Marginal Revolution

The 19th century was truly bad for Mexico and for Mexicans

From an international perspective, Mexicans' height in the mid-eighteenth century was "not too short"...The declining trend over the second half of the eighteenth century was nothin exceptional in international perspective either.  The early nineteenth century, however, was a watershed as the trends diverged: height recovered or stagnated in France, Spain, and other countries, but it continued to decline in Mexico: by the 1830s, Mexicans had finally become "too short."  ...I have proposed that population growth, and more frequent El Niño events, and real grain prices reduced the availability of food and had a likely detrimental effect on living standards.

That is from an essay by Amílcar Challú, from the new and excellent book Living Standards in Latin American History: Height, Welfare, and Development, 1750-2000, edited by Ricardo D. Salvadore, John H. Coatsworth, and Amílcar Challú.

New html edition of my ethnic dining guide is up

Google to my home page and scroll down to the bottom.  If you follow the blog version of the guide (on Twitter), you won't find anything new here, but if you wish this way you can print the whole thing out.

How to eat well anywhere in Mexico

You'll sometimes hear fallacious claims that San Miguel Allende or Guanajuato or other parts of Mexico don't have superb food.  What is true, in many Mexican cities, is that almost every place near the main square is only so-so.  Here's what to do:

1. Look for time-specific food.  In San Miguel for instance, there is barbacoa [barbecue] from 8-10 a.m., carnitas from about 11-4, and wonderful chorizo after 8 p.m.  In Mexico, if the food is available only part of the day, it's almost always good.  It's for locals and there is no storage in these places so it's also extremely fresh.

2. Often the best meals are served in places which have no names.  In San Miguel the "brothers Bautista" run the best carnitas stands, but there is no sign and no marking.  The stands are simply there on the side of the road, with some plastic tables and chairs, at a few places around town.  Everyone in town knows about them.

3. Ask around with taxi drivers and be persistent.  Ask the older taxi drivers.  Throw away your guidebook, no matter which one you have.

4. Use breakfast and lunch for your best meals; dinner is an afterthought.  Almost everywhere good is closed by 8 p.m. or often long before then.  Always visit a place that closes by 1 p.m.

5. Roadside restaurants, on the edges of towns or between towns, serve some of the best food in Mexico or anyhere else for that matter.  Some of these restaurants even have names, though you can overlook that in the interests of eating well. 

Querétaro notes

Enchiladas and crepes are especially common here, often with potatoes.  The best meal cost one dollar and was bought on the sidewalk from a crouching elderly woman (for all the talk about "street food," often "sidewalk food" is where it's at).  It was potato, nopalitos (cactus), finely ground white cheese, and a potent chile sauce on top of a fried blue corn tortilla.

At the local Arabic-Mexican restaurant, ten chalupas can be had for $2.10.

In Mexico never eat until you are full, because you will likely encounter something even better along your way.  What is hard is not finding the food but rather enforcing the optimal stopping rule.

If you are trying to argue that Mexico is a "normal" country, this city is your Exhibit A.

The much-vaunted decline in the Mexican birth rate is somehow not in evidence here; perhaps that is an artifact of who visits the Christmas displays.  Plenty of police are out with guns, as a signal to deter a potential drug gang invasion.

The aquaduct has 74 arches, some as high as 30 meters; opened in 1738, it was in its day considered the greatest engineering achievement of New Spain.

As Yana notes, on the streets you will see many examples of perfect competition.

Women and alcohol

Is there a better blog post title?  Here is the abstract of a new paper, "Women or Wine, Monogamy and Alcohol":

Intriguingly, across the world the main social groups which practice polygyny do not consume alcohol. We investigate whether there is a correlation between alcohol consumption and polygynous/monogamous arrangements, both over time and across cultures. Historically, we find a correlation between the shift from polygyny to monogamy and the growth of alcohol consumption. Cross-culturally we also find that monogamous societies consume more alcohol than polygynous societies in the preindustrial world. We provide a series of possible explanations to explain the positive correlation between monogamy and alcohol consumption over time and across societies.

That's by Mara Squicciarini and Jo Swinnen.

Kalamazoo beer exchange

Depending on what customers purchase, the prices will rise or fall.

“It’s an ever-evolving happy hour,” Flora said.

The prices will never go higher than around 10 percent the base cost, but will drop to as much as 50 percent below base cost.

For example, a Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale may be $3 normally.

But, depending on the “market” activity (i.e. patrons buying tendencies) it could be as much as $3.25 or as little as $1.50 (prices fluctuate in increments of 25 cents).

The prices will change every 15 minutes and there will be, at random, a “stock market crash” — signified by air horns — when all 28 beers are sold at a low rate for five minutes.

The full story is here and I thank Dave Kirsammer for the pointer.

Here is a picture of Kalamazoo.

China robot hotpot fact of the day what happened to the Ricardo effect?

Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hotpot meals are not as famous yet as the staff who never lose their patience and never take tips.

The restaurant, which opened this month in Jinan in northern Shandong province, is touted as China's first robot hotpot eatery where robots resembling Star Wars droids circle the room carrying trays of food in a conveyor belt-like system.

More than a dozen robots operate in the restaurant as entertainers, servers, greeters and receptionists. Each robot has a motion sensor that tells it to stop when someone is in its path so customers can reach for dishes they want.

The full story is here and for the pointer I thank Daniel Lippman.

Wishing Happy Holidays to All Our Readers

*Kosher Nation*

The author is Sue Fishkoff and the subtitle is Why More and More of America's Food Answers to a Higher Authority.  This late arrival is one of my favorite non-fiction books of the year, superb both on its topic and on the history and economics of certification more generally.  Here is one excerpt:

"If they want to sell their product in the United States and they are not kosher, no one will buy it," points out Menachem Lubinsky.  "Coca-Cola won't buy it, Kellogg's won't buy it.  They'll be cut out of the market.  If you're in China or Thailand and you want to export, you have absolutely no choice but to seek out kosher certification."  Some companies get certification to fill one order from a U.S.-based manufacturer and then drop it when the order is complete, only to reapply when the next order comes in.

Definitely recommended.

Querétaro, San Miguel Allende, and Guanajuato bleg

You know the deal: don't neglect the dining suggestions, or the possible day trips, and I thank you all in advance for the pointers.  A high percentage of them end up being used!