The Food of a Younger Land (45 page)

The
piñon
shrubs, seldom more than twice as high as a man’s stature, dot the red foothills like a thick sprinkling of black pepper. As soon as frost turns the aspens to gold and opens the resin-coated cones, whole families go to the hills to camp and pick
piñones
before the first snow turns them rancid. At home the
piñones
are roasted like the coffee beans they resemble (although not nearly so large), for eating much as Americans eat roasted peanuts, but they are used largely in the preparation of countless Spanish food favorites.

Piñones
add a high nutritive value to the simple native diet. All of the oil and sweetness of the pine are concentrated in the small white kernel. Old Spanish recipes call for
piñones
for stuffing wild turkey and chicken, for fried pies and for that great favorite brown sugar dulce,
piñonate
. The uses in cookery for the little brown nut are legion, and no Spanish family is ever without a goodly store.

Spanish cooking, whether one’s Nordically inhibited stomach quarrels with it or not, offers a savory variety. It is never a simple matter of broiling a beefsteak and sprinkling on a pinch of salt. It is far more than that. It is an art. Verily, it is indeed a high art.

There is always a suggestion of dried mint leaves, a glass of Sherry, a hint of
sabrosa española
, a nuance of oregano, a bit of olives and olive oil, two or three chile pods, a stain of tomato, a reminder of minced onion,
and the dead certainty of garlic
—one or all in every Spanish dish.

Spanish suppers usually begin with
albondigas
, force-meat balls rolled in blue cornmeal and boiled until the soup is thick and the tender balls are still as round as marbles. For entrees there are enchiladas, the blue cornmeal pancakes spread between with chopped raw onions and melted cheese, the stack swamped with chile sauce, and two fried eggs on top staring out like drowning yellow eyes. Then
chiles rellenos
which are called, and deservedly so from the epicurean point of view, angel’s dreams. They are green peppers stuffed with chicken and cheese, dipped in batter and crisped to a golden brown in sizzling fat.

Along comes
posole
, the Spanish for “hog and hominy.” The corn kernels have been soaked in lye water until the tough outer skin peels off. The hominy simmers all day with rounds of fresh ham hock until the meat falls to pieces and the bracelets of rind and fat form that delectable tidbit,
cueritos
.

Many, many times there is chili—and always, with all meals, there are frijoles. These brown beans are to Bernardo what potatoes are to Paddy. They are more of a staple than daily bread and fully as nourishing. They may be cooked with or without meat or seasoning, and the longer they cook the better they are.

For vegetables, there are tender spring greens, called
quelites
, and known to the non-Spanish person as sheep-sorrel and pig-weed. These “greens” are cooked like spinach, dried and fried with minced onion, and sometimes with the addition of the almost ever-present little
piñones
helped the deliciousness by the addition of raisins and hard-boiled eggs.

During the winter Mamacita cooks rounds of dried yellow squash and pumpkin.
Chicos
are a favorite dish with the summertime flavor of fresh corn. The cobs are boiled when the corn first ripens and then dried, to be cooked during the long winter. Sliced dried cucumbers are a Lenten delicacy, along with other dried vegetables and eggs cooked in almost countless ways. Beets and carrots, cabbage and celery make
ensaladas
with a piquant vinegar and oil salad dressing.

After these numerous meat dishes, fruit and a pat of goat’s milk cheese are sufficient desserts. But for
fiestas
there will be
sopa
, a bread pudding with layers of apples, butter and sugar, cheese browned on top, dusted with cinnamon and served with a wine sauce. Or there will be
empanadas
, those fried pies shaped in a triangle and stuffed with tongue, currants,
piñones
, spices and wine. Or
sopapillas
, sweet hollow pincushions of puff pastry, fried like doughnuts and eaten with hot, homemade syrup. Sometimes a glorified rice pudding, called
arroz con leche
. Or
biscochitos
, shortbread cut in fancy shapes, flavored with anise seeds and glazed with sugar.

Hot thick chocolate is often served in the afternoon with the
sopapillas
. A dash of cinnamon has been added to it and the whole beaten to a froth with a wooden chocolate pestle. Strong black coffee simmers on the stove all day long. Wine goes with all meals. Water is used as a chaser, if at all, after the meal is over.

