Birote bread: the unique taste of Jalisco
Together with the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI), birote manufacturers are to file a Denomination of Origin claim to protect the savory bread. Should they win the classification, the name birote could only be used for bread produced in Jalisco, just as only agave-based drinks made in this or certain other states can be legally called tequila.
Birote is produced almost exclusively in Guadalajara because the city’s climate and altitude give the bread a unique taste and texture that cannot be equalled in other parts of Mexico.
It is thought that birote’s origins date back to 1864, when a Belgian named Camille Pirrotte arrived in Guadalajara as a sergeant in the French army. Sent by Napoleon, the French briefly occupied parts of Mexico at this time.
In a bid to win over the hearts and minds of the Mexican people, the occupying troops were ordered to teach them French culture and customs. Pirrote was charged with teaching the locals to make French bread, but he soon realized that he could not find yeast anywhere in the city.
Pirrote improvised and left the dough out to ferment for a few days, which turned out to be a fine substitute. He began to give away day-old pieces of baked bread to the growing legions of poor in the city and the crusty slightly sour-tasting bread took the city by storm.
The French were ousted in 1867, but Pirotte ended up staying in Guadalajara and opening his own bread shop. According to research by Belgian expat Nestor Pirot, this is how birote was born, with the name coming from Pirotte.
Today birote is a staple of the Tapatio diet and an essential component of local speciality the “torta ahogada.” A renowned hangover cure, the torta ahogada consists of a birote stuffed with chunks of shredded pork and raw onion, all drowned in spicy salsa. The birote plays a crucial role, maintaining its consistency even when doused in sauce.
Birote is also used in “lonches,” hot sandwiches sold across Guadalajara with fillings such as pierna (shredded pork leg), milanesa (breaded meat), bistek (fried beef steak), chorizo or panela cheese. Similar sandwiches are found across Mexico, but these are known as regular “tortas,” rather than lonches, as a different bread is used.
Another common use for birote is in “molletes,” a popular breakfast snack. In molletes, the birote is sliced longways, garnished with a certain topping and grilled in the oven. Molletes can either be savory with any combination of refried beans, cheese, onion, tomato, avocado and salsa, or sweet with butter and sugar or jelly.
How to make a torta ahogada
Slice open a birote and fill with carnitas (roast shredded pork) and raw onion. Douse the sandwich with salsa made from tomatoes, salt and chile de arbol. Add lime juice to taste.
The 2011 report highlighted Mexico’s deeply problematic justice system; the many abuses committed with impunity by the military and the police; the widespread discrimination against indigenous people; high levels of violence against women and migrants; and the lack of adequate protection for journalists and human rights observers.
Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement in response, affirming that “the federal government is fully committed to promoting and protecting human rights.”
The government sought to use the nation’s drug cartels as a scapegoat, affirming that it “recognizes the impact on Mexican society of transnational organized crime, which is why it is doing everything in its power to dismantle these groups.” The government claimed that in the fight against organized crime its “response has been focused on expanding human rights.”
The AI report accepted that “there were a number of progressive constitutional human rights reforms” passed in 2011, but also found that “the government did not take effective measures to prevent or investigate widespread grave human rights violations committed by the military and police, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, torture and arbitrary arrests.” Furthermore, “the government … continued to assert that abuses were exceptional and perpetrators were held to account.”
AI said a large part of the problem was that “the military justice system remained in control of virtually all investigations into allegations of human rights abuses by military personnel, and continued to dismiss without effective investigation the vast majority of complaints, allowing perpetrators to evade justice.”
AI found that the criminal justice system also “failed to deliver justice or security,” with fair trial standards breached by a number of factors, “including arbitrary detention, torture, fabrication of evidence, denial of due process, denial of access to an effective defence, and inadequate judicial supervision of proceedings.”
Significant improvement does not appear to be forthcoming. AI described progress in reforming Mexico’s police forces and its criminal justice system as “extremely slow.”
