Pechugas de Pollo

When I was in graduate school, my research took me to the strange and beautiful northern reaches of Chihuahua, the wild west of Mexico. The people there talk a little slower, have an accent that city-folk make fun of, and believe in God, ranching, and farming, in that order. They are an interesting mix of Mexican Catholics, American Mormons, and German Mennonites. I'm not a religious person and have been to church only a handful of times throughout my life, so all religions seem a little foreign to me, but this mix of three very odd (to me) religions in one small corner of the world was bizarre. The Catholics, I at least vaguely understood. My best friend as a kid was Catholic, and I've been to Catholic weddings, so I've got some foothold there. Sadly, everything I know about Mormonism comes from that season of The Real World with the Mormon girl who got kicked out of BYU for appearing on the show, and the new show Big Love. Don't worry, I fully realize that TV isn't real, and real Mormons are probably nothing like that evil Nikki expertly played by Chloe Sevigny. But at least I've had some kind of exposure. The Mennonites, on the other hand, were something totally new. They're somewhat like the Amish, except they drive pick-up trucks and make stinky cheese. While the Mormons and Mexicans were nothing but kind, the Mennonites were slightly menacing. In line at the grocery store, the women, clad in bonnets, long-sleeved dresses, and uncomfortable-looking shoes, would glare at me as though the fear of god were a laser coming straight from their eyeballs and the depth to which the laser would penetrate my soul was directly proportional to the ire in their eyes. How did they know I never went to church? It must have been the sandals...oh, and the "I Heart Satan" t-shirt.

During one such trip to the grocery store, I was charged with buying ingredients for fried chicken. I was staying in a house with several other grad students, and we cooked meals together, each person taking turns to make something. I had only a vague idea how to make it, since most of the fried chicken I had eaten at that point came in a box from Roy Rogers. But, I was equipped with a list (in English) from that night's chef that included boneless skinless chicken breasts, eggs, and corn flakes. Most of the other graduate students spoke even less than I did, so I was often forced to do the things that required communication with the locals--buying groceries, asking directions, saying hi to the neighbors. However, my college Spanish teacher never taught us "chicken breasts," an unfortunate oversight. The grocery stores in rural Mexico are not like those in the US. The meat isn't in perfectly portioned and cellophaned styrofoam containers. It's behind the butcher case, and you have to order everything in kilos. Thankfully, I had a pretty good grasp of the metric system, but when I went to the butcher, I saw nothing behind the glass that looked like chicken breasts, boneless or otherwise. They had whole chickens and many different cuts of beef, but no breasts. Unfortunately, I didn't really realize that I couldn't say "chicken breasts" before I started talking. (This happened once before when I was trying to buy ice, couldn't remember how to say it, and instead said, "es como agua pero muy, muy frio." Understandably, I left without ice that time.) I really should have given myself some time to think it out. Instead I started talking about "pollo sin huesos" and "pollo en partes." Thankfully, before my next strategy of pointing to my own breasts and saying something like "el parte de pollo que esta aqui," the lovely butcher figured out what I was saying and found me some boneless skinless chicken breasts. Thank god he wasn't a Mennonite.