Friday, April 24, 2009

Hispanic Bread Anyone? What's Wrong With Pan Dulce?

Walked past the bakery section of a local supermarket and saw a sign announcing "Hispanic Bread". When I paused to investigate, I found pre-packaged "Pan Dulce", (pronounced -pawn-dool-seh), plain old Mexican sweet bread. Odd that the supermarket didn't bother to ask some Mexican what they called their pastries. All they had to do was ask.

Check them out at any Mexican-deli, if you're not too squeamish about going inside, and you will never go back to donuts and snails. I get the feeling sometimes that people are afraid of the word "Mexican." Maybe it still has the old go-back-to-where-you-came-from connotations? While you're in there, get yourself some "chicarrones" to munch on too.

To refer to them as Hispanic Bread is to refer to spaghetti as Latin Spaghetti, or Chow-Mein as Asian noodles? Why not Latino Bread? There really ought to be no reservations about using Spanish words to sell products by now, and carne asada, chipotle, jalapenos, chile rellenos, or albondigas are all part of "European" jargon in the U.S., que no?

After all, some of my best friends speak perfect American.

2 comments:

#167 Dad said...

I'm a huge chicarrones fan. They go great with hot sauce and beer. As if I'm telling you something you don't already know.

Rick Rivers said...

There's a kind that are chunkier and still have a little meat on them and those are the best!