In Latin America many of our towns and
cities are named after saints, we have fiestas patronales, and we
celebrate our saint’s day. When I came to live in the United States I
was surprised that Americans were getting ready to celebrate a saint: we
were going to have time off from school, there was going to be a big
parade, and all the stores had sales. I found the explanation to this
holiday interesting, but I didn’t see any connection with a saint, or
had ever heard of him.
San Pascual, patron saint of cooks |
When I think of turkey, the first dish
that comes to mind is mole poblano. I spent one summer in the nineties
attending weekend festivities with my Mexican friends: baptisms,
weddings, quinceañeras, graduations, etc. on both sides of the border. I
went to so many family events that by August everyone thought I was
another cousin, and I was “la prima.” I learned to say “mande” and
“propio” and that when a Mexican is waiting for you “en la casa de
usted” it doesn’t mean that they are waiting for you at your house …
At the beginning of the summer at the
anniversary party of el tío Jesús, we were served mole poblano with
chicken, mashed potatoes and asparagus. On my first taste my mouth was
confused by a combination it had never experienced. I didn’t like it. I
ate the potatoes, I ate the asparagus, I discreetly covered the chicken
with my napkin, and spent the rest of the evening learning to dance
tambora with a cousin from Los Mochis.
Mole poblano, El Agave, San Diego |
The following weekend we were served mole poblano with chicken, rice, and tortillas at a graduation party. I pushed the chicken to the side, and I made a rice taco with the tortilla.
At the third event I attended: surprise!
Mole poblano with chicken! I stopped thinking they were coincidences. I
asked my friend:
-Because it’s a party… (I could hear the “duh” in her tone.)
-Why does it taste like, like, this…?
-Chocolate.
I was not prepared for that answer, I
thought that she was joking and I didn’t understand. I realized my
dilemma: it was going to be a long summer of mole poblano weekends.
Since I was sitting at a table with the aunts from Sonora, I asked them
to tell me about this chocolate party dish (this was before Google, and
you had to talk to people.) It was a long summer indeed, but slowly I
began to detect the different flavors and layers of the moles poblanos,
appreciate the differences that each cook gave it and I started to look
forward to it. I was crushed the time that carne asada was served at a
baptism in Tijuana instead of the mole poblano.
About twelve years went by before I
attempted to make this dish. It was the hardest thing I had done in the
kitchen, I swore never to do it again, and I cursed those 17th
century nuns in Puebla with so much time on their hands and angels
helping them. In the years since, I have become a more confident and
organized cook, I now enjoy the laborious process involved, and I
welcome the sense of accomplishment that it brings to me. Making mole
poblano is therapeutic; but not the part of toasting the dry chiles
-that makes my eyes itchy.
In 2010 I moved into an apartment that
didn’t feel like home, I missed my old kitchen and I lost my inspiration
to cook. Motivated by the mole poblano I had in Puebla that spring, I
decided to make some for my students for our Cinco de Mayo potluck. It
wasn’t a good sign when my blender died and I had to buy a new one that
night -the therapeutic effect I was hoping for wasn’t materializing.
I finished cooking at two in the morning,
I let the mole poblano rest, and the following day I was ready to take
it to school. I re-heated it on the stove, and I began to feel the
accomplishment that mole poblano brought to me. I turned around and I
filled a glass with water at the kitchen sink, I heard a horrible noise,
a horrible noise that told me something had broken and that something
had splashed on the floor. I didn’t turn around; I drank my water, and
cleaned up the sad remains of the therapeutic accomplishment I had been
so proud of a few minutes earlier. The blender I bought that night died a
few months later.
Now it’s that time again: everyone is
talking about turkeys and I am remembering (mourning) the last mole
poblano I made two and a half years ago. I have a new blender, my
apartment finally feels like home, and even though I don’t cook as often
as I would like, my inspiration in the kitchen has returned -thanks San
Pascual.
With a lot of apprehension I decided to
join this year’s festivities and surprise my students with mole poblano
with guajolote (and I had a backup plan: lasagna.) I spent two days in
my tiny kitchen: I made a tomato and chayote salad, fried plantains,
corn pudding for dessert, agua fresca de chayote, and my mole poblano
made it safely to the table this year. Mission accomplished.
http://flavorsofmexicancuisine.wordpress.com/2012/11/21/turkey-day/
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