La Comida

Ok, so this question seems to come up a lot.  Interestingly enough it comes up about as often with my Mexican friends as it does my American friends.  Clearly, food is an important topic no matter where you go.  What time do you eat?

	Mexican	American
Breakfast/Desayuno	8-10	7-9
Lunch/Comida	1-3	12-2
Dinner/Cena	8-10	6-8

Most of my Mexican friends keep asking if I’ve converted over to the Mexican time frame yet.  I’d have to say for the most part it’s been rather forced.  Breakfast is probably the only one that’s still in keeping with the American Time Table.  Lunch is nearly impossible to eat early cause I’m always so busy at work and the only hour I have free is from 1-2pm (because no one schedules time over lunch… another difference here in Mexico).  Dinner can’t be any earlier than 7pm (which is by the way when I eat) cause that’s when I get home from work.  So, I guess dinner is a bit more in line with the American time table… but to be honest… 7 is late for me.  In Rochester I was usually scarfing down some grub at 5pm or as soon as I walked in the door from work… so at the latest 6pm.  So, I guess you can say it’s been a slow process moving over to a later eating time and to be quite honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to eating dinner so late.

A note must be made on the food for lunch here.  From what I understand, lunch is the main meal of the day, which is probably why they don’t mind eating dinner as late since it’s smaller anyway.  Lunch usually includes meat, vegetables, etc. and pretty much always has to be warmed up (aka for my MN friends… a hot dish).  This difference can be seen in the number of microwaves available at IBM.  There are three microwaves per break room and I’m pretty sure there are four break rooms making a total of 12 microwaves for about 100 people or so.  Now compare that against Rochester which has a total of 4 microwaves for 400 people.  Twelve percent compared to one percent.  Oh my goodness.  I just realized that work is taking over my life and that I’m officially a nerd.  Did I really just do that analysis?  Well, I’m glad that epiphany came about while writing a public blog…

Anyway, clearly a good, warm meal is important here in the middle of the day instead of at the end of it.