticias I tune in to (so I can practice my español, and drool over the female newscasters — ¡que caliente!). Additionally, I’ve gotten such a mixed response from my compas of Mexican origin that now I’m as confused as my Irish grandpa was during prohibition! Some of the family and my pocho partners have said that all is great, and stop being a pinche güero panocha, and just go! However, los otros amigos have told me that I’d be loco to travel into the moreno motherland because my six-foot, two-inches blond blue-eyed ass would stick out more than a pimple on a prom queen as I made my way into the ranch, and I would surely lose my oversized Ted Kennedy-looking head! Ayuda me — I’m so confused! Do I stay or do I go?
Scared White Boy (With His Cabeza Intact)

Dear Mick: I recently talked to a pal who just came back from Zacatecas, and you know what he said? He dijo that his hometown is safe now “because los del Chapo killed all the Zetas and now rule everything.” OY VEY! While bigger cities like Tijuana and Mexico City (and even Juarez, to a lesser extent) are generally safe now after the narcoviolence of the Calderón administration, I’d still stay away from the rural regions Mexico, which are experiencing full-fledged rebellion between warring cartels, corrupt cops, the Mexican military and autodefensas (local vigilante groups) who are saying a la chingada with everyone and defending their ranchos on their own terms. Then again, you’re gabacho, and as I’ve said before, ustedes can walk around Mexico with all the impunity of Winfield Scott because the cartels know better than to mess with one, They know if they do, the Obama administration will stop its eternal waltz with various cartels and rain down the drone desmadre.

Dear Mexican: Why is it that Mexicans prefer to party, barbeque, dance, and drink in their front yards? Friday and Saturday nights, their low-riding buddies machine-pistol them without having to slow down their Honda. Tight-assed pink peeps party too, but in the safety of the back yard.
Cabana Man

Dear Mexican: Why do Mexicans do everything in the front yard? From cooking on the grill, to celebrating birthday parties with inflatable playgrounds like at Burger King to hanging their wet clothes over the railings on their front porch? A friend of mine told me the back yard was where Mexicans keep all their chickens, roosters and autos up on blocks, but it isn’t true. At least not here in Texas. Is this just genetic?
Tony Romo is Lame, but Jerry Jones is Lamer

Dear Gabachos: The sooner gabachos realize that front yards are just a pathetic remnant of Gilded Age nitwits pretending to live like British lords and start using yardas like Mexicans, the better off this country will be. Since houses in Mexico historically had no lawns or ornamental plants (that’s what the fields were for), Mexicans view front yards as virgin land ripe for the taking. We grow fruit trees and sugarcane; we park cars on it. And, sí: we’ll happily put a Dora the Explorer bounce house in the front. Why? Because the back yard is already too packed with partying Mexicans.

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or follow him on Instagram @gustavo_arellano!

01/30/2014
Ask a Mexican: Why do successful Mexi men marry white women?

Dear Mexican: Long-time reader, first-time writer about this noble Aztlán. I watched the brown pride marches of the early 1970s and heard the shouts of La Raza and how it was going to be different now that the “Chicano” had arrived. The Mexicans were going to change things for the greater good. I remember when President Ronald Wilson Reagan gave amnesty to some 5 million illegal Mexican immigrants and how this was going to change things once and for all, bringing the Mexicans into American society with welcome arms and citizenship. Nothing was going to hold the Mexicans down now. And here we are: Mexico might not be falling, as you say, but the police, the Army or the citizens seem unable to stop the killing. Predominantly Latino school districts in Santa Ana and Los Angeles are failing, the Latinas are having babies out of wedlock at the rate of Guatemalans and the young Latinos are still tagging and banging. I believe Mexicans re-colonizing not only the Southwest but of most of America is only a matter of time, with brown pride and illegitimate children filling this great country. So what are you going to do with it, Mexican? History does not paint a very bright future for a Latino-controlled America.
Reading The Turner Diaries to Prepare

Dear Gabacho: Sure it does! Rather than me offering you my usual pendejadas, I’ll direct you to the research of ¡Ask a Mexican! pal, University of Southern California professor Jody Agius Vallejo, whose book Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican-American Middle Class was just released in paperback (with a rambling intro by your favorite Mexican). Her pioneering research shows how, contrary to Know Nothing assertions, Mexicans are following the same assimilation and financial achievement patterns as previous immigrant groups. Can’t argue with facts, yet I’m sure you will, which only shows why your kind deserves your half-brown grandkid destiny.

