Scotsmen in kilts playing the bagpipes at 6am in Boston. The residents of Lawrence, Kansas learning the Algerian national anthem and crowding every practice, South Korean supporters sharing their tequila with Mexican fans before the match, Brazilians taking over Times Square. Bosnian and Canadian fans high fiving before their big match.
The World Cup is humanity's biggest party, and continually reminds us of how amazing we can be!
When you eat Mexican food, your brain releases endorphins and dopamine. Capsaicin, the compound in chili peppers, binds to pain receptors in your mouth. Your brain reads this as a threat and counters with feel-good chemicals. The burn in a good salsa triggers the same pathway as a runner's high.
This is all happening on top of a food tradition more than 3,000 years in the making. The tortilla in a chicharron taco exists because of nixtamalization, a process Mesoamerican cooks developed roughly 3,200 years ago. Corn kernels are soaked in lime water, which releases niacin, a B vitamin that corn otherwise locks away in an indigestible form. Without this step, corn-heavy diets cause pellagra, a B-vitamin deficiency that killed around 7,000 Americans per year at its peak in the early 20th century. Southern sharecroppers were eating corn without the process Mexico had preserved for three millennia.
In 2010, the UN added Mexican cuisine to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list, the first year any national food culture had ever qualified. The application covered seed preservation, farming customs, ritual preparation, and thousands of years of cooking knowledge passed through communities.
The diversity inside that designation is hard to picture. Mexico has 59 varieties of heirloom corn, more than 60 distinct chili pepper types, and 32 states with cuisines different enough that Oaxacan mole negro (a dark sauce from dried chili and chocolate) and Yucatecan cochinita pibil (slow-roasted pork in a smoky red spice paste) share almost no ingredients. Oaxaca alone has more than 20 types of mole. Mole poblano uses more than 20 ingredients, including several chili varieties, dark chocolate, and cinnamon, in a single sauce.
Chicharron fires three systems at once. Fat carries flavor deep into the palate. The crunch comes from pork skin dried, then dropped in 375-degree oil. The trapped moisture turns to steam, puffs the skin, and produces thousands of flavor compounds through the same browning chemistry that makes coffee and seared meat smell incredible. Then the salsa lands capsaicin on top of everything and the dopamine kicks in.
The "best food ever" reaction has a chemical basis. You are tasting dopamine from capsaicin, browning chemistry from pork fat at high heat, and a tortilla built on a process 3,200 years old. These flavors were engineered to do exactly this.
This is exactly what the World Cup is all about 🙌♥️
One lone South Korea fan amongst a sea of Mexican fans. No tension, no anger, just pure joy...
All for the love of football 🇲🇽🤝🇰🇷
Te das cuenta lo cabrón que es el Mundial cuando personas que en su vida han visto un partido de fútbol salen a las calles con su playera de la selección. 🇲🇽
Oigan ya se pusieron a pensar que este es el ÚLTIMO mundial que va a haber en México?
Por lo menos en los próximos 100 años. A todos los que estamos vivos hoy no se nos hará ver un mundial nuevamente en nuestro país.
Se imaginan que a medio show de inauguración le apagan el micrófono a Belinda y aparece JUAN GABRIEL cantando este temazo confirmando que nunca murió.
PIEL CHINITA CABRONES 🇲🇽
Odio todo lo que tenga que ver administrativamente con la FEMEXFUT, pero no puedo explicar esto que me está pasando a 24hrs. De que México juegue la inauguración del mundial, apenas suene el silbatazo inicial y voy a ser este: