Rachel and Eric on sat 30 aug 97
I add myself to those who have had eel once. It was with the Hoopa
Indians along the Klamath river in N.California. They spear it down where
the river meets the Pacific. My memory of its taste is vague. I just recall
that it is a favorite there and that it looked like dark hot dogs. More
interesting to me was the the acorn stew. Made of ground acorns and water,
they cooked it in a basket, for the unfortunate Hoopas had no pottery in
their culture. But, inspite of this essencial ommision, they where smart.
They heated volcanic rocks and dropped them into the basket where they were
stirred vigourously, rapidly cooking the porrage. And thus is stew cooked in
a basket.
Well, the Hoopa are excellent basket makers, but, as I mentioned,
they don't make pottery. As such, my visit was short, my stories even
shorter. But when it comes to food and pottery stories, GOOD GOD, there is
no end to them here in Oaxaca. Pottery and food are as one here, and food is
a very big deal here. It was fortunate that when I first came down here and
was trying to impress myself upon potters I was young, growing and with a
healthy appetite. I soon realized that the way to a potters heart didn't
have nearly as much to do with my interest in her pottery as with the amount
of her food that I ate and praised. Given the richness of the cuisine, the
praising came naturally. Eating the third plate of mole with chicken and
tortillas took a little more exertion. But the gained trust and affection
where worth it. I won't bore you with stories of the acrobatics and
fountainworks that my bowels went through as they made the not-so-gentle
transition from lovely clean U.S. supermarket fare to the very rich in flora
and fauna village grub heaped upon me by very hospititable potters. The good
news is it only took a year to break in the digestive system. Now I can
confidantly eat anything, anywhere. It is returning to the clean food of the
U.S. that gets my belly rolling these days.
One of the Oaxacan gastronimical delicacies are grasshoppers roasted
on a clay platter over a fire. They sell them by the mound full in the
markets, sorted by size, and they are eaten like popcorn. There is a saying
that one who eats grasshoppers will always return to Oaxaca. Feeling
adventurous, in my first days here I downed a fat handful. And it would seem
that the saying is true. But I haven't taken to eating grasshoppers like
popcorn. I guess it's because, while I'm accostumed to popcorn shells
getting stuck in my teeth, I still haven't gotten used to the grasshopper legs.
Then there was the time when I went out to the little Zapotec
foothill town of Yojuela (yo-Way-la) to spend a few days with the potters. I
stayed at Fidencios house by the creek, and by chance they had slaughtered a
goat the morning of my arrival. We feasted on juicy haunch baked in a huge
clay pot that Fidencio's mom had made, lined with avocado leaves and set in
fire heated pit. And we continued to eat the goat three times a day. Each
time the cut became less identifiable until one evening while eating my goat
stew it licked me. There floated the tongue and some bits of what I think
was stomach lining.
It is quite possible that these pieces where saved for last as the
best and proudly given to me as the honored guest. However, I am shamefully
ignorant of such delicacies for I was raised on quite a different, though
arguably equally exotic diet, with such unusual foods as Kraft macaroni and
cheese, peanut butter and jelly and sweet potatoes with marshmallows. And I
am quite sure that if these potters ever come and visit my home and I honor
them with a hot and shiny plate of mac and cheese, thier reaction will be
just as mine was. They will politely eat their food, chewing in that special
way along the edge of their mouth that most inhibits tasting, and then thank
me kindly for the meal.
And then there was the time when I was fed boiled turkey blood with
herba santa for breakfast with the potters up in the Sierra Mixe. This blood
had been saved from the religious sacrafices made the night before to ease a
young woman's proud transition from middle school to high school. No common
feat. But I will save that food story for another time.
provecho y bon appetite
Eric
Eric Mindling & Rachel Werling
Manos de Oaxaca
Apartado Postal 1452
Oaxaca, Oaxaca
CP 68000
Mexico
tel/fax (951) 3-6776
email: rayeric@antequera.com
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