Dear Mexican: I have always wondered why high-achieving Mexican-American men tend to date/marry white women. I have noticed that since I was an undergraduate, now working in academia, most of the Chicano professors are married to white women (WHAT AN OXYMORON). Also, it seems that the more power a Mexican-American man has (whether it’s in academia or politics), the more likely he is to marry a white woman. What is this phenomenon about? Are educated Latinas threatening to high-achieving Chicanos? Are we too complex? What gives? I know this is a rather-sensitive matter and no one seems to want to talk. What is your take on the issue?
A Xicana Scholar in San Antonio

Dear Wabette: Your assumption is correct. A 2012 Pew Research Center study on intermarriage in los Estados Unidos put it thusly: “For newly married Hispanic men and women, marrying a white person is associated with a college education.” If anything, you smarty-art Chicanas marry gabachos at a HIGHER rate that smarty-art Mexicans: nearly 33 percent of mexicanas who marry a gabacho are college-educated, compared with about 23 percent of scholarly Mex-men who marry white. The Pew people didn’t get into the why of the matter, but I’d argue it’s because of the scandalously low amount of Latinos in college — coeds tend to get with what’s around, you know? All this said, chula, ALL Mexican men want a gabachita at some point in their lives, regardless of class — witness the shout-outs given to the wetbacks who nailed American women in Los Alegres de Teran’s “El Corrido de los Mojados” and “El Mojado Acaudalado” by Los Tigres del Norte (your humble Mexican can boast of a mick and a Yid in his past). Nothing against you fine-ass Xicanas, but dating a white woman is the ultimate status symbol for hombres, not so much for the prestige but so we can get our share of the romance Reconquista.

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

11/21/2013
Ask a Mexican: What does “Viva la Raza” mean?

Dear Mexican: I’m curious as to the meaning of the term “Viva la Raza” that I have often heard expressed by my friends and family. I know what it translates to, but I don’t know why we say it. I happen to be what some call a “half-breed,” and therein lies my dilemma. “Viva La Raza” implies that the person who says this saying or their audience is of a certain “race.” My mother’s family is from the state of Georgia and of French, Scottish and English decent, whereas my father’s family hails from New Mexico and has been in the northern part of that great state since 1627; if you count my indio ancestors (that are undoubtedly in my lineage ’cause my grand mother is short and brown), my family has been in the Santa Fe area prior to European settlement in the Americas. This makes me and my fathers people mestizos. In addition, my family may also be Jewish. It has come to light that many of the old Hispanic families of Northern New Mexico are descendants of the “hidden” Sephardim Jews that pretended to be Catholic and moved to the New World in order to escape the Spanish Inquisition. In addition, aren’t most Hispanos (that hail from north of the border) and Mexicans (from south of the border) mestizos, and didn’t most of the Indians get killed by the Spaniards and Anglos? If so, “raza” or “race” seems to be artificial and really doesn’t mean anything. Furthermore, I think this is true the world over with all of the so-called “races.” It seems to me that we are all half-breeds, mestizo, metis, mulattos or what ever you want to call us. It is my understanding that the human race is the only race, and that we all came “out of Africa.”

With this in mind, shouldn’t we do away with “Viva La Raza” and come up with something new….perhaps “Viva La Herencia!” or “Viva La Gente!”
NuMexiHillbilly

Dear Wab: So many questions, so little time! I’ll just concentrate on the viva part, since the rest of your pregunta rumbles along like a Big Jim chile in a gabacho’s panza. No one is going to rally under slogans that translate as “Long live the heritage” or “Up with people” — they’re too fresa. And while I’m with you on the whole chinga tu madre toward racial classifications, “Viva la Raza” will never be dropped, nor should it. It ties anyone who says it back to the Chicano Movement, from where the term originated (the earliest citation I can find was in a 1966 Los Angeles Times article that quoted legendary activist Bert Corona as exclaiming during a fundraising dinner in LA. “Viva la causa, viva la raza, y viva la unidad — “Long live the cause, long live la raza, and long live unity”). The raza part connects the slogan to the idea of la raza cósmica — the Cosmic Race, the idea put forth by Vasconcelos of a day where humanity trumps the antiquated razas of the Enlightenment. The viva part is a direct descendent of the Grito de Dolores, the proclamation issued by Miguel Hidalgo ushering in Mexico’s War of Independence. It might seem strange to have non-Mexis shout “Viva la Raza!” in this egalitarian society, but Mexicans don’t find it racist or exclusionary, because it isn’t — after all, we all have enough female cousins who have married gabachos and bedded enough gabachitas to make us like y’all enough.

A QUICK NOTE ON MEXICANS BEING THE FATTEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD: Some of ustedes have sent me reports stating that Americans are no longer the fattest people in the world; Mexicans are. My reaction: who says Mexicans don’t assimilate?

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

08/01/2013
“Please do whatever it takes to clean up the mess Irons has created and give future Vashon players something to be proud of: integrity.”

