jalapeño

this post was inspired by an 'old el paso' tv commercial: something very sad about living in London, probably the UK in general, is the lack of good, or really any, Mexican food. i have had this conversation with every American I've met living here. in the grocery store they have these kits you can buy from old el paso for making nachos and enchiladas. basically they have sauce mix and tortillas/chips (crisps) and you buy the meat and veggies to go with. its tough to find salsa, tortillas not part of the kit, guacamole, black beans etc. - it's all tough to find. the worst part of it all isn't the lack of Mexican restaurants, or the lack of ingredients at the grocery store, it's the way they pronounce jalapeño here. they say hal-a-pino, as i type it out i'm surprised they don't say jal-a-pino, at least they get the j is an h thing ;) so for everyone who doesn't get how the ñ sounds i have put below the pronunciation guide: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

jalapeño SYLLABICATION:ja·la·pe·ño PRONUNCIATION: hä'lə-pān'yō NOUN:Inflected forms: pl. ja·la·pe·ños 1. A cultivar of the tropical pepper Capsicum annuum having a very pungent green or red fruit. 2. The fruit of this plant.