May is National Salsa Month. Here are 10 things you might not know about salsa:
The Aztecs used salsa as a condiment but it didn’t get its name until 1571 when Alonso de Molina, a Spanish priest and missionary, dubbed it “salsa”, which means “sauce” in English.
The basic recipe hasn’t changed much since Aztec times. In the Florentine Codex, one of the earliest accounts of Aztec life, a Spanish missionary described a local salsa vendor who sold ingredients still popular today, including “tomatoes, with smoked chile, with hot chile, with yellow chile, with mild red chile sauce.”
In America, it’s actually more popular than tomato ketchup. Since the early 1990s the dollar value of salsa sales is greater than that of ketchup.
It’s not limited to America. Salsa is made in other countries of the world with local variations. In France they use cornichon pickles and in Japan you’ll find salsa containing shishito peppers.
The Americans enjoy salsa in a different way to Mexicans, who actually find the American taste for it quite strange. A chef in Oaxaca once told The New York Times, “Watching someone shovel in salsa with Tortilla Chips is strange to Mexicans. Like how an American would feel watching someone drink salad dressing out of the bottle.”
A popular type of salsa is Pico de Gallo, which translates as “rooster’s beak”. No, it doesn’t contain rooster beaks, but rather is named for the way it was traditionally eaten, with two fingers, using a motion not unlike the pecking of a rooster.
Salsa fresca is fresh salsa made with Tomatoes and hot peppers.
Salsa verde is made with cooked tomatillos and is served as a dip or sauce for chilaquiles, enchiladas, and other dishes.
The salsa dance gets its name from the condiment, because it’s a mixture of different styles.
In America, salsa has been officially designated a vegetable by the Department of Agriculture, so it counts towards your five a day.
New!!!
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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