Tejate - a traditional Oaxacan drink

After eating the higaditos on Saturday, we were offered another special treat: a cup of Tejate. (Click on the link to see a photo of the actual drink.)

First of all, I confess that many teams have asked me about the lumpy frothy drink served in the open market in Oaxaca, and I have simply gagged unobtrusively and said I didn't know.  Something about seeing a woman with her bare hands in a big bowl, swishing unknown ingredients around, adding water as they go... I don't know, it just didn't appeal to me enough to ever try it.

Finally I have actually tasted Tejate and even learned to pronounce the name properly, not to be confused with Tecate, which is a brand of beer.

Tolerable is the word I would politely use to describe it (the Tejate, not the Tecate).  Truly it wasn't bad at all.  The texture is a bit of a put-off, but the taste is mildly nondescript.  Not sweet.  Not anything recognizable.  The amazing thing was how stuffed I felt after drinking half a cup of it.  It is a very heavy drink to follow liver and eggs, bread and hot chocolate, especially when I've been on a restrictive diet the past few months.

Doing a bit of detective work on the internet, it looks like the main ingredients are maize flour and cacao beans and fermented flor de cacao , which I kid you not (click on the link for proof), is the Funeral Tree.

Thinking it would be nice to provide a visual aid, I took a short video clip with my digital camera.  Being even more thoughtful, I turned the camera sideways to zero in on the Tejate-making process, blocking out all the other distractions.  Note to self:  horizontal videos are much more effective.  Just turn your computer screen sideways to view this.  Either way, it is likely to leave you with your head cocked to one side wondering why this drink should be such a special treat.

As a friend pointed out, it is an interesting study in the old mixed with the new.  Outside the women are stirring a cauldron of soup and making Tejate by hand when probably inside one of the shrink wrapped wedding gifts is a brand new blender they might have used to simplify the process.  They still choose to do things the traditional way.  That's just how it is in our little town of Mitla and other indigenous areas of Oaxaca.  I respect them for that.

Little Wedding Livers

 This delicacy is typically served in Oaxaca on the morning of weddings, and therefore called higaditos de boda, which translates as "little wedding livers."  Generally the family begins a day ahead of time, preparing the spices and the broth, and then the day of the wedding they make an enormous cauldron of the soup-like dish to serve to all well-wishers who come bringing wedding gifts. 

Last night, as you know if you read the post Mexican Weddings on my other blog,  I was to serve as "ring bearer" for the wedding of some friends' daughter.  (More on that in a separate post.)  Earlier in the day I took Bekah and Jonny with me to a special afternoon meal at our friends' house. 
First we were served little loaves of bread to dip in hot chocolate. Whatever we didn't finish was added to the huge decorative loaves of bread they gave us to take with us.  At any party in our town, the guests expect to be given plastic bags or buckets to take home extra food.

The next course was the higaditos which we ate by using corn tortillas as a scooper.  This makes the meal twice as filling, and we were struggling to pick up as much liver and eggs with each scoop until finally we were given spoons.  We're always thankful for spoons!  Just when we were despairing of ever getting close to the bottom of the bowl, the hostess gave each family a small plastic bucket (with the bride and groom's name and the wedding date printed on it with a permanent marker as a souvenir) to pour the leftovers in to take home.  

By this time my kids were antsy and begging to be excused, so I sent them home with the bread and the bucket of wedding livers.  This was a social faux pas because the hostess intended to fill the bucket the rest of the way with yet more of the dish to take home for another time.  Too bad.  Some of us really like it. 
 

 In case anyone is interested in tasting this treat, here is a recipe I found online.  Enjoy!

Eggs with chicken livers: Higaditos by Karen Hursh Graber © 2008 

This recipe, with its fresh salsa, is adapted from Seasons of My Heart by Susana Trilling.  I suspect the version they make here is much more elaborate and time consuming.

Ingredients

For the sauce

• 4-5 plum tomatoes, roasted and peeled
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 fresh green chilies, seeded if desired
• Salt to taste
• 3 sprigs cilantro
• ½ cup water

For the higaditos

• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 1 pound tomatoes, finely chopped
• 1 pound tomatillos (tomate verde) husked and finely chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• ¼ pound chicken livers, boiled and finely chopped
• ½ cup parsley leaves, finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano leaves
• salt and pepper to taste
• 15 eggs

Preparation:

Grind all sauce ingredients in a molcajete or food processor, leaving the sauce a bit chunky.
In a large, deep non-stick frying pan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, tomatoes and tomatillos, and cook until soft. Add the garlic, livers, parsley, oregano and salt and pepper to taste. Continue to cook for10 more minutes.

Beat the eggs well and add to the pan, mixing them in gently. Push the eggs away from the sides of the pan as they set. Continue cooking for another 10 minutes, until the bottom is set and browned.

Using a spatula, divide the egg mixture into quarters and flip each quarter. Continue cooking until set and remove the eggs section by section, draining any excess oil. Cut into smaller pieces to serve. Serve with sauce and warm corn tortillas. Serves 8.

