Welcome to the end of a new beginning of shared memories and recipes from my Mexican culture.

Cooking with Carrillo

THE VIDEOS ABOVE should be watched from right to left. I thank Luis Carrillo, my sisters husband, for sharing his thoughts on what he considers to be the role of food in the Mexican culture, along with sharing his ceviche recipe!

The most important thing to take out of this video is that Mexican food can be flavored to preference. Luis likes food with lots of lime and food that is really spicy. But, like he said, it is a recipe "Carrillo style." Also, Luis mentions many of the ideas I have explored in my posts, such as how food creates family bondage. This bondage then further allows one to pick up on and pass the "seasoning," which allows us to keep the traditions going.

As Luis mentioned, he picked up this "seasoning" when he went to college and realized, "I had to learn how to cook." Like he himself agrees, in a Mexican family, males typically grow up with a machismo attitude (believe that females are to take care of the cooking, cleaning, and the family). Notice the shy smile on his face when he mentions "machismo."

Also, you might notice and question when Luis says "add a little bit of salt, " or add "probably like 3 cups of water." In a Mexican kitchen, the amount of salt, water, pepper, garlic, or the correct amount of flour that goes into a dish is most likely always guessed. You will also come to realize that the omissions and additions of ingredients in his families recipes came after his mom was diagnosed with diabetes. Thus, it is important to consider that health issues have required changes in diet for many members of my family.

Stirring up Memories

Welcome to the ending, of a new beginning of shared memories and recipes from my Mexican culture.

Pozole, tamales, menudo, arroz con pollo…nothing stirs up memories like the smell of a home cooked Mexican meal. 

Right now, I am recollecting the many memories my mom and I share in her kitchen, the memories I share with my siblings, my dad, my cousins, my uncles and aunts. All these memories flash back to moments at the dinner table or in the kitchen.

I am flashing back in time. I am making cookbook plans for the future, afraid unwritten recipes will become lost memories and past lifestyles.

Throughout my blog, I have traced the importance of cooking in the Mexican cuisine, the role of the female in the kitchen, and I’ve sprinkled some recipes along the way, but most importantly, I leave you with my own feelings about he Mexican cuisine.

To me the Mexican cuisine is a recipe of its own in which all recipes are imaginatively created and symbolic to families of all educational and social economic standing in their own unique and flavorful way. In my life, food brings one together. Although I don’t always like being interrupted when eating my meal because my brother decides he wants more apple juice, or although I don’t like seeing my mom spend too much time in the kitchen, at the end of the day, when all have eaten and the table sits ready to be cleaned up, I contemplate on the fact that more family memories have been created, more jokes have been told, new stories revealed.

However, I did not always feel like this. When I first left home to attend the university, when I was away from my mom’s cooking for the first time, that’s when I realized the important role food played in my life growing up. Anger of living in such a traditional household became appreciation. But, today I am afraid as I sit in a stool, in my mom’s yellow kitchen, watching her roll dough into perfectly round tortillas. I am afraid the memories will fade if I not do not stir up a cookbook that holds and cherishes my family’s traditional recipes and the memories that go with the recipes.

Writing this blog has inspired me to create a cookbook, written in my own hand, in my mom’ s hand, in my sisters hand, in my aunts hand because traditions are changing. There are additions and omissions to many Mexican recipes, but my cookbook will include recipes that live on forever, unchanging, defining my culture and my life.

Thus, I end this entry with one wish: That my mom inherits me with her rolling pin, her molcajete, and her prenza (flat press). She knows. I've told her of my wish. 

With these cooking tools, I will press down all my family's traditions into a book that has no beginning and no end.

Molcajete

Rolling Pin

Flat Press 

Communal Life

Writing about a Hispanic Communal Life

Sandra Cisneros

Sandra Cisneros is an American author best known for her novel The House on Mango Street. Being the daughter of a Chicana (Mexican -American), Cisneros was excused from traditional domestic duties like cooking, cleaning, and babysitting, allowing her the time to study, read, and discover her love in writing. However, this did not entirely separate Cisneros from the Mexican culture as she witnessed the poverty, sexism, discrimination, and domestic violence among Mexican-American women. 

After winning the Before Columbus American Book Award in 1985, Sandra Cisneros answered an interview in which she declared that if she were asked what she writes about she would respond with, “about those ghost inside that haunt me.” Cisneros was not referring to invisible spirits; she was referring to poverty, sexism, racism/discrimination, and the domestic violence experienced by Mexican-American women.

From the beginning of her career, Cisneros set herself apart from other writers by writing about that which is does not radiate from television sets across the nation. Inspired by her impoverished childhood and the characters that populated her past, Cisneros saw the Mexican culture as something worth writing about, especially because growing up, she always felt a sense of loss, never full feeling like she belonged to either culture.

