Carmelita's PHOTO's PLEASE

OK, many of us have eaten Carmelita's tamales on the way to Baja Sur. Please post your photos if you have them.
Bob H



[Edited on 1-15-2006 by Bob H]

[Edited on 1-19-2006 by Bob H]

Happy Carmelita with tamle in hand!
Bob H

her husband has been there the last two times i've been thru near the pemex in jesus maria, i think - alzheimers! they have plastic tables and chairs set up so you can sit and eat or take it para llevar. THEE BEST TAMALS for at least 100 miles in any direction IMHO. a sack 'o ten will run you about $7-8 u.s.

[Edited on 1-15-2006 by woody in ob]

roadside tamales

i always thought that bad food would let itself be known within a couple of hours. i too, have been near death in oaxaca-it took five days before i could walk more than to the toilet....ugh!

everyone should have to go through it at least once in a lifetime...

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020713/food.asp

Food handling is not taken seriously in Mexico. If there's no running water you can't wash your hands before you eat then the food handlers can't wash their hands either! So what do you suppose they do after they relieve themselves? Most of us need to do this once or a couple of times each day...


Science News Online
Week of July 13, 2002; Vol. 162, No. 2

Bugged by Foreign Cuisine
Janet Raloff

One common experience that tourists encounter while traveling far from home is gut-wrenching diarrhea. In some developing countries, it's so common that it's picked up geographic eponyms, like Montezuma's revenge in Mexico or Delhi belly on the Indian subcontinent.


Mexican cuisine typically offers diners tabletop condiments?from spicy chili liquids to diced-veggie salsas and guacamole?to customize the heat and piquancy of their meals.
Cyberphoto


Rates of disease can be amazingly high. On average, 40 percent of U.S. visitors to Mexico develop the runs. Meanwhile, some 50 to 70 percent of Europeans visiting such high-risk destinations as India and Kenya develop diarrhea during a 2-week stay, according to a 2000 report by an international group of researchers.

Now, data emerge confirming what seems obvious in retrospect: Unrefrigerated condiments can serve as a major reservoir of the bacteria responsible for travelers' diarrhea. Herbert L. DuPont, chief of internal medicine at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, enjoys Mexican food. Indeed, this infectious disease expert makes regular trips south of the border. Each time, he announces cheerfully, "I gain weight?and never get sick."

However, he's spent much of the past 2 decades probing why so many others do.

In 1980, he and his colleagues at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston correlated diarrhea incidence with the dining places of 130 U.S. summer-school students during their first 3 weeks in Guadalajara, Mexico. Stool samples before the trip confirmed they had been disease-free.

The good news, that early study found, was that for the students who preventatively downed bismuth subsalicylate, the active ingredient in that familiar, pink, over-the-counter liquid marketed for settling upset stomachs, the diarrhea incidence was a mere 14 to 30 percent. Among the other students, cramping and frequent bathroom trips proved more common. Greater than half of those who ate from street vendors?even just occasionally?developed runny stools. The percentage was a little smaller for those who ate 20 percent or fewer of their meals at restaurants or a school cafeteria. For those eating out more often, more than 60 percent developed diarrhea. Fecal samples taken within a day of experiencing four or more watery stools confirmed the presence of food-poisoning germs.

DuPont suspects that meals prepared at home proved safer because the cooks took hygiene more seriously with foods they'd be eating themselves or providing to their kin.

In its most recent study, DuPont's team indicates why dining in Mexican restaurants can be so problematic. The researchers took samples of 71 sauces from 36 popular Guadalajara restaurants and another 25 from 12 Houston establishments. All were eateries specializing in Mexican cuisine that weren't part of restaurant chains.

In the June 18 Annals of Internal Medicine, the scientists report that although most of the sauces harbored bacteria, only those collected south of the border hosted those associated with food poisoning and diarrheal disease.

Cultural differences

At each restaurant, DuPont's group had picked up a well-mixed tablespoon-size portion of one or more condiments that had been served in open dishes. These are items that gringos know as green sauce, red sauce, guacamole, and pico de gallo.

In the lab, the team cultured, counted, and identified any microbes growing in the sauces. The only class of food-poisoning agents that turned up was Escherichia coli. Most bacteria in this gut-dwelling family do not cause disease.

