Hot chocolate is the best-known cocoa-based drink, but it is not the only one. Indigenous people in the Mexican states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Guerrero continue to prepare tasty yet unusual cocoa drinks. Their use goes back to pre-Hispanic Mexico. Olmecs, the earliest known civilization on the continent, made southeast Mexico their home; they were the first to use cocoa. Mayans and Aztecs followed suit. They all fermented, roasted, and ground cocoa for use in different drinks. Since cocoa has a bitter flavor, ancient Mexicans combined it with other local ingredients, such as vanilla and chili plants. Although they are…
Author: zenger.news
Balloon selling is a traditional trade on the verge of disappearing. In the mid-20th century, balloon vendors were ubiquitous in Mexican cities’ main squares. They wandered around parks and church courts, always ready to make a child happy. They could be spotted from afar, walking with dozens of balloons floating in the air. Big children would get helium-filled floating balloons, while the air-filled smaller ones were the delights of toddlers. All were colorful. Children spent hours choosing the one that matched their dreams. Balloons were so prevalent that Salvador Novo, Mexico’s most renowned chronicler, wrote that “balloons grew in rubber…
La Llorona is a small virgin beach, but with a turquoise blue sea, calm waves and golden sand, it has lots to offer tourists. The beach also makes a strange sound that adds to its uniqueness. The beach, in the state of Michoacan, is one of Mexico’s many treasures. It has cliffs and rock formations emerging from the surrounding sea. Due to the relatively low number of tourists in the area, birds, sea turtles, and other animals roam freely. There are no hotels or restaurants on the beach in the municipality of Aquila, Michoacan, but unmissable seafood dishes await tourists…
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli tech companies like SavorEat normally raise cash from venture capitalists, private and ange investors in Israel and especially abroad. But 2020 was not normal. And that is why this Rehovot-based alternative protein startup was one of 29 Israeli companies that more than tripled the annual number of initial public offerings (IPOs) on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). “Due to coronavirus, foreign money isn’t coming to Israel as much. And our product is something that people want to see and taste and experience; it’s not like a software product you can share through a link,” SavorEat cofounder…
Israelis can add natural disasters to their current worries about COVID-19 and threats from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. Now, Israeli researchers are warning a devastating earthquake measuring at least 6.5 on the Richter scale is expected to hit the region in the coming years. The dire prediction comes from drilling in the Dead Sea to analyze some 220,000 years of underwater geology. According to the researchers’ analysis, a strong earthquake occurs every 130 to 150 years, although there have also been lulls of a few decades between them. Earthquake-induced disruption of Dead Sea sediments observed in the drill core. (Tel…
What happens when a global pandemic disrupts the livelihood of those who depend on meeting people in crowded venues night after night? This was the question facing Israel’s indie musicians when the coronavirus crisis brought the country’s music industry to a grinding halt as shows were canceled, venues shuttered and tours postponed. While the past few months have been hard for the artistic community, with many musicians, sound technicians, stagehands and others finding themselves unemployed, the local indie music scene is still alive and well, albeit in a slightly different manner. With shows out of the question for the time…
It was a mission she knew she might not survive. Still, in March 1944, a young Jewish immigrant to Palestine named Hannah Senesh (Anna Szenes) parachuted into occupied Slovenia on behalf of the British Army. The goals were twofold — to help Allied pilots who had fallen behind enemy lines flee to safety and to work with partisan forces to rescue Jewish communities under Nazi occupation. Senesh was captured by the Hungarian police on June 7, tortured for months, and executed on November 7. She was only 23. A year later, a soldier in the British Army’s Jewish Brigade, Moshe…
El Al 555 was the number of recent historic direct flight from Israel to Morocco. The number wasn’t chosen randomly — 555 is a reference to “hamsa,” an expression similar to “knock on wood” that’s common to Arab and Jewish cultures, symbolized by the popular five-fingered hamsa amulet. And although that plane wasn’t permitted to fly over Tunisia and Algeria — they do not (yet) have diplomatic relations with Israel — it was a warm handshake reaching across 2,400 miles between the two states. El Al Flight 555’s direct flight from Israel to Morocco on Dec. 22, 2020 took a…
The hueseros, or sobadores (bonesetters) are an integral and deeply rooted part of Mexican and Latin American culture and identity. However, despite the cultural ties, not everyone has gone to a huesero, and those that have don’t always recommend them. Hueseros carry out a “special” type of healing, a cheaper alternative to conventional medicine. For many Mexicans, they fulfill the role of “general practitioner” for a lower price, while maintaining questionable methods. The gift of healing In almost every city in Latin America, you can find a hueserowho claims to fix pains in joints, ovaries, waist, spine and coccyx. They can, supposedly, even…
ISRAEL — For a small country, Israel boasts a huge number of ancient mosaics — some 7,000 of them to be precise. And that only includes ones that have been discovered and registered, as new archeological digs and happy accidents are regularly unearthing more and more ancient treasures. The art of mosaics made its way to the country from Rome 2,000 years ago, around the time of Herod the Great. Mosaics were continuously created in the area through the 11th century, leaving behind documentation of Roman, Byzantine and early Arab cultures. “Mosaics have an artistic component that tells of life…