Best Cheeseburger on the Island?

[cvchief]

Sorry, my bad. I thought this was a forum about cheeseburgers.

Do you think there is a way to eat a cheeseburger while diving? That would be cool. I would think you might get hungry if you dive those steel tanks with the sunshine...

[youtubehq]S6sQms1k9bA[/youtubehq]

Oh, wait, something went wrong when I Googled it....

 

[Mossman]

Do you think there is a way to eat a cheeseburger while diving? That would be cool. I would think you might get hungry if you dive those steel tanks with the sunshine...

[youtubehq]S6sQms1k9bA[/youtubehq]

Oh, wait, something went wrong when I Googled it....

Of course you could eat a cheeseburger when diving. Doubt you could keep it from getting soggy, however.

I ate raw scallop underwater once diving with a buddy off Laguna Beach. He pried one off the reef and gave me a piece of the meat. Take reg out. Put scallop in. Chew, swallow, replace reg. Not too hard. Very tasty, fresher than any sushi scallop and seasoned with just a bit of salt from the sea water.

 

[dflaher]

...but no need for financing at Burger House. For 65 pesos I got a DELICIOUS burger and fries while vacationing in Coz a few weeks ago. The guy that runs the place is a hoot, and they will keep your beer cold in the fridge if you choose to bring your own.

 

[cvchief]

An oldie but a goodie back from the thread graveyard....

 

[dflaher]

Yeah chief, since I started this thread I wanted to take it through closure. I'd be hard pressed to eat a burger anywhere else on the island, unless Burger House was closed.

 

[cvchief]

Yeah chief, since I started this thread I wanted to take it through closure. I'd be hard pressed to eat a burger anywhere else on the island, unless Burger House was closed.

Did I notice a burger stand opened next to the fry place on 5? I wonder if that was any good.

 

[El Graduado]

But Cozumel was uninhabited until the last century. .

There is a persistent myth that Cozumel was uninhabited for a long period between 1665 (when the Spanish Crown issued a directive to remove the inhabitants of Cozumel and put them to work on another Spanish encomienda at Bolona on the mainlad) and 1848 when the "Repobladores" established themselves on Cozumel after fleeing the Caste War. Some people quote statements to this effect made by John Lloyd Stephens as support for this belief, but by his own admission, Stephens only visited the north of the island (near Isla de Pasion) and the recently abandoned cotton plantation at Rancho San Miguel that Vicinte Alvino Cammano established in 1830, when he purchased the rancho from Miguel Molas. Besides that, Stephens was only on the island one and one-half days; not enough time to see much. He never got down to the southern end, where there was a settlement.

There are many documents that still exist that prove Cozumel was never a deserted island and I have listed and quoted from them in my five-part series in the Chetumal newspaper "Primer Mestizaje." The townsfolk were not all removed from the island in 1665. In 1673, Martin Cuzamil was the alcalde of Xamancab (today's San Miguel) and he along with several other functionaries sent a signed and dated document they sent to Merida, a document which still exists. In a November 3, 1672 sworn court testimony, ship captains Philip Osborn, John Mitchel, James Smith, William Coxon, and James Coxon stated that the English “…had been engaged in the [logwood] trade for two and a half years between Boca Conil and Cape Catoche and from there down to Cozumel where the English had always had huts and houses and people to the number of 100 or 200 there resident. They had met with no interruptions to the trade from Spaniards or Indians.”

Eighty years later, this English settlement was still on Cozumel, according to a September 20, 1751 Spanish document. In 1775, the governor of Guatemala, Marin de Mayorga, complained about this settlement to the Spanish Crown. Again in 1814, a Spanish report stated:“the English of Walix [Belize] are settled there, and they are stealing our fish, turtles, caray, and amber that washes up on the beach.”

On July 12, 1837, the Texas Navy vessels Brutus and Invincible landed a party on Cozumel and took possession of the island for the Republic of Texas. In Capt. James Boylan's report, he mentions the inhabitants of the island:

"On the 12th stood out to sea and run down to the island of Cozamel. On the 13th anchored the vessels on the S. W. point of the Island. Landed with our boats. Planted the single Star Banner of our Country in the soil of this delightful Island. The Inhabitants were but few but expressed their good feelings for us at the same time swearing allegiance to our cause. We made such surveys and remarks as our limited time would admit of. The anchorage are indeed safe & commodious for any number of vessels. The soil is delightfull . The climate salubrious. The forest abound in the finest Kinds of Timber, [?], Mahogany, & Spanish Cedar and abundance of fruits of various kinds. There is also [an] abundance of water. On the whole I think it is a most desirable acquisition to our Government and I would respectfully recommend it to the consideration of our Congress."

In 1848, when the Cruzoob Maya rebels were invading Valladolid, hundreds of refugees fled to the north coast of Yucatan. Crowded together on the beach at Dzilam, they were about to be slaughtered by the Maya rebels who had pursued them. The American Consul in Campeche sent a dispatch to the American Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry pleading for a ship to help evacuate the refuges from the beach. Perry sent the USS Falcon, whose captian (John J. Glasson) wrote a report on April 28, 1848 stating he had been aboard another English vessel at Dzilam that was also evacuating refugees. In the report (which is now a part of the US Congressional Record), Capt. Glasson said the ship he boarded was named the True Blue, and it was packed to the gills with refugees on their way to Cozumel, because, the captain said, they wanted to go to the English settlement there.

This English settlement was the Palo de Tinte operation that was then selling logwood to the US, aboard US ships, such as the July 1844 load that Dario Galera sent from Cozumel aboard the brigantine Henry Leeds.

The fact that the island had been continuously inhabited by a mix of illegal English squatters and Mayan and Spanish contrabandistas was never a subject that made much press. Cozumel was at the very edge of the Mexican government's influence at the time and was simply left to its own devices until it was incorporated in 1849.

 

[mstevens]

Did I notice a burger stand opened next to the fry place on 5? I wonder if that was any good.

Yeah, just to the north of Frenchies is a place called "Perro Loco" or something like that. It appears to do hot dogs and burgers. I haven't tried it because Frenchies is so darned good.

 

[Mossman]

In a November 3, 1672 sworn court testimony, ship captains Philip Osborn, John Mitchel, James Smith, William Coxon, and James Coxon stated that the English “…had been engaged in the [logwood] trade for two and a half years between Boca Conil and Cape Catoche and from there down to Cozumel where the English had always had huts and houses and people to the number of 100 or 200 there resident. They had met with no interruptions to the trade from Spaniards or Indians.”

Eighty years later, this English settlement was still on Cozumel, according to a September 20, 1751 Spanish document. In 1775, the governor of Guatemala, Marin de Mayorga, complained about this settlement to the Spanish Crown. Again in 1814, a Spanish report stated:“the English of Walix [Belize] are settled there, and they are stealing our fish, turtles, caray, and amber that washes up on the beach.”

So in that case, "authentic" Cozumel cuisine should consist of fish & chips and jellied eels?

 

[El Graduado]

So in that case, "authentic" Cozumel cuisine should consist of fish & chips and jellied eels?

I'd say that authentic Cozumel cuisine is made up of dishes made from turtle, peccary, fish, deer and dove, all of which you can still get if you know where to look. The pantorilla de bebe (grilled child's calf muscle) and estofado de techici (dog stew) are now hard to come by, owing largely to political correctness, not the lack of supply.