Among other major problems, “at least nine journalists were killed and scores of others attacked and intimidated … More than 20 human rights defenders were threatened or attacked in 2011 … Violence against women remained widespread,” and “tens of thousands of mainly Central American irregular migrants traveling to the USA were at risk of kidnapping, rape, forced recruitment or being killed by criminal gangs, often operating in collusion of public officials.”
In its defense, the Mexican government cited new legislation to protect women, migrants and journalists, but AI found that despite this, “impunity remained the norm for most of these crimes,” with “those responsible were almost never held to account.”
Finally, AI noted that “Indigenous Peoples continued to suffer routine discrimination and systemic inequality, in relation to the right to land, housing, water, health and education. Economic and development projects on Indigenous lands continued to be undertaken without the free, prior and informed consent of affected communities.”
Veteran writer still fighting for Mexico’s left
Poniatowska may have turned 80 last month but her devotion to building a more equal Mexican society remains undiminished. Should Lopez Obrador win the July 1 election he has vowed to name her in his cabinet as Secretary of Culture.
“I will fight for this and I hope with all my heart that the left wins. For me it will be a tragedy if Lopez Obrador does not win,” Poniatowska said recently.
During her visit, Poniatowska met with students at the Plaza Universidad in downtown Guadalajara, before appearing with Lopez Obrador at the Minerva after the debate. The grass roots student movement #YoSoy132 has given her hope ahead of the election, she said. “It is as clean, transparent and spontaneous as the movement of 1968.”
“The movement is independent and they will vote for whoever they want,” Poniatowska affirmed, denying any official link between #YoSoy132 and Lopez Obrador’s National Regeneration Movement (Morena). “But when they say they are against Enrique Peña Nieto it is logical to think that they will vote for Andres Manuel.”
Following the death of Carlos Fuentes last month, Poniatowska has taken on the mantle of the country’s most celebrated living author, journalist and intellectual. Reflecting her status as a national treasure of the left, she received a special tribute from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to mark her 80th birthday.
“Her pen has always been a tool of solidarity and she has raised her voice on many occasions to speak up for those who have been silenced by injustice, inequality and fear,” said UNAM rector Jose Narro.
Much of Poniatowska’s work has a focus on human rights issues and displays sympathy toward oppressed groups in Mexican society, such as women, laborers, farm workers and the indigenous population. Poniatowska is a supporter of the indigenous Zapatista movement and traveled to Chiapas to interview rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos shortly after the conflict broke out in 1994.
Her best known work remains “La noche de Tlatelolco” (English title: “Massacre in Mexico”), an oral account of the events of October 2, 1968 in Mexico City’s Plaza de las Tres Culturas.
Based on hundreds of interviews with eye-witnesses, the book documents the infamous night when the military surrounded and then gunned down hundreds or even thousands of student protesters (having ordered the massacre, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, government covered up what happened and disposed of the corpses, preventing any official body count) who had gathered peacefully in the square, days before the capital hosted the 1968 Olympic Games.
Released in 1971, “La Noche de Tlatelolco” was the only book published on the subject for 20 years. It played a major role in divulging the truth about what happened, heavily contradicting the government account and the official death toll.
Poniatowska was born into an upper-class family in Paris, 1932. They left France during World War II, moving to Mexico in 1942. Poniatwoska never went to university, opting instead to begin her career at the age of 18 writing for Mexico City’s then-liberal Excelsior newspaper.
She currently lives in Coyoacan, a quiet but trendy suburb of Mexico City where the likes of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and an exiled Leon Trotsky famously resided.
Fluent in English, French and Spanish, Poniatowska has published novels, non-fiction books, journalistic essays, and many forwards and prologues to books on Mexican artists. She is one of the founders of La Jornada newspaper, the feminist magazine Fern, publishing house Siglo XXI and national film institute Cineteca Nacional.
The Tequila Files 