SHOPPING : Treats for Mexican Independence Day

Mexican Independence Day this weekend will no doubt inspire a round of celebrations. Since parties usually mean chips and dips, this is the time to try out a crunchy, full-flavored chip that is authentically Mexican but not commonly known: duritos.

Think of duritos as a cross between Indonesian shrimp chips, pasta and chicharrones. Raw, they look like strips of hard, ridged, translucent pasta. When deep-fried, they puff up like shrimp chips. And they look a little like chicharrones-- crisp-fried pork cracklings that also make good snacks. The difference is, duritos are made from flour and not from meat.

The raw chips are manufactured in Mexico and exported to Los Angeles. They’re available here in a variety of markets, among them the Tianguis chain, the Grand Central Public Market in downtown Los Angeles and Market Basket in Lawndale.

Or you can buy bags of fried duritos processed by Del Mar Foods Co. of Oceanside and packaged under its Don Victor label. Del Mar produces duritos flavored with chili powder and lemon in two sizes--small dippers and large-sized chips. The large chips are also available without seasoning, and the little dippers come in two additional flavors: shrimp and jalapeno. Tianguis carries the Don Victor chips.

Olvera Street is a good source for another type of treat--candy. The selection of typical Mexican dulces (sweets) displayed in stalls there includes biznaga, which is cactus candy. Biznaga is often cut fine and added to the filling for chiles en nogada-- fresh poblano chiles stuffed with meat, fruit and nuts and topped with walnut sauce and pomegranate seeds. It’s a dish linked to pomegranate season, which is getting underway now.

Look also for candied sweet potato (camote) and squash (calabaza). Coconut turns up in alfajores (blocks of white coconut candy tinted shocking pink on one side) and cocadas, baked confections that vendors define as macaroons.

Pepitoria, the Mexican version of pralines, contains either peanuts or pecans. And there are individually wrapped circles of mazapan (marzipan) made of peanuts ground as fine as dust.

Milk and sugar cooked together is the base for a number of candies including jamoncillo (bars of plain milk fudge); rosquilla (ridged bars of coconut-flavored milk fudge); marina (balls of milk fudge coated with chopped pecans); gorditas de leche (milk fudge patties) and leche quemada (burnt milk fudge).

And there’s still more--balls of sweet-sour tamarind-flavored candy, rolls of guava paste, melcocha (taffy) and large cookies, either plain or coated with multicolored candy sprinkles (grajea). Look for the candies at the stands that line the center of the street.

In some Olvera Street shops, you’ll find equipment for cooking and serving Mexican meals. The Casa de Sousa’s stock of pottery includes stunning, large talavera- style bowls in deep blue and cream from Guadalajara and a hand-painted brown dinner set from Michoacan. Blue-rimmed, handblown glassware and ornamental tin service plates would create a striking table. On the practical side, there are molcajetes (rough stone mortars), tortilla presses and iron comales (griddles) on which to bake the tortillas.

The Casa California offers pottery bean pots and enormous cazuelas that could function as serving containers for a large gathering.

Here you will find the highly effective aluminum lime squeezers that are manufactured in Mexico. A larger size in the same design is used for oranges. Other kitchenware includes wooden spoons, rolling pins and molinillos, the wooden beaters that are used to froth hot chocolate. The shop also carries yarn-embroidered baskets for tortillas and has at least one of the large, unlined copper cazuelas in which Mexican cooks prepare sweets and other dishes.