Feature, November 9, 2006

Long Live Dave Simon

Long live Annie Zaleski! I have only read the online version of “Long Live Rock School” and can’t wait to get the paper copy, but I want to commend Annie Zaleski on her great article. I am Claire Holohan’s, mom and she absolutely captured the essence of the school and the truly wonderful qualities of Dave Simon.

The article is just great, and demonstrates Annie’s depth of understanding. Thanks for taking the time and care.
Faith Sandler, St. Louis

Feature, November 2, 2006

Balls

Bad sport: Good article on something we always suspected of happening. Having a son who played against Floyd Irons’ team in 2005 and losing just adds to the disappointment of not advancing.

An interesting point no one has mentioned: Irons would not shake the opposing team players’ hands after a game, for whatever reason. Although I don’t believe anyone would have beaten Poplar Bluff that year, it would have been fun advancing to the next level. I was very happy when they beat Vashon, and especially happy in how they did it.
Mike Beryman, St. Charles

At least he got his clock cleaned: Kristen Hinman did a great job reporting “Basketball by the Book.” I loved the article.

Having been a basketball player myself and an avid fan, I have seen Irons coach. We saw his team play in Columbia at the state championships against Poplar Bluff. He was confident of winning and ordered boxes of state champs shirts. Poplar Bluff cleaned Vashon’s clocks. Irons was so rude and unsportsmanlike. He pulled his players off the court with minutes left on the clock and did not shake the winning coach’s hand. Gee, that is really showing class.

Good job on [exposing] a phony-baloney snake in the grass.
Pamela Kennedy, St. Louis

Why pick on Vashon? Why now, may I ask? The witch hunt continues. I have never played basketball for Floyd Irons or attended Vashon, but I have many friends and acquaintances that who done the latter, and I have followed his career as a coach and mentor. It amazes me that people still have it out for Mr. Irons and the Vashon basketball program. We all know that there may be some violations within the program, but I’d be willing to bet that these are violations that almost every school with powerful sports programs violates in some form, such as Rich Grawer and Clayton High.

The Wolverines have not been ordered by the Missouri State High School Activities Association to forfeit a single game. Is this their fault? What’s going on with MSHSAA?

Why are we still picking on Vashon? Every local sports fan knows Vashon has built a dynasty. Vashon has been and still is the best sports team in St. Louis, not the Blues, Rams or Cardinals (though I congratulate them on the World Series). Now that it seems that Mr. Irons may be gone as a coach, schools like DeSmet, Vianney and Hazelwood Central just may have a chance to win a state title.
Marvin Crummer, St. Louis

Integrity is the name of the game: So where do we go from here? Thanks for Kristen Hinman’s research and hard work, but it won’t generate any change in the culture of Vashon unless the program is penalized seriously, like forfeiture of the state championships, fines and a year’s suspension from MSHSAA. From what you have found to be true, that’s the least that should happen.

Let me comment on just a few more things concerning Coach Irons. I was on the board of MSHSAA for three years and represented the St. Louis area. When I shared some of the stories I heard from other coaches and administrators, I was told by MSHSAA that we didn’t have an investigative body, like the NCAA does, to monitor where players lived. Now, after I’ve retired, it appears they do have a committee. Unfortunately, as you reported, these infractions have been going on for at least eight years.

Putting Irons and Demetrious Johnson in the same sentence also sends a strong message. Both do more to hurt race relations in St. Louis by their talk and actions than any I know.

On the issue of recruiting, Irons didn’t have to personally recruit any player. The program’s success did that for him. And the comment from the mother — “Look, sometimes as a parent you got to do what you got to do for your kids” — that sets a great example for them. Next the kids will think it is all right to cheat on income taxes and do other dishonest things they somehow think they are “entitled to.”

Think of the injustice to every other student athlete that has to compete with a program like Vashon’s. Is it fair for them to lose to a team year in and year out that uses ineligible players and suffers no consequences? Please do whatever it takes to clean up the mess Irons has created and give future Vashon players something to be proud of: integrity.
L. Kreyling, Johns Island, South Carolina

At long last — someone who “gets it”! I laughed as hard as anyone else when I read your cover story about Vashon cheating at basketball. You guys are really getting good at these spoofs, and I’m getting better at appreciating them. Your impersonation of Floyd Irons — you know, the made-up quotes — sounded exactly like him, just the way Mike Shannon did in your satire a couple of weeks ago.

I admit it took a while for me to catch on last time. (A flashy downtown arts district? Frank Gehry? Of course it can’t happen here. Dawn breaks slowly over Marblehead!) Satire works so much better when you are invited to take it seriously and the subject means something to you. Some people around here might hold high school sports in such high regard that they would not see the wickedly brilliant humor in your fake exposé, but not me.

Bravo and well done. Keep those barbed yuks up. Pretty soon you’ll have the number-one satire magazine in the whole city.
James Dolan, St. Louis

03/08/2012
Ask a Mexican: Why are Mexicans so damn funny?