Bread? Anybody who has never eaten the round, crisp loaves baked in an
estufa
—a hive-shaped oven of thick mud-walls set out-of-doors—certainly does not know just how good bread can be. Throughout Arizona and New Mexico, in the cities as well as the villages and rural settlements, those outside bread-ovens will be found wherever Spanish peoples dwell—and they dwell pretty much all over. And, lastly, there is the indispensable
tortilla
. (Pronounced tor-tea-a.) They are simply large thin pancakes, made without baking-powder, and browned on a hot griddle.

A lifetime might well be spent in telling of the good things the Spanish peoples in America eat, but the foods described herein are typical. They are greatly in favor wherever Spanish people eat—and they do seem to be eating most of the time.

This writer has at various times partaken of the dishes described herein, but the most succulent and satisfying feast he can recall was upon the occasion of an annual fall barbecue spread at the headquarters ranch of the San Simon outfit in the San Simon Valley of southern Arizona. It was typical of all such after-the-roundup barbecue foods served in that locality, and it was a little bit better than good.

Early on the morning preceding the day of the feast, certain old-timers among the menfolk of the locality gathered at the ranchhouse. Some of them scattered to the brush to cut leaf-wood poles to form the “grid” to be placed across the top of the barbecue pit. These poles were about the thickness of a large man’s forearm and were uniformly about six feet in length. Other men rode out for the purpose of dragging up at rope-end logs and chunks of good hardwood, wherever it might be found. Still others remained at home to attend to the digging of the pit.

This barbecue pit was, as I recall, about twenty-five feet long, four feet across and three feet deep. Each end was scooped out and left open so that red-hot coals might be heaved in, and at certain spots along the grid itself a pole or two would be omitted for the accommodation of other hot coals. For coals only were used in the pit. Any blaze that might show up would be promptly doused with a handful of earth.

When the pole cutters returned with their loads, the men proceeded to lay the poles across the pit from end to end. Being of hardwood and green with sap, they would char but not burn. Then the wood for the fire was given attention. This great fire was built at some distance from the pit, its sole purpose being to reduce the wood to coals for the pit. The pit and its grid prepared, the wood-heap fired, the meat itself was then brought up. This part of the preparations occurred in late afternoon.

There were two fat beeves, ribs and quarters, fore and aft, four shoats, four sheep and two goats. This party was to be a large one, everybody who wanted to attend was welcome, and direct invitations were dispensed with.

The heavier parts of the beeves were placed on the grid, lying lengthwise of the pit, after a thick layer of red coals had been thrown in throughout the needed length. There were fire-tenders, basters and turners. The basters were equipped with long green poles to which clean flour-sacks had been fixed in a sort of sponge-like assembly. With these “sops” the basting fluid, or barbecue sauce, was applied (vinegar, butter, salt, pepper, bay-leaves). Salt and pepper would be sprinkled over the meat when it should be about half-way cooked, but the basters began applying their “sops” after the first turning of the meats.

Half a dozen men, working in pairs, equipped with three-tined hay-forks, attended to the turning. Over and over that meat would be turned by the simple method of two hay-forks driven into each piece from opposite sides of the pit—the rest being strength and awkwardness, plus considerable coordination. After each turning the meat would be browner—until at length it would acquire, when thoroughly cooked, a crisp, almost black crust. Later during the night the hogs, sheep and goats were laid out on the grid and treated in precisely the same manner.

During the night the attendants refreshed themselves from bottles, jugs, fruit-jars, or what-did-you-bring-it-in? And the womenfolk from the house served hot food whenever it was wanted.

While all this was going on there were men laying boards across carpenter’s horses and whatever other supports the ranch afforded, and thus setting up long tables at which the meats were to be served. It was notable that while there were a few chairs intended for the older folk among the women, there was no such accommodation set out for the younger women, or for any men at all. They were expected to sit, stand or squat.

I was greatly surprised when in early morning of the big day the feasters began to arrive. Not so much because of the fact that the entire terrain surrounding the ranchhouse appeared to be a-crawl, so far as the eye could see, with people. They came horseback, in buckboards, buggies, roadwagons, flivvers—every conceivable way except afoot. Nobody, of course, walked. What surprised me was not the numbers or the manner of arrival, but what each family or lone individual brought along to add to the festivities.

