A Surprise at the Annual Yarmouth Clam Festival
July | 2015
July 18, 2015 — For the past 25 years, my family and I have attended the
Yarmouth Clam Festival in Maine. Every year I enjoy seeing many of the same or similar vendors and often purchase local art. Today, however, I was pleasantly surprised to meet a local Portland resident at the festival with a familiar accent … it was not Steamer (the festival mascot) and he did not have a Maine accent!
Jonathan Hernández Niembro is selling beautiful wire-wrapped jewelry. The stones on some of the rings catch my eye and when I ask him about them, I notice his accent. I am not positive, but my guess is he is Latino. My instincts are correct: Jonathan is from México.
Read more about Jonathan here ➤We chat a bit, I buy two rings and leave him to his customers. His booth seems to be a popular one and I do not want him to lose business.
Before I leave, he hands me his card and on the back he writes the address of
Taco Trio, a local Mexican restaurant, where he promises I would get delicious and authentic Mexican food because the owners are also from Teotihuacán.
"There are three Mexicans and one Salvadoran working there," he says. "I work there as a waiter to make ends meet, when I'm not selling my jewelry."
I tell him I'd look for him again when I venture into South Portland during the next week's stay in Maine. Later in the evening, as I stroll through the waterfront in The Old Port, I come across this taco truck (below) and recognize the name and address that Jonathan wrote on the back of his card.
The menu below is indeed uniquely authentic Mexican, listing ingredients and foods (
chilorio, rajas, chile arbol) that one does not normally see on standard taco trucks. I drool!
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