Today, Cisneros has won the hearts of her readers by collaging characters and stories in revolutionary, yet honest ways, with an honest voice, with beauty, experimentation in style, and simplicity of language. She best empowers her readers through her varied character personalities who lack power, socially, politically, economically, and sexually.

  The House on Mango Street

If there is one story that truly captures a Latino communal life it is The House on Mango Street, a series of vignettes that traces the life of a young twelve year old Chicana, Esperanza (Spanish for hope) Cordero. It is about a girl who moves onto the house on Mango Street with her family, a home that is a big improvement from the previous, yet still not the one Esperanza dreamed of. The house is run-down, crowded, and in the center of a crowded Latino neighborhood in Chicago, a city where the poor are racially segregated. Due to lack of privacy, Esperanza resolves to one day leave the house on Mango Street and have a house of her own.

Basically, the novel charts Esperanza’s life as she matures significantly, both sexually and emotionally, as she makes new friends, grows hips, develops her first crush, endures sexual assault, and uses her writing as a way to escape her neighborhood. Also, the series of vignettes explores the stories of the neighbors and gives a full picture of the neighborhood and the many possible paths Esperanza’s future may possibly follow. For example, the series of vignettes strings together stories and experiences of older women in the neighborhood who are stuck in their houses. It is these close observations that cement Esperanza’s desires to escape the house on Mango Street.

It short, The House on Mango Street is the story of a girl who is determined to say “goodbye” to her impoverished neighborhood, on a quest for a better life, but who comes to learn the importance to come back for “the ones I left behind.” 

Literature and Food in The House on Mango Street 

It is not hard to pick up on the many themes The House on Mango Street explores. The novel explores the crowded communal lives among Hispanic populations. We learn about the importance of family, celebrations, of a life that lacks privacy, about the life of girls who mature only to become a piece of meat appealing to the eye and how they feel about it, about older women and their life as a housewife’s, and other themes worth making sense of. However, because food is a big part of the Hispanic population, what role does food play in The House of Mango Street?   

Food

The few times we see food in The House on Mango Street, we are clued to an aspect of somebody’s character. As I previously mentioned, Cisneros is known to best draw her readers in through her varied character personalities. Among my favorite connections with food and character traits are as follow: 

Ruthie: Ruthie is childish grown up who is very fond of candy. She enjoys spending her time playing with Esperanza and her friends, while her mom, is a landlady who lives next-door and ignores her. Clearly, her love for candy parallels her immaturity (possible reasons why her mom pays little attentions to her…since once a Hispanic women matures into womanhood expectations await).

Papa: Papa is Esperanza’s dad. He is from Mexico and is less authoritarian that other father figures in the neighborhood; however, he works most of the time and is never home. For three months, Papa consumes nothing but “hamandeggs,” revealing his status as an immigrant who does not know English.

Esperanza: is the narrator and her name stands for “hope.” During her school lunch breaks, Esperanza goes home for lunch. One day, she is allowed to stay at school for lunch. Her lunch consists of a rice sandwich, hinting at how her family does not have any meat and money. This also shows Esperanza’s feelings of humiliation in front of her schoolmates.

Rafaela: is a woman in the neighborhood whose husband is afraid she will run off so he locks her up in their apartment. Rafaela sends money down a clothesline to Esperanza and her friends so they can buy her sweet juices from the convenient store, such as papaya and coconut juice. This of course shows the method she uses to get her sweet juices, but her need for sweet juices also show her confinement and desire for consolation. 

The House on Mango Street and My Feelings

When you are Mexican-American, and you read about the story of a Chicana, it is so easy to relate to the experiences and emotions expressed.

When it comes to The House on Mango Street, I can relate to a lot, but especially to the author and Esperanza, the protagonist of the story.

First of all, I relate to the author. As I mentioned, growing up, Cisneros experienced a sense of loss, never fully feeling like she belonged to either culture and her book clearly traces this sense of feeling “in-between.” Having been born in America, yet growing up by Mexican parents, my life growing was also “in-between.” I grew up consuming Mexican food, knowing I had to clean, cook, and babysit. It made sense to me as a young girl. I did not complain because I saw it as normal, as part of life. There was no way out. “Learn to cook, clean, and sew, so when you grow hips a nice hardworking man will want to marry you. You guys can have kids and live happily ever after.” I was never told this; it was something I realized through an education. As I matured, spent time around American households, and observed the role women played in a Hispanic household, my views changed. I was not longer proud of my Mexican heritage, but angry and ashamed of the way women were viewed. Today, I understand that because I have an education, I want to be seen as more than a piece of meat, more than a mom, more than someone who knows how to clean and cook. But, I also know I want to be a good mom and wife, a trait exemplified by my mom.

