January 02, 2005

• Bugger. Anthropologists'.
• Pulque is the sap of the maguey cactus....It is extracted by workers who put a fat wooden tube in to the heart of the plant, and suck the liquid out. Hadn't realized wot a finical, picky damn man I seem to be before. Booze, OK. Booze and spit, no, thanks. At least...not if it's some total stranger's spit! Give me the old familiar spit, I've gotten somewhat used to it. But keep the stranger's far away and that goes double for pulque.
• Same thought occurred to me. But I wonder, do they draw it out into the mouth, then spit it in the bucket (or whatever) or is it like siphoning fluid from a tank - a few good sucks and the sap starts running out?
• I dinna ken, Nostril. Since it's a fat tube, I assume it ends up in whoever's mouth, but I really don/t know that it does. Wot do they mean by saying a fat tube, anyway? How fat is that? Like an ocarina? Like my thumb? As fat as a gourd? Oh. Well. Gordo.
• It appears to vary. This page has a nice old litho showing a romantically drawn native sucking on a rather long tube and a bucket at his feet. This suggests he spits it out.. but what kind of suction would you need on a tube that long? Would it even be possible? Perhaps the sap rises into the tube which is then poured somehow. In the only other image I can find, an elderly chap is using a massive great gourd or such-like to drain the fluid. I can't imagine that this would work as a means of getting it into the mouth. The photo doesn't show his feet, so no idea if there's another receptacle. What we need to know is the viscosity of the sap, I suppose. I dunno, I'd give it a taste test. After the first drink you'd probly not care about some bloke's spit. Probly pretty horrible taste anyway, I imagine. I've eaten haggis, natto, magic mushrooms, various other chunderous crap in the name of curiosity or a good time, so if I ever make my way down Mexico I might give pulque a go. People tread grapes. We eat fermented cow mammary fluid. It's all relative. Cheesy feet vs Mexican spittle? :0
• Used to keep tropical fish, and to clean the tank used a piece of plaxtic tubing of perhaps a quarter inch or so in diameter and perhaps six feet long, plus a bucket. Suction insofar as length was concerned wasn't very difficult. I don't suppose a rigid tube would take any more effort to suck. Suspect having a tube of larger diameter might be more difficult. but don't know. Just guessing.
• Maybe we should ask Moneyjane.
• I've seen roadside pulque stands in Mexico. I didn't know about the spit factor, although I wonder if that's true for modern pulque. The taste, if it's like the smell, is as if someone were to drink nothing but beer all day, then puke.
• Pulque places also have a rather rigid standard for entrance into the joint. As I recall, signs on the doors of the pulquerias that I saw said "no foreigners, women or soldiers in uniform." Any drinking establishment that excludes soldiers in uniform has got to be hurrying quickly down the road to extinction.
• *finally manages to blot monitor screen* You do the asking, mate. And I will do the listening to the answer part. This drink sounds less and less attractive, especially after that mastterdul description, atchafalaya.
• Tony Bourdain had the best quote from visiting Mexico. After a day bouncing on a donkey, eating eggs sacs and larva (i've heard salma hayek rave about), and the evening ended at the pulqueria: "I puked like a hero" surviving intense nausea is always heroic it apparently has the consistency of mucus. If you get over that, it's a blanket buzz, i hear.
• Gah!!! 'Tis the Wrong Kind of gag!!! Ye have just nailed my particular food-aversion, ethylene -- mucus is SNOT what I will eat/drink! hence my life-long loathing of porridge, boiled okra, etc.
• The taste, if it's like the smell, is as if someone were to drink nothing but beer all day, then puke. I though it tasted pretty good. And, FWIW, the demo I saw had a guy sucking a fat, long gourd like the second photo. He did not get any spit in the collection buck as he just let it flow out of the gourd.
• "Pulque is the sap of the maguey cactus, which grows in dry desert plains." I don't care how they get the sap - will someone tell these people it is not a cactus. Aloes, agaves, yuccas - not cacti. Sorry, its a touchy subject.....
• "He did not get any spit in the collection buck as he just let it flow out of the gourd." There you are! Question answered! Thank you, mr CaptainSunshine. Now tell us about the effects.
• Now tell us about the effects. I only had one glass. I was told, and I would believe it, that it has the same amount of alcohol as as strong beer. Sorry I have no exciting story to go along. Mezcal on the other hand...
• They used to drink open-pot-fermented ale with a fortnight's worth of dead bugs floating around in it, too, but we've come a long way since then. Let pulque go! It's the 21st century! and we don't *need* spit-based drinks anymore.
• for those of you who are hesistant to try pulque, I'd suggest kava kava in its traditional preparation would be right out (young maidens would masticate it first).
• Yep, the maidens saliva acts as an emulsifier. Of course, you can get the same effect with lecithin, if you happen to be short of young maidens.