Full of Beans: Eating Mexican in Eugene
If hot chiles are the naked nerve
endings of Mexican cooking, the
janglings of the tropical sun, and corn
is the hearty backbone of this earthy
cuisine, then beans are its supple
flesh, the embodiment of a lush humid
land. Beans — and rice; beans — and
tortillas. Always beans. They are the
protein base for the many of thee
world's peoples, Mexicans included.
Conquistadore Bernal Diaz recounts
in his eyewitness Conquest of New
Spain his astonishment at how lavishly
Montezuuma dined. "He had such a
variety of dishes, made of so many
different ingredients,” Diaz writes.
“Every day they cooked fowls, turkey, •
pheasants, local partridges, quail,
tame and wild duck, venison, wild
boar, marsh birds, pigeons, hares and
rabbits, also many other kinds of birds
and beasts native to their country, so
numerous that I cannot quickly name
them all.”
Down below Montezuma's palace in
the market place, Aztec women
prepared bean dishes, which the
invading Spaniards had learned to
survive on as well One senses that
Diaz finds a virtue in this difference.
Montezuma, however grand, is an
effete king; the vigorous people, the
conquistadores, are full of beans.
Beans are a key nutritional building
block, but as all of us weaned on Diet
for a Small Planet know, the protein
structure of most beans is incomplete.
Some of the eight amino acids that the
body needs but cannot synthesize
never made it up the bean pole either
Kidney beans, for example, are
missing methionine.
However, not to worry. Just eat your
beans with rice, please, and you get
snow white methionine and other
seven formerly dwarfed amino acids,
too.
I got to thinking about such things
as I went out eating Mexican food in
Eugene. A quick nose count tells me
that there are more places in the area
serving "Mexican" food of various
kinds — Tex Mex, fastfood Califoregon
Mex, even '"authentic" Mexican —
than any other style of cooking. The
reasons for this aren’t too hard to find,
I think.
From an owner's point of view the
food is relatively easy to prepare,
relatively inexpensive to keep in
inventory, and the gringos love it. I
went to quite a few places and could
give you a dissertation on funky
Bandito decor or on the occupational
hazards of hot sauces, but I’ll skip the
detail. The most interesting thing
about these half-dozen places was the
variation in their beans.
I kid you not. A tortilla is a tortilla,
and a cheese enchilada is often not
much more. But a bean burrito, or
huevos rancheros, or spicy refried
beans with cinnamon or what's that
burning sensation in my mouth?, now
that's where the “cognoscenti" get to
exercise their powers of
discrimination. Harumph.
Some crude distinctions first
Generally the beans one eats refried
are pinto beans, medium-sized,
probably not too far different tasting
from high-quality cardboard in their
natural state. There are, however,
differences. Two of our restaurants
appear to use lard, the others use
vegetable oil for frying the beans. And
one particular cafe uses not medium
size pinto beans, but instead the
more intensely flavored tiny red bean.
Of Nacho’s (1190 City View) we will
not say much, out of deference to
good taste. The beans are turned into
a gelatinous mass by the addition of
rather too much lard and the
application of brown colored gravy
which ringed the dinner plate like a
moat Narrowly saved from drowning
was a chicken enchilada that had long
before spent the days of its youth and
a chile relleno that easily won this
week's authenticity with a vengeance
prize. The chile was indeed a fresh
chile, with stem to prove it, but why the
hot seeds had not been removeed
from the pepper's insides, my insides
wondered until the morning after.
El Sombrero (146 E. 11th) offered a
somewhat less stimulating experience.
I've had better meals here not too long
ago, but this time my old favorite, the
La Favorita combination dinner, was
not a big hit. The beans, however,
certainly did call attention to
themselves by the addition of enough
cumin to pucker my eyelids Otherwise
the food was again overwhelmed by a
ubiquitous sauce and
"underwhelmed” by re-heated
preparations The consistency of the
beans would suggest that they may
have also been larded, for those of you
keeping track of such things.
The good news is that you can still
get a dependable, reasonably-priced
dinner at Casa Tol-tec (389 W 6th).
Beginning with the hot tortilla chips
that are brought to your table as you
order, the food here is cooked fresh
and tastes it. Now, unless you're a
particular connoisseur of
contemporary Mexican day-glow art,
the freshness of the food may be the
most memorable thing about dining at
Casa Tol-tec. Mexican beer is
available too, at reasonable prices.
But let’s talk about the King of
Beans To my taste, the best-prepared
Mexican-style bean dishes in town can
be found at the eclectic Keystone Cafe
(395 W. 5th). My particular favorite is
the huevos rancheros breakfast, which
delivers two corn tortillas, topped by
little red beans, covered by two fried
eggs and dressed in the sweetest most
zestiest sauce your po’ Saturday
mornin' head ever imagined, all for
$3.50. Apart from being made with
vegetable oil and sour cream, the
secret of the beans is the spicing —
onion, garlic, salsa piccante and
cayenne. Don’t tell a soul.
Luminaries is another new place
over The Gut, where The Italian Place
used to be (2710 Willamette Street).
There was only time for a bean tostada
before deadline, but suffice it to say
that while the restaurant has quite a
name to live up to, it’s moviing in the
right direction. The bean tostada was
constructed nicely from a solid
foundation of warm and tasty pintos,
layered with chopped lettuce and
tomato and crowned with a dollop of
guacamole.
If you're cruising farther afield, let us
recommend Papagayo’s in Corvallis
(550 N.W. Harrison, near the center of
town). Papagayo’s certainly has the
most varied and interesting menu of
any Mexican restaurant I've seen
recently. So good were my Enchiladas
de Jaiba (dungeness crab ennchilada
topped with two cheeses and sauce)
that I almost forgot to notice the
beans. They were peppery and solid,
the earthy anchor to this Mexican
seafood fantasy.
After all this talk of beans let us end
with a little poem, by way of a gentle
reminder. “Beans, beans, the musical
fruit; the more you eat, the more you
t—t." Perhaps you recall the ditty from
your summer camp days; in any case,
it distills an important warning Watch
out for the sneaky trisaccharides, the
indigestible escape artists of the
bean’s complex carbohydrate
make-up. They’ll get you when you rt
not looking. Remember Montezuma
Story by Joe Cone
Photos by Steve Dykes