Besides sounding sexy, Spanish has this one great advantage for native English speakers como yo: Lots of the words are basically the same. Take the word “lemon,” for instance. That’s a nice and easy “limon” (lee-MON). Its twin in citrus juiciness, the lime, is a lima (LEE-mah). Or so my dictionary – I’m looking at you, VOX Compact Spanish and English Dictionary, Second Edition, published by McGraw Hill – would have us believe.

But the reality here on the ground in Central Mexico, where limes play a critical role in the cuisine, is just the opposite. By some cultural fluke that (I’m guessing) only a highly trained linguistic anthropologist could begin to explain, lemons here are small, green as the Pacific Northwest, and sour. Limes are much bigger, and yellow when ripe. At least, that’s the first impression.

The other day I polled about a dozen Mexicans at a party and managed to get a more nuanced consensus: Color and size don’t really matter, they told me. It’s taste. If it’s sour, that’s a limon. Sweet, or bittersweet, and you’ve got yourself a lima. 

My local grocery store, Comercial Mexicana, even makes a distinction between regular old limones, which go for about $2 per kilo, and the smaller limon agrio (bitter), a bargain at about $.60 per kilo.

Trivialities, you say? Hardly. Truth is, one of Mexico’s greatest contributions to modern human civilization is the realization that everything – really, everything – can be improved with some combination of lime, salt, and chile. In the mood for a beer? Try a Dos Equis with a slice of lime and you will never go back. Tacos? Only heathens and communists would dare eat them without lime juice and chile. 

And please, in the name of all that is good and holy, before you die, add lime, chile and (kosher) salt to boiled and sliced potatoes. This is a Zamora specialty that all the locals are proud of. Ideally, in a tip of the hat to those locals, you will also eat this concoction out of a sturdy plastic bag. For dessert, do the same thing with sliced mango, and maybe thrown in some banana while you’re at it.

The language is complicated. This tasty delight, however, is not.