Dear Mexican: I’m so perplexed by my Mexican neighbor. For one, he already has four girls, and I just saw his wife — and looks like she’s pregnant again! What really bothers me is that I live in an affordable housing unit. The rent is cheap and based on our income. He has a new Ford F150 truck and his wife drives an older model BMW. Well, what bugs the hell out of me is that he digs in the apartment complex trashcans every freakin’ day. I live in a large complex where there are about six trash bins. Every morning, before he takes his girls to school, he digs in all of them for recyclables.

I wonder if I’m just jealous, because he must make like $300 a week on all the stuff he recycles, but it really bugs me. If he’s so freakin’ poor and digging in the trash for an occupation, why must he still continue to bring more children into the world? The city I live in has a No Scavenging Law. I really want to report him, but I feel guilty. I feel like I should let him keep digging in the trash, since he has a family to feed. Also, I guess I’m nosey too, ’cause I wonder if they work? I don’t think they do, and I wonder if they’re abusing welfare? And I wonder how many freakin’ girls he’s going to have before he gives up his dream on having a son.

OK, well, I hope you can help me with this issue. Am I evil? Should I care less? Help.
Pocha Cabrona in Chino

Dear Pocha: You’re not evil, chula: just pendeja. You — an assimilated Mexican-American — still have to live in affordable housing? So much for breaking the stereotypes of Mexicans as lazy peons. Meanwhile, that wab that bugs you so much is hustling, digging through garbage for a couple of extra bucks — it’s obviously working out good, since he’s living a better life than your floja ass. Who cares if he wants to have more kids? That’s his decision, not yours. Maybe you’d be better off in life if you picked through trash — but I’m sure you think that’s beneath you. Meanwhile, you’re wondering if your Mexican neighbor is on welfare when YOU are on the government queso. My immigrant parents, who always scrimped and saved and bought massive trucks and SUVs because no honorable hombre should ever leave home without one, never took a dime — that is beneath them, since that’s such an American thing to do. If ever there were a case for Mexicans to not allow their children to assimilate, you’d be the poster niña, pendeja.

Dear Mexican: I got asked to participate in a Internet radio show where I, as an alleged (mostly by me) Mexican comedian, will be asked questions like, “Why are Mexicans so funny?” Since I’m as Mexican as a Del Taco stand, I defer to you for some insight and wisdom that I can share to the show’s four audience members.
Tommy Milagro

Dear Wab: Have you talked to our pocho cousins? A veritable Comstock lode of material for ridicule there!

PREORDER TACO USA! Gentle cabrones: My much-promised Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, will finally hit bookstores April 10, but that doesn’t mean you can’t already order it (yes, grammar snobs: I just used a double-negative, but Mexican Spanish loves double-negatives the way we do cute second cousins). Place your order with your favorite local bookstore, your finer online retailers, your craftier piratas, but place it: my libro editor has already promised to deport me from the publishing industry if we don’t sell enough copies! And stay tuned for book signing info!

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter @gustavoarellano or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

03/08/2012
20 Unholy Recipes: Dishes So Awful We Had to Make Them

From 2009 to 2010, freelance food writer and chef Robin Wheeler combed through old cookbooks to try her hand at recipes that had been popular in the middle of the 20th century, but had since fallen badly out of favor.The results were inspiring …. albeit mostly in terms of what not to do.

We rounded up twenty outtakes from Wheeler’s project, showing what happens when a professional chef meets the deadly processed concoctions of 1960s-era mass market cookbooks. Take a deep breath, brace your stomach, and prepare for a journey back in time, to an era when food neither tasted good nor looked it.

To give a terrifying hint of what is it to come, we’ll dive right into No. 20, pictured above and below … “Jellied Bouillon with Frankfurters.”

20. Jellied Bouillon with Frankfurters
And no, that’s not a joke. There really was such a dish — and Wheeler, God bless her, really did make it.

Directions begin: “Dissolve unflavored gelatin in hot beef broth. In a pretty gelatin mold, place diced celery, slices of hard-boiled eggs and hot dogs in an eye-pleasing design. Pour beef Jell-O into the mold. Chill until firm.”

19. Apricot Salad
Here’s a snippet of the recipe: “Boil apricot Jell-O with eight pounds of sugar (approximately) and water. Whip with cream cheese. Consider a welding mask for this job, lest molten Jell-O-cheese fly into your face. Add a giant can of crushed pineapple with syrup, Gerber’s and chopped pecans.”

Read more here, if you dare.

18. “New-Look Cocktail Spreads”
This recipe is from 1967’s Perfect Parties by Good Housekeeping magazine. From our original story on these red and green cheese balls: “The recipe instructs that the cheese balls should be rolled in foil, chilled and then coated in dried beef (red) and chopped curly parsley (green). Joke’s on you! It’ll look nothing like the photos in the cookbook! Good Housekeeping molded the cheese balls in fluted molds and topped them with hairdos of garnish that look like 1970s porn pubes.”

