As part of our ongoing series on street venders let’s turn to Guadalajara, Mexico where I lived as a graduate student to study Spanish in the early 1990s. Street venders in Guadalajara, Mexico's second largest city, sold candies, nuts, and roasted beans smothered in salt, chili powder, and lime, as snacks. Over time, I adapted to the language and the cuisine and developed a craving for hot and spicy flavors that I once could not handle. Overtime roasted spicy habas (fava beans) became my favorite street food. Fava beans came to the Americas from the Mediterranean during the Iberian colonial period. I bought two or three paper or plastic bags full of the crunchy and spicy hot snacks several times a week on city streets. If you have a Latin American owned bodega near you, they will most likely sell them near the bags of plantain chips. Try them and you will like them.