Not only do I relate to Cisneros, but to her heroine, Esperanza and her feelings towards to her dad. Esperanza makes it clear that her dad is not as dominant as other father figures in the neighborhood, but also that he is rarely home. In Hispanic cultures, men tend to take on a “machismo” way of life or a stand in which they only feel in control if the women is the housewife and he the one who brings the money home and controls the household. The fact that Esperanza’s dad does not heavily take on this role is good, but the fact that he is always working means his wife is the housewife nonetheless. Growing up, this idea of “machismo” played a big role in the life of those around me. My dad was never very authoritarian, but he does believe in a woman’s responsibility to clean and cook. He, for one, loves to come home to a warm plate after a long hard day at work. My dad and I have had some good discussions over this, though I do respect him for working hard, I also believe a father is someone who does more than bring food to the table (something I will argue many of my uncles fail to consider). 

My Transition 

It has been three years since I moved out of the house to go to the university. When I tell my mom I miss her she says, “Do you miss me or my cooking?” I struggle to answer. I miss them both, but in different ways. 

Since my university years, my friends try to comfort my need for Mexican food by taking me to Taco Bell, Chipotle, or Tortillas. They watch me take a bite of a chicken stuffed burrito and ask, “Is it good?” I laugh and reply, “It’s good. It is just not the same.”

To me authentic Mexican food does not come in cans or boxes. It is not a meal you go out and eat at a fast food restaurant after a long day at work. To me authentic Mexican food is one that is laboriously prepared, one that you go home to after a long day at work to eat, savor, and share. 

But, I know I will not have authentic Mexican food at my university dorm, unless I cook it. I do cook sometimes when I go over to my friend’s house because they have a kitchen I can make use of. Every time I cook for my friends at the university, they are blown away. I thank them, but I am not satisfied. I did not enjoy the process. I can’t enjoy the meal.

No one understand what I mean when I say, “I miss them both just in different ways” or “It is good.  It is just not the same.”

My friends did not get it last night.

Last Nights Meal:

A Bean dip

I had a small group gathering last night at my friend’s house. She made bean dip. Basically, she pulled out a baking pan, tossed in some canned beans, sour cream, and sprinkled some cheddar cheese on top. She stuck the baking pan into the microwave for five minutes and we ate “Mexican food.”

In case you are wondering, an authentic Mexican food consisting of beans would look something like this:

But before the beans become edible they went through a process that looked like this:

 At my house, we buy huge bags of raw beans. Each bag costs about fifty U.S. dollars, but it is money well spent because we eat a side of beans with most meals. 

But it is not the price that matters, it is the process that is important to me. Raw beans take approximately five hours to cook. After they are baked, we have some for dinner, and we store the remaining in a container and refrigerate them. We will finish consuming them within the next three to four days.When they are gone, my mom and I know it is time cook up another pot of beans. Typically, my mom will wash dishes, or cook lunch, while I pick out the beans we are going to cook. We talk, we laugh, and we talk and laugh some more.This is part of the process we go through when baking beans. 

That is what I mean when I tell my mom, “I miss them both just in different ways,” or when I tell my friends, “It is good. It is just not the same.”

To me authentic Mexican food is one that takes time to cook because it is my chance to bond with my mom. My mom and I become best friends in the kitchen.

The Meaning of Mexican Food

Favorite Mexican Dishes

My mom was born and raised in Mexico. She is an authentic cook who learned to cook traditional Mexican food by “watching” my grandmother, who learned by watching her mom, and so on! When my mother and father obtained their American citizenship, they married and decided to leave their birthplace behind and officially move to America, where I would be born and raised. Thankfully, my mom carried with her the knowledge and experiences she obtained of the Mexican cuisine. My gratitude comes for the simple reason that I grew up and woke up to the smell of posole, menuda, caldo…and all other varied and traditional Mexican foods in my American home. It was through my experiences with food that that I developed most of my understandings of the Mexican culture and way of life.

I know how to cook Mexican food, but not the “complicated” meals that require cloves, garlic, oregano, roasted chiles, peanuts, and sun flower seeds, or the addition of only hot water or only cold water to certain flour or corn mixes, etc. My mom says cooking is not complicated. Yet, when I ask her to tell me all the ingredients and measurements needed to make tamales, posole, menudo, and the skills needed to make tortillas that don’t look like Africa, Europe, or Hawaii she responds with a, “But I don’t have a recipe for you. You just have to give it a good guess and be patient” or “No one ever taught me how to cook. I learned by watching.”

I have watched my mom cook a variety of times and I still can’t seem to get all her recipes memorized. Not to mention that in our house, we have no sense of measurements when it comes to cooking. 