17. Fruitcake Slices: All the Fun of Fruitcake with None of the Booze This recipe was pulled from Pillsbury’s 1976 Festive Baking for All Seasons: Dunk them Oreo-style in Jack Daniel’s — not just because you need to take the edge off, but because the lack of liquid in the recipe makes the cookies dry as coal. The cherries distract from the dryness with a rubber crunch and a mouthfeel that can come only from a marinade in high-fructose corn syrup. Read more here.

16. Scandinavian Sandwich
The Scandinavian Sandwich in 1972’s Better Homes and Gardens’ Jiffy Cooking has ingredients from England, America, France and Italy. And it has exactly one thing in common with Scandinavian cuisine. It tastes like flavorless crap. It’s char and mush.

Read more about this recipe.

15. The “Triple Play Warmer”
The master of all advertising cookbooks, A Campbell’s Cookbook: Cooking with Soup, spawned this recipe. The “Triple Play Warmer,” like 98 percent of the recipes in the book, wasn’t created because it tasted good. It was created to sell as many cans of soup as possible.

Read more about this heinous recipe.

14. The Good: Hot Dog Nutty Fritters
The Bad: Hot Dog Salad Dressing These recipes were pulled from 1968’s Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Cookbook and came out not-so-bad and vomit-inducing, respectively.

Read more about these recipes here.

13. Reuben Chowder
Writes Wheeler, “I knew I’d hate the Reuben Chowder recipe from 1983’s Better Homes and Gardens Soups and Stews Cook Book. Canned corned beef pisses me off almost as much as hunger itself. But as a little experiment, I opted to fast in preparation.”

Read more about this recipe here.

12. Salmon Rice Casserole
“Thanks to Pyrex Prize Recipes, I’m over it. With its Salmon Rice Casserole recipe, Pyrex hasn’t just turned me against my beloved pimiento cheese, but I don’t think I’ll be able to eat rice, salmon or olives in any form ever again.”

Read more about this recipe here.

11. Jellied Chicken

This recipe was taken from The Blender Way to Better Cooking — 200 pages of recipes, all requiring a blender. Enough said.

Read more about this recipe here.

10. Vienna Sausage Shortcake
“Leave it to those jackasses at Good Housekeeping to bring Vienna sausages back into my world with their 1967 Keep Cool Cookbook,” writes Wheeler about this dish.

9. Pickle Stretcher Salad
“Oh, the hilarity of the Pickle Stretcher Salad recipe in 1969’s Salads Cookbook! Over 500 salad recipes, and not a one contains fresh vegetables!” writes Robin Wheeler about this recipe. “The Pickle Stretcher Salad gave me the most visceral reaction I have ever had to a food-like item. I love olives, dill pickles and just about anything limey, but combining the three left me with a shiver that wouldn’t stop traveling my spine. One bite, and I’m sure I will never, ever forget the texture of slime and crunchy, the taste of ammonia and acid.”

Read more about stretching your pickle here.

8. Gooey Buns: Not What You’d Think.
“Gooey Buns sound like a yummy breakfast pastry. They’re not. Grind bologna, American cheese, mustard, mayo and relish into a paste. Spread inside buttered hot dog buns, wrap in foil, and place in the oven until the buns are stale.”

Read more about this awful recipe here.

7. “Dad’s Denvers”
Take a French roll and spread with deviled ham. If you have a really good relationship with your dad, substitute canned cat food, which is made with higher-quality meat than Satan’s pork-meat product. Cook a green onion omelet in bacon fat and place atop the Devil Chow. Top with tomato and broil. Do not serve to dads with heart conditions.

Read more about this recipe here.

6. “Circle Pups”
This mustard-covered dish is included in the 1963 edition of Better Homes and Gardens Meals in Minutes, the same bastard that gave us Friday Franks. This time it’s Circle Pups, which sounds like something dirty that might happen at a fraternity initiation.

Read more about this mustard abomination here.

5. “Crown Roast”
This crown roast tells your family, “I had ten minutes and five dollars to waste on you people. Eat up.” It tastes like…hell, does it even matter? It’s Treet covered with orange marmalade and baked. It tastes exactly like you think it would taste.”

Read more about this royal recipe here.

4. “Busy Lady Beefcake”
There were lots of busy ladies in 1966, entering recipes in the 17th annual Pillsbury Busy Lady Bake-Off in hopes of winning the $25,000 grand prize.

Read more about this recipe here.

3. Prune Whip
At first glance Prune Whip looks downright dangerous. With its raw whipped egg white folded into cooked prune puree, a kid could die from the combination of salmonella and nature’s laxative.

