An Attempt to Exhaust a Place in Yucatán
My hands are sticky. I can’t remember why my hands are sticky. Limes! I squeezed limes into my ceviche. Pushed thin slivers into my beer (Modelo Especial). Moulded plastic table with sunken beer holders. You can tell you’re in a classy joint when they have anti-spill infrastructure for the beers. The tables are slate-grey, the bottle holders a paler grey-white. The road and the pavement are the same stamped concrete, oscillating arcs pressed to look like paving slabs. Pale grey, spotted with dark chewing gum. A throng of children come past with their minders, peering at me and my laptop and no doubt wondering what the fuck exactly my problem is. Chicos I have not even worked it out myself. I have several overlapping problems. In México they serve their ceviche with a dressing made with tomato ketchup, so it’s sweeter than usual. Definitely sweeter than aguachile, a Sinaloan dish which I’ve had several times and each time wondered whether it was really meant to taste like this. Unl...
