It’s 60 degrees out; the thermometer doesn’t lie.
I can feel the energy changing as the Spring weather ebbs and summer approaches. And, as if that wasn’t enough reason to celebrate, the opportunity to welcome in the month of May is upon which means Cinco De Mayo.
If you are anything like me, good food and good drink go hand in hand, especially Margaritas. The multitude of different ways a Margarita can be crafted could fill a book, never mind this small paper, and that story will have to wait.
Today I want to ask a larger question: what is Cinco De Mayo? The short answer, Cinco De Mayo celebrates the Mexican Army’s victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, not Mexican Independence. Though it is not a national holiday in Mexico the event is celebrated with parades, parties and traditional foods like Mole Poblano. How did it come to the United States you ask? We can give thanks to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), who though best known for the “New Deal”, was instrumental in bringing the holiday to the United States. America was just beginning to rise back out of the ashes of the Great Depression and FDR was looking to build bridges with our neighbors to the south, Central and South America. Roosevelt wanted to emphasize cooperation and trade rather than military force to maintain stability in the hemisphere, so in his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, Roosevelt stated “In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor – the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.” The history of this idea and the desire to continue it in our modern world makes this writer smile, because I am free to be a good neighbor and sit down and enjoy a margarita with any and all of my neighbors; that is a beautiful… and delicious thing.
For the best local margaritas and authentic traditional Mexican food please try Cancun – A Family Mexican Restaurant at 145 Main St., Kingston, or Fiesta Charra, at 66 Main St. in Carver.