Cinco de Mayo
Wikipedia usually has to “lock” its Cinco de Mayo page. I suspect it may be related to the sudden appearance of sites opposing the celebration of this semi-holiday and others who have a hissy fit about any Mexican holiday being celebrated in the US.
In Mexico Cinco de Mayo or Batalla de Puebla, is only a really big celebration in the state of Puebla, where the battle took place.
The Mexican army won the Batalla de Puebla on May the 5th, 1862, but the French went on to Mexico City in 1863 after receiving reinforcements and installed Emperor Maximilian.
It has the status of St. Patrick’s Day in the US, an excuse to eat different food, and drink different booze, and be obnoxious show an interest in other cultures.
Margaritas, tacos, and the destruction of piñatas, that’s what it is really about.
5 comments
I went looking for CultureGhost’s “Sinko [sic] de Mayo,” found the photo but not really the site (its direct descendant appears to be commercial in nature), and learned that… before or after CG; I don’t know which… dozens of people have taken and posted similar pics.
IMHO, any holiday that allows the perpetration of a painfully awful pun is on its face a good holiday! Hope yours is a happy one.
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(What do Jewish Mexicans do? I’ve never known a North American Jew who actually liked mayo as a foodstuff…)
Steve, clearly you’ve not met Jews of Russian descent. Mayo is not their God, but if they did not worship Yaweh, they would worship mayonnaise.
Steve, you really need to spend some time with the Jewish communities in New York. Mayo is not exactly an unknown condiment in the vast majority of them. The ubiquitous Russian dressing found in delis is basically mayonnaise, ketchup, and horseradish.
The Culture Ghost dropped out of the Blogosphere after multiple issues all reached critical mass at the same time. It was sad, but it happens. I hope he finds peace at some point.
To the best of my knowledge, CG was the originator of the concept.
Bryan, my music thesis advisor’s wife was (still is, I’m sure, wherever she is today) a Russian(-American) Jew by birth; I admit I didn’t have too many opportunities to observe how she decorated a sandwich, but maybe the rule doesn’t apply to people who become Unitarian Universalists later in life. Most of the Jews of my personal acquaintance… and there are more than a few, thanks to all the years I performed early Jewish music with Isabelle Ganz… are serious mustard fans. Stella (whose full nom de blog is Stella Einstein) typically has no fewer than three flavors of mustard in the house at any given moment…
(Personally I detest “Russian” dressing, but nobody ever asks me 🙁 )
Three types of mustard is not a lot, but there is nothing remarkable about people having ketchup, mustard, hot sauce, as well as mayonnaise in the fridge. For some salads I mix mustard and mayo to achieve a particular flavor. I’m not a fan of mixing ketchup and mayo, and avoid both Russian and Thousand Island dressing.
My point was that among Jews in New York, mayo is quite common.