I did the Bourbon marinade for my bar-b-que back in the states and loved it. Bourbon costs about double here in Mexico, so I use good Tequila instead. Not considering the proof of the tequila I was using out of the 2 gallon wooden cask I'd been given as a gift, I burned up the first steak. After I used a razor to even out my singed eyebrows, I wiped most of the tequila marinade off of the other steaks and continued on. Here we use chili peppers in about every thing. A combination of anchos, habanero, rock salt, and tequila marinaded steaks, or chops, or chicken, or an old shoe for that matter, slow grilled over a mesquite wood fire works out to be good eatin.

Now before leaving to go backpacking, I make up three or four of my favorite marinades and I add double the salt as a preservative and to aid in replacing the salt I lose from sweating out on the trail. Then I slow cook the meats down dry like a good chewy jerky on my adobe smoker here at home. I like the fat left on for the trail meats. I have a butcher in the village of Jocotepec that will slice bacon a half inch thick and a beef roast or flank steak down to an eighth of an inch thick for me to make jerky with on the grill.

I also marinade fresh pacific shrimp in fresh lime juice, crushed mangoes, crushed black pepper corns, and sea salt, and then smoke them over a black tea smoldering fire on the same grill. They will last for about three days before beginning to turn, where as the beef or pork will last 5 days on the average, if I don't eat it all first. Yes, it weighs more than a Raman noodle meal, but hey, I get seriously hungry on the trail and good quality food just tastes so much better sitting around a camp fire at night.

Carrying the smoked meats around in my pack also helps me to be accepted by people in the small villages. Within 5 minutes after I arrive, usually every dog in the village is following me around wagging their tails and sniffing at my pack, (I think the dogs use cell phones to announce my arrival). The village people tend to be a bit wary of strangers, but I suppose they think I must be a good person if all the dogs like me, and they warm to me rather quickly.

Made myself hungry, heading for the kitchen. Brum