Prehispanic foods

Monterrey people keep a schedule that is strange to me:  class starts at 9am (but the start time is very casual so people are still drifting in at 9:30-9:45), lunch is 1:00-2:30 (again with the extended return time), and we are back at work until 6pm.  The normal time for dinner is 8 or 9 pm.  My hosts have been taking me out earlier than that (right after class), and at 7pm the restaurants are still empty.  Even so, what with the traffic and the leisurely meal, I don't get back to my room until 10pm or later.  Fortunately I don't need to do any work to be ready for tomorrow.  When do people get anything done around here?  Answer:  3am.  Seriously.  They wake up then, put in a few hours of work, and sleep a little more before rising for the day.  Just like my husband.  I had no idea there was a whole city full of people with his sleep habits.

There are no clocks anywhere that I can see.  Not in the classroom, not in the hotel room.  I still know what time it is, from my computer or my disabled phone, but I can't glance around to see the time.  One of my hosts said now that I mention it, he has never seen a clock on the wall here; the other said "Oh, I have a clock I have been meaning to bring in, it runs counterclockwise." In other words not a clock that you could actually read, I said, and she agreed, seeming to think nothing of it.

Tonight's dinner was at a lovely, classy traditional Mexican restaurant.  My favorite dish was the little blue-corn tamales stuffed with goat cheese and poured over with zucchini flower sauce.  I also ate cactus (with oaxaca cheese, inside a crispy crust, so it was a little like a chili relleno), shrimp tacos, and a delicious spicy sausage rolled up in tortillas.  Those were the fairly normal (though exceptionally good) things.  Then we had to have some things that I would not have anywhere else, referred to on the menu as "prehispanic" foods.  Grasshoppers are well known here, prepared crispy, with salt and chiles.  There is also a larval worm.  I passed up both of these (my hosts are not fans of them either) but I did try the ant eggs.  These arrive in a little dish looking almost like small corn kernels, and you eat a spoonful on a rustic tortilla with guacamole and lime.  The flavor is very mild.  The other interesting food I ate was huitlacoche, corn fungus, also in a tortilla with embellishments.  It is unappetizing to look at (black and globby) but has a pleasant taste, like a mushroom.