| The Art of Cooking |
by Ed Kunze
March 2004
My family is a little unique. I am only the third American born male in my family; but we go back over 160 years. My great-grandfather was born in Germany in 1840, and emigrated to the U.S. in 1860. Because of the relative few generations, as compared to the time span, we are a family which retained a lot of the old country cooking concepts. To this day, my mouth still waters when I think of my grandmother’s head cheese, sausage, chicken and dumplings, and home made noodles.
A few years after my grandmother passed away, I remember my Dad commenting about how the “art of cooking” has almost vanished in the United States. Like many emigrant American families, we were a family of hard working people who tried to make a living off the land, on small family sized farms. Each generation was faced with the shortages of either the Civil War, the two Great Wars, the Great Depression, or the whims of nature that can be very cruel to a farmer trying to provide for his family. But, they ate well. The women knew the “art of cooking.” To provide the nutrients and diet required for their hard working men, on a very limited budget, the women had to be innovative. When it was available, they could not only make a choice cut of meat melt in your mouth, but they could also make outstanding wholesome and rich meals out of the lesser body parts.
The “art of cooking” as my Dad defines it, is to take the entire animal and utilize almost every part to be a rich, wholesome and excellent tasting meal.
How does my family’s background impact me in Mexico? Even though my Dad may be right about the situation up North, the “art of cooking” is not lost here in Mexico. Partially due to economic necessity, or lack of choice cuts of meats in a given locale, and partly due to tradition, all Mexicans really love good old fashioned cooking. In Mexico, the methods and recipes are being passed on from Mother to daughter in almost every part of the country.
Most average Americans and Canadians today would turn up their noses at such traditional Mexican dishes as pancita or menudo (a soup using the stomach lining and feet of a cow), queso de puerco (head cheese), tripes (fried intestines of a cow), sesos (brains), and lengua (beef tongue). I truly believe this is because in an age of fast food take-outs and precooked frozen dinners, families have changed. Women voluntarily started on their own career paths, men moved off the small family farms into the city (and then these farms were consumed into large corporations), and technical gains for an easier life now come at the push of a button. The old ways died out. With the knowledge of the “art of cooking” vanishing, the stigma of what is considered to be acceptable cuts of meat have become more narrowly defined.
Even though most Americans readily agree carnitas (pork meat, deep fried in the fat of the butchered pig) is excellent, they would shudder if they knew the best parts of carnitas, to a Mexican, are the stomach (called buche), tongue, liver, and heart. These are cooked with the regular meat, but taken out and eaten first.
Pickled pig’s feet are a great snack when eaten with a hot sauce and lime. Pickled pork skin, called cueritos, make fantastic tostadas when spread with sour crème and topped with lettuce and queso fresco (a white cheese that crumbles). Another appetizer, chicarrons (fried pork skins, and often called pork cracklins in the States), salsa, lime and beer can’t be beat. When heated in a salsa of green or red tomatoes, chilies, garlic and onion, chicarrons become very soft, making an excellent main course meal with rice, beans, queso fresco and tortillas. Both crisp and softened chicarrons make a great sandwich using our outstanding Mexican bread rolls (bolillos).
Chorizo and longaniza are the spicy Mexican sausages a lot of Americans have come to love. But, did you know they are made like the sausages of old, and are stuffed in a pig’s intestines?
Soups in Mexico are outstanding. Using all fresh vegetables, herbs, and meats with no preservatives, the true flavors are brought out. Do not pass up a chance to savor the delicate flavor of chicken feet soup. Sopa de tortilla is made from the chicken broth of the skin and carcass, cut up fried tortillas, with a little shredded chicken meat is often added.
Tough and lesser cuts of beef can be sliced very thin into two foot long and four inch wide strips. Salt is added, and the strips are then air dried. The resulting jerky is called cesina. It can be either flash cooked over coals or in a skillet, and when accompanied by beans, rice, handmade tortillas, and queso fresco, it makes for an awesome Mexican steak dinner. When shredded and cooked with scrambled eggs and a salsa, cesina becomes a breakfast called aporriadillo.
Barbacoa is a style of cooking lesser cuts of beef in a red sauce. Originally cooked in pit ovens, it can also be cooked on a stove top. When ordering a taco, there are two types of barbacoa: maciza and carne surtido. Maciza is pure meat, and carne surtido has the combined meat, brains, tongue, cheeks, and the snout of the head. Do not forget to get a hot cup or bowl of the juice the meat is cooked in, called consommé. When you add some chopped onion, cilantro, chopped radishes, and lime, you have a distinctive side dish for your tacos.
Because I remember my grandmother’s meals were some of the best meals of my life, eating what many consider to be the best of all the traditional Mexican dishes, was no problem for me. How you will overcome your stigma of eating the well prepared dishes, which definitely do not utilize the choice cuts, is entirely up to you. But, the “art of cooking” is a very real situation. When you visit us here in Ixtapa - Zihuatanejo maybe you should not ask for the English translation of what is on your plate. Or at the least, just close your eyes and enjoy. |
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