Link to Source Article

More photos:

I guess we'll be having bread and hot chocolate for breakfast a while

Enjoying a family style meal with some dear friends

No pressure to clean your plate; just take the rest to go

Gifts are generally displayed in clear shrink wrap

Victor and Ruth, the happy couple

January Update

Dear praying friends,

While many of you are being hit with terrible winter storms, I was on the verge of putting away the blankets earlier in the week.  Then some sort of front blew in, and it is unseasonably cold.  I just checked the weather report on our ministry website, and it is currently 45 degrees F in the middle of the afternoon!  That, folks, is cold with no indoor heating.  Not that I am complaining, mind you.  I'm watching your weather reports and thankful to be here and not up there.

Jim is up in Orlando this week attending some leadership meetings and our Missionary Ventures World Conference.  Please pray for wise decisions to be reached and for people to be encouraged at the conference.  After that he will go see his mom for another week and a half or so, hopefully connecting with some supporting churches and potential teams while he is in Ohio.  Please pray for just the right teams to be recruited for 2011.

This year I opted to not go to the conference, but instead made a brief trip to visit my own mother in Dallas after getting Hannah settled into her new school and housing in Colorado.  For more information and photos you can read my M&M blog (Memories and Musings).  Thank you for praying for our road trip from California, which went without incident.  No roads were closed due to ice or snow and Hannah got there in time for class on January 3rd as scheduled.  Now we are awaiting results from some blood work done last week for a mystery ailment causing her hands to turn black at seemingly random times.  We'd appreciate prayer for Hannah's health, too.

Mostly I just wanted to ask for prayer this month, which is resembling last September, with Jim and me taking turns at single parenting while the other makes a necessary trip.  Pray that I succeed in managing things here at home and on the field, and that we maintain good communication while separated.  With modern technology Jim can stay on top of field operations via email, phone, and Skype from anywhere, but marriages somehow benefit from a bit more close contact.  My heart goes out to those whose husbands are deployed.  It isn't ideal, but it can't be helped.

Thank you for standing with us in ministry and also personally.  We truly are blessed with some very wonderful friends and supporters.  May the Lord grant you peace and joy in this new year, 20-Eleven.  We love you all.

Partners in reaching the unreached,
Jamie and Jim Loker

To receive these updates by email, send a blank email to prayerupdates-subscribe@lokerfam.com

And the winner is....

No one exactly, though some of you were very close with the word "gift."  The fact is that on Christmas Eve the neighbors came by with a bucket of Atole, which is a yummy cinnamon flavored oatmeal drink.  They also gave us a bag of tamales.  That was one bucket, on top of the other bucket which I never returned to another neighbor who shared some barbacoa on Day of the Dead.

A few other buckets were given to us as New Year's gifts from local businesses.  Two came from Taco restaurants.  What you can't see on the back side is the message which is hand-written with a Sharpie saying Feliz Ano Nuevo and the name of the establishment.  The big round bucket on the bottom of the pile came from a street vendor where the kids bought tacos one night.  It is unmarked, so we still do not know the name of the place we refer to as the "Blue Graffiti" taco stand.

Other years we have been inundated with calendars, which is the typical New Year's gift from businesses.  For some reason this year we are getting more buckets than calendars.

The chocolate will go to my friend Faith, who left Mexico last year with intentions to return, but never did.  She knew the answer and didn't spill the beans (or the atole, as the case may be).

Better luck next time!

CONTEST/ slash/ New Year's Mystery to Solve

Five Loker kids posing like Filipinos (not necessarily a hint)

Breeding and multiplying almost daily

Anyone who has visited us in December or lived south of the U.S. border is disqualified from guessing (and please don't post hints on Facebook!), but can anyone else tell me why my laundry room is over-run with buckets at this time of year?

Tomorrow, as I mentioned in our prayer update, Hannah and I fly up to Los Angeles so I can accompany her over to Colorado and then visit my mom in Dallas.  If there is one clear winner, I'll send you some Oaxacan chocolate.

Whoever is first to guess correctly in the comment section will be the winner!

About our December update

It used to be that December was a time when people sent family letters and Christmas cards. Nowadays, I am told, this time of year your mailboxes and email in boxes are flooded with requests from every charitable organization known to man, begging for a piece of any end-of-the-year donations you might be considering.

Someone just informed me that it is worse than ever this particular year, with every ministry in need of additional funds. I just want to say thank you for any who read the December update we just mailed out last week. It is our first actual letter in several years. I'm praying that people don't just toss it in the trash with all the other unopened pleas for money. (Ours wasn't a plea for money, by the way.)

Our updates are never intended to trigger guilt trips. Although we have lost monthly donors since the economy started slipping in the U.S., we continue to trust God to place our ministry on the hearts of those He intends to partner with us.

These are interesting times to be sure. So many needs, so little cash. Our prayer is that God will guide each of our friends and blog followers to give as the Holy Spirit leads.

For those who continue to partner with us financially, we thank you!

For everyone else, we honestly just wanted to update you on our ministry and to wish you a very Merry Christmas.


We hope to send out the email version of our December update to the rest of you via email this week, Lord willing.  You can sign up to receive our email updates by sending a blank email to prayerupdates-subscribe@lokerfam.com.

Prayer updates

Just a quick reminder:  if you want to receive our monthly email ministry updates, you can subscribe by clicking here.  Finally we have an automated system where people can subscribe and unsubscribe without a lot of time and effort on our end.

We sure do appreciate each and every prayer partner who stands behind us and lifts the needs of our ministry before the Lord.