Read more about this recipe here.

2. Asparagus-Macaroni Loaf
Meat and bread aren’t the only foods suitable for the loaf treatment. In 1968’s Favorite Recipes of America – Vegetables, we counted four rings, eight loaves and a mold in its 370 pages. Since it was spring, we opted for the Asparagus-Macaroni Loaf.

Read more about this recipe here.

1. “Stellar Sauce”
You know the top spot had to go to a sauce of some sort, especially a sauce with such a promising description as “stellar.” The secret to this sauce? Cream of celery soup with melted Gruyère.

Read more about this recipe here.

02/16/2010
Ahoy, amigos: Did Mexican pirates ever sail the high seas?

Dear Mexican: My wife and I have an argument going
on about pirates. And since you are the source for all things Mexican.
I’d thought I’d ask: While I know there were Spanish and Portuguese
pirates back in the early 1600s and 1700s, were there ever any Mexican
pirates? Not pirates from Spain who pirated in Mexico, but real, honest
to hay-soos Mexican pirates! Would be interesting to know!
Pirates Pat McGroin and The Right Reverend One Eye

Dear Gabachos: It depends by what your definition of “pirate” is. If
you’re looking for a famous swashbuckler from the days of Blackbeard,
tough tamales: Historians never bothered to glorify the numerous
buccaneers who ransacked Spanish galleons laden with the gold and
silver of Mexican mines off the Mexican coast. The most famous Mexican
pirate was Fermin Mundaca, who operated a contraband empire from the
island of Islas Mujeres off the coast of Quintana Roo during the
mid-1800s — but Mundaca was a Spanish native. Why look back in
the past, though, when so many Mexican pirates exist in the present?
Piratería is as Mexican an industry as tortilla-making
and immigrant-smuggling: The International Federation of Phonographic
Industry, an international organization that fights music piracy
worldwide, estimates Mexicans make more than $220 million off of
illegal CDs, most sold at the nearest swap meet, bodega or taco truck
near you. And before some of you readers start insinuating that such a
startlingly large amount is somehow indicative of the Mexican culture’s
tendency to steal, what would you call file-sharing?

Dear Mexican: Do Mexicans get annoyed that whenever
a Hollywood movie calls for a Mexican character actor, Cheech Marin
gets the job? This is great for Cheech, but must be bad for Mexican
actors struggling to land a good part in Hollywood. Danny Trejo gets
the badass roles, Antonio Banderas gets the leading man roles, and
character roles go to Cheech (in case of a small budget, maybe Tommy
Chong, but he’s cast more for being an old stoner than Mexican). With
the blooming careers of truly great Mexican directors Alfonso
Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro, don’t you think Hollywood should
give some other Mexicans a chance in the limelight? Cheech is already
rich — let someone else have a slice of the pie!
Celluloid Culero

Dear Gabacho: No argument from me, except Tommy Chong and Antonio
Banderas ain’t Mexican!

Dear Mexican: If we stereotype a person by drawing
attention to the fact that someone is Mexican instead of the content of
their actions, why do minority cultures celebrate the very fact that,
say, Mexicans fought for certain types of rights? Aren’t they
stereotyping themselves by doing so? If I did the same thing as a white
person, I’d be considered racist. So, why aren’t you considered racist
as well?
14/88

Dear Gabacho: I’ve contestado many a silly question in
this column, but yours takes the pastel as the stupidest I’ve
yet answered. What Know Nothings such as yourself don’t understand is
that when minority groups struggle for civil rights, they’re merely
calling America on its founding bluff — you know, that whole “all
men are created equal” bullshit. So, when Mexican parents in Orange
County in the 1940s sued four school districts for segregating Mexican
kiddies away from gabachitos, the parents didn’t do it just to
benefit wabs; the resulting lawsuit, Mendez vs. Westminster,
served as a precedent to the much-more-famous Brown vs. Board of
Education. When Cesar Chavez marched and fasted for justice in the
fields, his ultimate causa was the same as European unionists at
the turn of the twentieth century: a fair shake for the working man.
When millions march for amnesty for the undocumented, it’s a protest
against a hypocritical, Byzantine immigration system that entangles all
foreigners, not just Mexicans. Whites fighting for “white” rights only
shows how freaked some gabachos get about realizing that
minorities are actually, finally being treated like Americans. If
trying to battle hate makes me a racist, then here’s a Roman salute to
your face, pendejo.

Ask the Mexican at [email protected],
myspace.com/ocwab, find him on
Facebook, Twitter, or write via snail mail at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O.
Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433!

05/20/2009
Ask a Mexican: Where’s the beef? Why Mexicans like their steaks cut thin.