Overall, 66 percent of the sauces from Guadalajara and 40 percent of those collected in Houston bore E. coli. Moreover, where these bugs occurred, counts in sauces from Mexican restaurants were invariably higher. Whereas populations in Houston sauces grew in the lab into 1 to 10 colonies, those from south of the border often provided more than 1,000 colonies?and occasionally as many as 80,000.

But the most important difference, the new data show, is that while none of the Houston sauces carried pathogens, the Mexican condiments frequently did.

Sickening E. coli come in two forms: enterotoxigenic and enteraggregative. Their machinery for wreaking disease is entirely different. Indeed, DuPont says, although the symptoms are the same, "they cause two different diseases."

Members of the first?and far better known?group of the illness-inducing agents produce a poison or two. When the intestinal tract absorbs such a poison, it begins leaking fluids. Voila, cramping diarrhea.

Enteraggregative E. coli, by contrast, attach to the lining of the gut. At each binding site, they produce damage that induces inflammation. It's "that inflammation which leads to a watery outpouring" that a diner will later experience as diarrhea, DuPont explains. In the mid1990s, his team was the first to recognize enteraggregative E. coli as a new and distinct group of food-poisoning agents. Last year, the team also showed that these germs are ubiquitous globally and account for a large share of travelers' diarrhea.

In their latest paper, DuPont and his colleagues report that of Guadalajara sauces hosting E. coli, 9 percent were contaminated with enterotoxigenic types, and 44 percent contained the enteraggregative bugs.

To eat well?

The prevalence and high concentrations of pathogens in the Guadalajara sauces aren't surprising, DuPont says. It's a matter of sanitation.

Houston restaurants invariably deliver their condiments to diners fresh from the kitchen. Most are either cool to the touch, having just come from the refrigerator, or are steaming hot. In Mexico, those condiments sat on tables all day. Not only were they not refrigerated?or heated to sterilizing temperatures?but they may have been touched by the fingers of successive diners.

If there was any surprise, he says, it was that even the acidic, spicy sauces proved hospitable to bacteria. DuPont had assumed that if a hot sauce could burn a diner's stomach, bacteria would shun it. His new data now demonstrate that even such condiments can host dangerous concentrations of germs.

However, DuPont cautions would-be tourists not to interpret these findings as a reason to eschew the charms?and cuisine?of foreign destinations.

He says the trick to eating safely in Mexico and many other lands where hygiene isn't up to U.S. standards is to restrict menu choices to four categories:

Foods that are piping hot. When DuPont receives fish or another course that is only lukewarm, he returns it to the kitchen for reheating in the microwave until it's sizzling.


Foods that are dry, such as bread.


Foods with an especially high sugar content, such as syrups, jellies, and honey.


Foods that are very acidic, like citrus fruit, or that can be peeled at the table immediately before consumption.


DuPont says that it's helpful to explain these requirements to a waiter before ordering. He finds most can get into the spirit of helping gringos eat well.


References:

Adachi, J.A., . . . and H.L. DuPont. 2002. Enteric pathogens in Mexican sauces of popular restaurants in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Houston, Texas. Annals of Internal Medicine 136(June 18):884-887. Abstract available at http://www.annals.org/issues/v136n12/abs/200206180-00009.htm...

_____. 2001. Enteroaggregative Escherichia coli as a major etiologic agent in traveler's diarrhea in 3 regions of the world. Clinical Infectious Diseases 32(June 15):1706-1709. Available at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CID/journal/issues/v32n12/0...

Ericsson, C.D., . . H.L. DuPont. 1980. The role of location of food consumption in the prevention of travelers' diarrhea in Mexico. Gastroenterology 79(November):812.

von Sonnenburg, F., et al. 2000. Risk and aetiology of diarrhoea at various tourist destinations. Lancet 356(July 8):133.


Further Readings:

Raloff, J. 2001. Undercooking makes germs strong. Science News 159(June 2):344. Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/20010602/note18.asp.

_____. 2000. Toxic bugs taint large numbers of cattle. Science News 157 (March 25):199.

_____. 2000. E. colii can take flight. Science News 155 (Jan. 23):63.

Schubert, C. 2001. Busting the gut busters. Science News 160(Aug. 4):74. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/20010804/bob12.asp.


