Travel Secret family recipe The Lopez family is also proud of local p r o d u c e , especial ly o r g a n i c cascabel peppers, which they use to make Salsa Huichol. Their hot sauce recipe is secret, but Alfonso Lopez divulged that the ingredients include cumin, salt and vinegar. Alfonso is an industrial engineer and the grandson of the founder, Roberto Lopez. He works with his brother, also named Roberto (who is an electronic engineer) and his mother, Leticia Lopez. In 1949, Roberto Senior started the companywith 40 pesos (US$2.20) and a delivery bicycle. Now in his 80s, Roberto still oversees the production of more than 100,000 bottles of Salsa Huichol daily. Roberto Senior named the hot sauce after the indigenous Huichol people, known for their traditional clothing, colourful embroidery and beadwork. We admired all three when we fortuitously encountered a Huichol gathering during our visit to a historic fort in San Blas. Locals even spice up popcorn with Salsa Huichol. Corn is a staple of Nayarit cuisine and the town of Jala hosts an annual August corn festival. A 20-inch cob holds the record in the largest corncob competition. We missed the festival, but spotted a corncob as long as our forearms on a table outside a shop. The owner came out and offered us some tasty roasted peanuts. She said that they were “mystical,” because they grew in lava-enriched soil from a nearby (now dormant) volcano. Alfonso, Roberto Sr. and Roberto Jr. Lopez in front of Salsa Huichol factory assembly line Dried organic cascabel peppers used to make Salsa Huichol Alfonso Lopez and his mother, Leticia Lopez Jala, Nayarit, hosts a corn festival every August Couple dressed in traditional Huichol clothing with colourful embroidery and beadwork Mariachi musician in Jala, Nayarit Colourful embroidery and beadwork on traditional Huichol clothing 32 | www.snowbirds.org
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