Dear Mexican: Mi hermano y yo tenemos un dispute. We all know that Mexicans love their bistec sliced muy thin, but why? My brother is adamant that the diet of free-range vacas mexicanas results in tough meat, necessitating a thin slice for easy mastication. I think the reason is purely an economic one, since Mexicans are famously poor. Are mis amigos south of the border just trying to pinch a peso? We both know that usted es the sole hombre qualified to answer this question. So, what’s the scoop?
Two Meatheads

Dear Gabachos: The Mexican’s theory: you won’t find many thick cuts of meat in Mexi kitchens because carne delgadita is easier to cook, simpler to stuff into tortillas, and ultimately more delicious. However, your wabby servant is a mere novice in Mexican food knowledge compared to James Beard Award-winning Robb Walsh, one of the most Mexican gabachos after George Lopez, and author of the recently released Sex, Death and Oysters: A Half-Shell Lover’s World Tour. His thoughts? “Thick steaks became popular in the 1960s, when the U.S. switched over to a national beef production system,” Walsh told the Mexican. “Calves were born in Florida, raised on ranches in the West, injected with chemicals and fattened on feed lots in the Midwest, butchered at large central slaughterhouses and aged by meat packers in Chicago. Premium thick-cut ‘corn-feed’ beef steaks became available under this system.” Before that, American cows were much like their brown cousins — grazing on open ranges, always near local butchers, and so never bulked up to the freakishly large sizes reached by modern-day gabacho cows (can bovines belong to a race? In this column they do!) — and American beef was thin as a result. The introduction of NAFTA, however, has flooded Mexico with inferior American beef, and restaurants south of the frontera now offer thick cuts. “Famously poor”…for crying out loud. Such racism! Save that thought when you ask me about Mexicans living eighteen to an apartment, m’kay?

Dear Mexican: Do Mexicans hurt more and longer after lost amores, more than gabachos? I’m asking, vato, because I can’t get someone out of my mind and my heart yearns for her, even though I last saw her in 1995. Y está casada también.
Confessin’ a Feeling

Dear Wab: Most of us can’t get over the fact that the United States stole half of our territory 160 years ago — what do you think?!

Dear Mexican: The recent death of Samuel P. Huntington begs the question: What sort of dance should one do on his grave? A snappy son jarocho zapateado would rattle his bigoted bones pretty good, but you’d probably opt to see couples twirling over his plot to the brassy strains of some banda sinaloense. I know how much you love that oompah-loompah crap.
El Jefe

Dear Boss: Have some respect: Mexican brass music is not Oompah Loompah doodlings. Anyways, the holidays did bring some cheer to the world: the death of the Harvard historian Huntington, the most overrated public intellectual since Mark Steyn. Huntington, who famously predicted the rise of worldwide cultural conflicts in the 1993 essay “The Clash of Civilizations ” spent his last years arguing that Mexicans were almost as grave a threat to the American nation as Al-Qaeda because we come from a culture altogether incompatible with American ideals, a hilarious thought when one considers how easily Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo throws interceptions. Mark my words: Huntingon’s theories will one day be held in the same respect as phrenology and Bernie Madoff. I thereby curse Huntington with the worst possible hex for Know Nothings: brown descendants. And guess what? If Huntington is proven correct, my curse will become reality. Either way, Mexicans win — ¡arriba, arriba!

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], myspace.com/ocwab, or write to him via snail mail at: Gustavo Arellano, P.O. Box 1433, Anaheim, CA 92815-1433!

05/20/2009
Ask A Mexican: Why are there Mennonites in Mexico?

Dear Mexican: A few years ago, my girlfriend and I visited the beautiful city of Merida in the Yucatan. We were surprised to see a sentence in our guidebook warning us to be on the lookout for Mennonites pedaling queso in the mercado. Sure enough, we bumped into a bearded, light-skinned Mennonite carrying cheese! As we left Merida and drove into the heart of the peninsula we noticed that the Mennonite farmers were the only ones to own modern farm equipment. After seeing two Mennonite farmers broken down on the side of the road, it was clear no Mexicans were going to stop and help them. Can you tell us more about this unusual population of Mennonites in a predominantly Catholic country? How did they get to the Yucatan, why are they seemingly better off than other Mexican farmers and how do Catholic Mexicans feel about them?

Ecumenical Eric

Dear Gabacho: Actually, Mexico’s main concentration of its 26,000 Mennonites is in the northern part of the country, specifically in the state of Chihuahua. Their ancestors arrived in the 1920s from Canada at the invitation of then-president Álvaro Obregón, who’s perhaps better remembered for erecting a monument in Mexico City to his blown-off arm. Obregón gave the Mennonites special economic protection, which allowed their religious colonies to quickly prosper, especially in the agriculture that Mennonites (God bless their Anabapist ways) concentrate on even to this day. Mexicans generally like Mennonites — they’re not heretics like Mormons or those pendejos Pentecostals and pose little threat to the Catholic Church. More importantly, however, Mexis can’t get enough of their legendary queso menonita, milky cheese sold acrosss the country, soft and mild and bueno. They remain the best Europeans to ever invade Mexico, with the exception of the Doors when they toured the country way back cuando.