There were hams baked and boiled, roasted turkeys and chickens, and more than one haunch of baked (and at that season illegal) venison. Cucumber pickles, sweet peach-pickles, pickled chiles, piccalillis, jellies, preserves arrived in all kinds and sizes of containers. There were scores and scores of loaves of brown bread, layer-cakes, plain cakes, cookies, gingerbread. Fruits, cabbage-slaw, potato salad, salmon salad, shrimp salad—all kinds of cold salads in amounts which staggered this beholder, and almost staggered those who carried the delectable provisions.

When all these eatables were spread out over the long tables, men brought on the barbecued meats. A dozen women took over the carving and many more presided over the four fifty-gallon lard cans which, filled to the brim with strong black coffee, simmered on adjacent fires. There were other liquids for drinking, but, as is almost always the case in the Southwest, coffee, strong, hot and plentiful, was preferred with the eats. Afterwards—but that is another story.

The dancing began early and lasted all night long, but there were many of us who were just naturally too full of good grub, and likewise good cheer, to give the minor entertainment much mind. Dancing may be all right on an empty stomach, or on one only moderately filled, but after a stuffing like that one—not!

N
otes on pioneer eating in Oklahoma, from “Indiana and Pioneers,” a collection of interviews obtained by the Oklahoma WPA.

There were no flies in those days and we could kill a beef and cover it with a cloth to keep dirt away and hang it on the north side of house and it would not spoil even in the hottest weather.”

“When we killed beef we drew the meat to the top of a 25-ft. pole and the flies wouldn’t bother it. It would keep some time there even if weather was not cold.”

“We kept butter. Made into balls and wrapped in clean soft cloths, in kegs of brine: when used, it was soaked in clean water to extract the salt.”

 

 

 

I
n November 3 or 4 families went to the timber to kill hogs, beef, deer. Salt down best 10 days, then take out and scald in solution of vinegar, brown sugar, black and red pepper and water: hang in dry place and smoke with hickory for 3 days: then pack in box with corn hucks, charcoal and wood ashes. Meat so treated would keep for a year.”

“Dried venison was wrapped in the deer’s hide and brought in.”

“We had nothing but kaffir corn pancakes for days. We flailed and winnowed it by hand and had it ground. . . . Mother put the meal in a pitcher, added salt, and filled the pitcher almost full of water. This set all night. In the morning, she added soda. She greased the griddle with salt pork stuck on a fork, then fried the cakes. In that period, we ate ’em 3 times a day—no butter, no syrup—and at times as a snack between meals.”

“The 2nd year we had a good crop of sweet potatoes and sorghum cane. We children helped strip the cane for the sorghum—and such sorghum? One barrel, 31 gallons, was black strap and when we wanted some we went to the barrel with a big spoon and wound and wound until the sorghum’s own weight separated it from the spoon and it fell into our container. Another barrel went in sugar—for company. I was nearly grown before I knew pumpkin pies could be sweetened with anything but sorghum.”

“A potato pumpkin cut in two and baked in the oven is as good as sweet potato.”

“Wild grapes and plums, and a citrus melon called pie melon were plentiful, and I made lots of both sour and sweet pickles out of this wild pie melon.”

“We brought religion to the country. My husband was a Primitive Baptist preacher . . . we had our foot washings once every year. The ladies washed each others’ feet, and the men theirs . . . In our 3-day meetings we always had our dinner on the ground where we had our preaching . . . I always killed a calf and most generally roasted a hind quarter for the meeting . . . and pies and preserves according to how the Lord had blessed us.”

J. DEL CASTILLO

A
sense of family responsibility has taken hold of Mike Grijalva and he decided to give a party at his house. This year Mike had his first child baptized and made his first
compadre
. Of course, he had several other compadres, but in making them he had stood the godfather of the children of his friends. This Christmas Mike was going to invite his friends, his relatives and his compadres and their families to his house for a menudo party soon after the Midnight Mass of
Misa de Gallo
. In the past his mother used to give the party, before he himself had a family. His mother now is living with him, and he earns the family keep.