Sources:

Herbert L. DuPont
St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital
6720 Bertner Avenue
Houston, TX 77030




http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020713/food.asp

From Science News, Vol. 162, No. 2, July 13, 2002

Copyright (c) 2002 Science Service. All rights reserved.

[Edited on 1-16-2006 by flyfishinPam]

One of the worst cases I've ever had was from a Big Mac in McAllen, TX. I'd been in the D.F. for 3 yrs without a return to the states and wanted a "real American burger".

One of the most delicious things I've ever eaten was flautas de barbacoa with sour cream. (goat meat taquitos dorados) These were fried in a "disco"- kinda like a wok, basically a 50 gal oil drum on end, a concave depression pounded into the top with an opening on the side for firewood. This was on a dusty street next to a mechanic's shop. I was momentarily put off by the fact that the lady was pouring cooking oil from a motor oil can, but concluded that she MUST have washed it well before putting cooking oil in it. After all, it was just a container and the sizzling flautas smelled soooo good. They were great- hot crispy and the sour cream really complemented the taste of the meat. I had no problems later. I'm sure the experts would say the high temperature of the cooking would have killed anything bad.

Now y'all have got me reluctant to go for clam c-cktails again That was one of my favorite roadside treats. Oh well, there's still ceviche. I think the lemon juice should make it less risky.

My Viva Baja ambassador (now 'got baja?' ambassador) is Fishin' Rich, and he saw that some 'less than honorable' person removed the original one (he put there)... So he rplaced it at the next available location.

Carmelita did not see the vandalism to her van by someone who hates 'Viva Baja', but was glad when Rich replaced it... Many Nomads get a smile when they see them... Like an 'A' rating at a U.S. restaurant, I guess?? LOL!!!

My Tijuana printing company connection says the next batch of 'got baja?' stickers sould be ready this week... I am getting quite a big back log of emailed and u2u'd requests!

I will announce when they are ready to mail to you all! Stand by amigos!

Sorry about that Phil

Kill limits

Funny how the remarks ended up here . Hmmmmm. Oh well..... my 2 more cents:


Rule of thumb..
Any food(s) with a ph factor of 4.3 (high acid)or higher requires a temp of 185F with a min time. Reguires refrigeration after opening.
Kills salmonella, others and prevents botulinum


Any foods with a ph factor of 4.3 or lower are to be retorted at 140F for a min time.
Kills botulinum but food must be treated as an immediate perishable once opened.

Foods like a high protein meat tamale usually run a ph of 5.5 and down.
Foods like salsa with high acid usually run near 3.9 or higher


You figure out the rest

[Edited on 1-19-2006 by Sharksbaja]

We ate at Carmalitas Sunday...GREAT....no problems...again

Carmelita's Tamale Truck.....photos

Yes, all betta now I edited my post to be mo nice . Must be all this steeenking rain! Tanks Dulce

Pompano, I really like the photo you posted. If you look at the photos that have been posted youy will notice that Carmalita wears red a lot. When I showed her the photo that I snapped on my digital camera she made a huge comment about her red apron saying she really loves RED. Maybe to match her red hair?
Bob H

PS: I edited the title of this thread - maybe that will help!

[Edited on 1-19-2006 by Bob H]

The first time I met Carmelita, she was wearing bright red socks and I have seen her wearing something red every time I've stopped in (which is often :0)

We'll stop, order four burritos each, finish those off in no time and be ordering another round.

Amigo!

Carmelita's a few years back..I think 2002 or ?

Tamales

Call 'em "Hot Tamales" were I'm from. Hard to find anybody that makes 'em. Asked a lady if she'd make me a few, she said "too much trouble, only make 'em on special occasions". If you're ever in Natchez, MS try Fat Momma's. You won't be disappointed and you won't get sick. tumble:

Two weeks ago.

That's what she told me

Oregon Country.

Lived there for a year or two. That southern part is tough country. It's what's called "High Desert". Not a lot of pretty pics because it's not pretty. Bad place to be in the summer, bad place to be in the winter. Just a bad place to be. Not a whole lot of fishing or anything else.

It ain't dry here

and it never is!

Look closely.....

Oregon desert