Dear Mexican: Your two responses to the recent questions about Mexicans not wanting to migrate legally to the United States and how you would secure our borders couldn’t be more guilty of skip-logic. There are a finite number of resources in this country, a finite number of jobs, housing, etc. It has nothing to do with what country you are coming from — if you enter illegally, you are breaking the law, and every day you are here illegally you are breaking the law. Period. Bringing in drugs, or more border guards or fences isn’t the issue. You’re criminals if you are here illegally. I don’t care how crappy the water or housing or whatever in Mexico City is. Be born here, or come here legally; other than that, you are no different than a drunk driver or robber or carjacker. You’re breaking the law.

Made in ‘Merica

Dear Gabacho: …except that the crimes you mentioned are usually felonies committed with malice, while the act of entering this country illegally is generally classified as a misdemeanor for the first offense, and the super-vast majority of those initial offenders are coming in for a better life. Please take your Malthusian conspiracies elsewhere, pendejo.

GOOD MEXICAN OF THE WEEK: Is actually a gabacha: Enamorada Gabacho. In 2006, she asked the Mexican how she could calm down her nervous Mexi guy. My response was wisdom for the ages: give him a blow job. She just wrote in with an update five years later:

Enamorada Gabacha and her gorgeous, kind Mexican guy are still together after all these years. We bought a house together not too long after my initial letter to you, so it definitely wasn’t a one-night stand or a midnight run to the border. Must have been your marvelous advice! Best of all my white, Midwestern farm/ranch family loves him because, finally, I got a real man who knows how to work with his hands and build things instead of some dumb white city boy. It’s all good!

Gracias for the update — now, go make some beautiful tan babies!

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

05/20/2009
Ask a Mexican: Why do so many homes have wrought-iron fences?

Dear Mexican: What’s up with all the elaborate wrought iron fences in the Mexican parts of town? It almost seems like everyone is trying to outdo each other with these amazing displays of metallurgy. Is it just another way to try to protect the cars parked on the lawn and keep the livestock from wandering off, or is it a pathway to instant respect and envy among the neighbors?
WHrought Iron To Envy (WHITE) Guy

Dear Gabacho: This is a question that fascinates even sociologists. At a 2005 seminar called “The Latinization of American Culture,” UCLA professor David Hayes-Bautista showed pictures of wrought-iron fences to describe what gabachos can expect when Mexicans move into their neighborhoods. But you can find the answer on the United States-Mexico border, WHITE: fences. Miles and miles of American-made fences. Triple-layered. Jagged. Deadly. That’s our introduction to American society when we illegally enter los Estados Unidos.All Mexicans want to assimilate, so fences are usually the first thing we erect once we buy a casa: pointy, menacing bars wrapped with organic barbed wire like bougainvilleas or roses to keep the damn Mexicans at bay. And still—as evidenced by the lemons stolen from my front lawn every night—Mexicans jump them.

Dear Mexican: What is it about the word “illegal” that Mexicans don’t understand?
D.G.

Dear Gabacho: Take your pick, D.G. Mexicans don’t understand the word “illegal” because: (A) when paying their gardeners, nannies, busboys and factory workers in cash (and forgetting to withhold payroll taxes), U.S. employers don’t seem to understand the word “illegal,” so why should Mexicans? (B) The Anglo-American trappers and traders whom you and I were taught to admire as tough, self-sufficient frontiersmen and pioneers were among the American Southwest’s first illegals. Who are you calling illegal, gabacho? (C) Presidente‘s proposal to offer amnesty and a guest-worker program during his administration to all illegal immigrants—a move designed to appease his supporters in the business community—means even Republicans don’t understand the word. (D) Whether they buy a fake passport or take a citizenship oath, Mexicans will never be more than wetbacks in the eyes of many Americans, so why bother applying for residency? (E) The Society of Professional Journalists just passed a resolution asking newspapers to require its reporters to describe as “undocumented workers” the men and women you call “illegal.” (F) Little-known fact: the fragment of poetry on the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” etc.) does not, because of a French engraver’s error, include Emma Lazarus rarely cited footnote: No Mexicans, please. Fucking French. But the real answer is the word itself. Illegal is an English word; Mexicans speak Spanish yet you never hear Mexicans whine that their bosses don’t understand such easy Spanish phrases as pinche puto pendejo baboso, do you?

Ask the Mexican at [email protected], be his fan on Facebook, follow him on Twitter or ask him a video question at youtube.com/askamexicano!

05/20/2009