I was about seven years old when I made my first trip to Mexico. It was a family trip to visit my grandparents in the little town of Montemorelos, Nuevo León, where they had settled after a couple of years living in Chapala. They left here because the altitude didn’t agree with grandad’s heart condition. 

I still treasure a black-and-white snapshot of me wearing a straw Mexican hat embellished with ribbons while embracing Tiny, their sweet cocker spaniel pup.

My one vivid memory of the trip was the dietary restrictions that were imposed to prevent my coming down with what then and now is often referred to as Moctezuma’s Revenge. You know, the eternal intestinal ailment considered payback to all foreigners in retaliation for what the Conquistadores did to the Aztec Emperor and his people.

So I was allowed to eat tacos at Juan’s modest cenaduria at the plaza, with or without lettuce I can’t recall. I was not permitted to drink regular milk, only nasty-flavored canned Carnation. I grew up thinking that Orange Crush and Delaware Punch had great flavor profiles to complement taquitos.

Fast forward to this summer. Right now the place where people are most vulnerable to Moctezuma’s Revenge is not Michoacán, but the state of Michigan in the heartland of the United States. It’s the notorious Cyclospora epidemic that is also rampant in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, among 45 states where cases have been detected.

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