Why Do Mexicans Call Limes Limones?

DEAR MEXICAN: Can you help me unravel the citrus dilemma? When I am in Mexico or a Mexican restaurant or market, I am unable to find lemons (yellow, egg-sized, tart-tasting fruits). Whenever I ask, I get green-colored fruit, which looks and tastes to me like limes (green, smaller than egg-sized, tart-tasting fruits). I understand there are Persian limes and Key limes (smaller, sweeter-tasting). But what are limones, which they sell in the markets? I thought limón was a marketing creation by Sprite/7UP, a blend of lemon and lime juices. Have the genetically modifying, corporate food scientists succeeded in creating a limón, and why is it only available in Hispanic markets? Please enlighten me, so my future father-in-law no longer refers to me as El Cabrón!

Le Chupacabra

DEAR GABACHO: Why Mexicans call the limes used in our cooking limones when the Royal Spanish Academy calls that fruit limas is probably the most confounding question mexicanos ask of themselves after why Pancho Villa insisted on using 19th-century military tactics at the Battle of Celaya. And the answer boils down to agricultural terms used in Mexico. “If you want a lemon in the motherland, you have to ask for limón amarillo,” says Alfonso Cano, founder and CEO of 1810 Revolutionary Clothing Co., which all aspiring Mexican boxers and MMAers should wear while sparring. Cano has worked in produce for years, and he admits the etymological controversy “drives people crazy. The limón Persa is the actual wording used to signify what Americans call limes,” but Cano explains that almost all Mexicans drop the Persian part. “If you ask for a lima in Mexico, you will most likely be getting a sweet lime—what Americans call a Key lime, which we call lima dulce or limón criollo.”

And if you want to get even more confused: The Persian lime does turn yellow if you let it grow long enough, which makes it look like a lemon and further justifies the limón moniker. But whatever you want to call limones, better hoard them fast. The trifecta of a bad harvest, demand and drug cartels in Mexico's lime-growing areas has made prices skyrocket: a 40-pound case of limes sells wholesale to grocery stores for $115, more than triple its previous historic high. If you already think your Mexican neighbors pick from your fruit tree a lot, you ain't seen nothing yet. . . .

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DEAR MEXICAN: Okay, so I'm probably a puta. I've had countless partners, a sizable percentage of which were Mexican. Anglo and black men fuck about the same way: slow to fast, ending with a big blow. Mexican men start like a jackrabbit, banging away at 150 humps per minute. Is it something cultural, inherited or just a rush to finish?

Mamo la Pinga

DEAR GABACHA: Chula, you ain't no whore just 'cause you like to sleep with men. But I have to wonder about your choice of chorizo because the stats just don't reflect your reality that men want to finish muy pronto rápido arriba arriba. For instance, the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS) study conducted by the University of Chicago found that the prevalence of premature ejaculation among gabachos, negritos and wabs was 19 percent, 34 percent and 27 percent, respectively, which means that our hombres can hold out pretty good, jackrabbit sexo and all. Far less scientific was the announcement by some app that said its collection of bedroom stats showed New Mexicans had the longest sexytimes—and guess what state in los Estados Unidos has the highest percentage of Mexis?