Here are a few dishes I still need practice on:  

Enchiladas: My favorite Mexican meal 

Menudo: A traditional Mexican soup made with beef stomach and a red chilli base 

(it sounds gross, but tastes wonderful)

Mole: A thick sauce made from chille pablano's, served over cooked chicken and a side of Mexican rice

 Tamal: A dish made of corn dough spread over a corn husk and stuffed with meats, cheese, or veggies, and layered with a Mexican chilli sauce

 Mexican rice: Yes. I still can't seem to get Mexican rice right. I am much better, but I still need to work at it.

All these dishes are basically the most traditional Mexican dishes. They are the ones you are likely to be served at a Christmas celebration or such. They are the main course dishes. This means that these dishes take more time to cook. Also, the fresher the ingredients, the tastier. 

Mexican Rice Recipe

Mexican rice is a colorful and tasty side dish. I accompanies most home cooked Mexican meals.

Typically, my family has a side of rice or re-fried beans with every main course, along with our traditional corn tortillas.

*Serves 8

Ingredients

• 4 spoonfuls of sunflower oil
• 2 cups of rice moistened in hot water, then rinsed in cold
• 2 tomatoes
• 1 white onion
•  1 garlic clove, peeled
•  Salt and pepper added to taste
• 1 stalk celery
• 2 tablespoons parsley
• 1/2 cup tender peas
• 1/2 cup of finely chopped carrots
•  2 whole jalapeno peppers
• 4 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 lemon juice

Procedure:

1. Blend the tomatoes, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Strain and set aside.
2. Fry the rice in the oil.
3. Add the blended mixture (from step 1)
4. Fry until crisp.
5. Add the celery, peas, carrots, jalapenos, parsley, chicken broth, and lemon juice, with salt added to taste.
6. As it begins to steam, cover and continue cooking with low heat.
7. Cook until done (about 30 minutes).
8. Serve.

TIP: leave it alone! It is tempting to stir and mix while the rice is cooking, but too much stirring can negatively impact the grains and lead to a rice that is too soft or sticky.

The Abundance of Food

One trait that distinguishes Mexican cuisine among other cultures is the fact that food is part of rituals, religiosity, and community life. Thus, food is present at birth and death as it is symbolic and expressed around the family home, in public spaces like plazas, markets, local diners, and street stands. Food is more than food to the Mexican culture. It survives in corn fields, kitchens, tables, churches, cemeteries, prayer gatherings, tombs, and in indigenous costumes. In short, food plays a fundamental factor in social cohesion. Social cohesion is a powerful ingredient that serves as a testimony to the continuity of a rich culture and way of life.

A Mexican Holiday:

El Dia De Los Muertos: The Day Of the Dead

The Day of The Dead is a Mexican holiday the focuses on gathering family and friends to pray for and remember lost loved ones. It is celebrated on November 1^st and 2^nd. Food plays a vital role in the celebration as the holiday involves building altars in honor of the decreased. Favorite foods and beverages of the departed are placed on the altar, along with portraits and other memorabilia. 

The Easy Mexican Cookbook

The Easy Mexican Cookbook has recipes that are quick and simple to make, as the title implies.

Traditional Mexican food is about bringing families together; it is creative act. Traditional Mexican food uses fresh ingredients and cooks take the time to prepare a laborious dish.

But, today we have it all. We can make quick and simple “Mexican” recipes that will taste good (just not as authentic). 

Here is a recipe I found in the cookbook that caught my eye: 

Huevos Rancheros 

“super-easy, super quick, go-to recipe”

Ingredients:

•  2 eggs
•  ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
•  2 corn tortillas
•  4 slices of bacon cooked crispy then crumbled
•  ½ cup of refried beans
•  1 tablespoon of oil
•  Salsa

Directions:

1.  Heat the oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Fry each tortilla for about 20-30 seconds each. You want them to get soft, don’t let them get crispy. Place them on a paper towel to dry off some grease.
2.  Heat the beans in a sauce pan.
3. Wipe most of the oil out of the frying pan, leaving enough to fry the eggs. Cook the eggs over easy in the pan.
4.  Place the tortillas on a plate, cover them with a layer of the beans. Next, lay the fried eggs on the tortilla, top with the bacon, cheese, and salsa.

Options:

•   Some people like to add a little butter to the re-fried beans as you are heating them up.
•   Consider a side of guacamole. 
•   You can omit the beans altogether if you want a lighter breakfast. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Mexican food is so diverse. There are a variety of omissions and additions to recipes. However, traditional Mexican food includes fresh ingredients, but modern recipes have found new ways to make recipes more simple and easy. The recipe above, for example, uses cheddar cheese rather than traditional Mexican goat cheese; it uses canned beans versus freshly cooked beans off a pot, and it makes use of bacon, an ingredient not common in a traditional Huevos Rancheros recipe.