EDIBLE ESSAY

Mexican Dirt

BY SAMANTHA S. WALLACE

My first taste—my first real taste—was just after the New Year, 1994. Fleeing an economy only paralleled in apocalyptic nature for new college graduates as our current, and gauzily armed with my liberal arts communications degree, I signed on to teach English for a year in a city none of us had ever heard of south of the border. An earnestly concerned—and degreed, mind you— friend of my parents asked “Do they have cars?” at my bon voyage in our landlocked small Midwestern hometown. For most of us, this was still pre-internet. I departed equipped with an international calling card and toddlerlevel Spanish for all anticipated communication needs.

The Spanish conquerors, intent on siphoning as much silver from the landscape as possible, left a wake of exquisite colonial cities, many in the central Bajio swath of fertile lowlands between the Sierra Madres of east and west. I landed in one of them. Santiago de Querétaro, possibly my favorite place on earth, with some of the dearest souls on earth. However, the first few days were a blur of temporary housing, city bus routes and people whose mouths I watched move.

In what I reflect on as a Darwinian instinct of “Must. Survive. This. Place.” I lived on cereal and Tetrapak milk for the better part of a week. I simply couldn’t afford the chance Montezuma encounter. It all changed though, truly in an instant— in one waft. After my 7AM class and before the 9AM-ers started theirs one morning, a teacher arrived with a steaming, plastic package in hand. I won’t say my eyes quite rolled back but the smell was intoxicating— earthy roasted corn, succulent slow cooked pork, schmeared with salsa rustica, a garlicky, spicy tomato salsa coarsely ground in the black lava stone mortar and pestle molcajetes passed down from mothers to daughters more reverently than family china. I hadn’t eaten a good meal in a long time. They were gorditas de migajas, a town specialty, a stuffed and griddled portable pocket, sold out of alleys and tarpcovered stalls. With a “Nice knowing you all…” under my breath and the expectant, dark, encouraging eyes of seven or more Bright Sight! English Institute instructors upon me, I devoured my breakfast street fare and, really, never looked back.

Best new friend Carlos and I fell into delicious ritual. We would teach our early morning students and then set out on foot through the cobblestoned lanes for a morning nosh and my daily de facto Spanish class. Natives ask me where I learned mine, and my “en la calle” (“in the street”) response is more than idiom, a literal truth.

It was a daily parade of chilaquiles with a fried egg and a drizzle of crème fraiche-like Mexican crema or soft corn quesadillas with queso Oaxaca, stuffed with delicate squash blossoms or huitlacoche, the black corn “mushroom” considered a delicacy, not ruination. It was a licuado, the original morning smoothie, frothy with a dusting of nutmeg, sipped on 1950’s bar stools elbow to elbow, piles of tropical mango, banana, pineapple, mamey and passionfruit sweetening the air, tumbling like a rainbow over the busy, tiny stainless steel counters. “Charlie” would delight in teaching me complex tongue twisters for later set up of unsuspecting friends. I was his eager Spanish project and I doubt for another period of life with such prolonged, every-24-hour awakening— to food, to terroir, to language, to the world.

My other teachers— Mexican cabbies. 70% of my rides in bochos (old school VW beetles) the other portion Tsurus (Nissan Sentras) but almost all led to a conversation with the gringa curiosity in the backseat. “What is it with American strawberries?” one plaintively asked. Most of my momentary chauffeurs had spent a stint across the border, most well-educated but embracing the reality of a home economy that rewarded taxi drivers better than technical degrees. “Those red softballs in the supermarkets are enormous! Perfect looking! Big as my hand! And taste like straw.” I was beginning to sympathize.

I said, “I think we just really like our technology. We like to tinker with everything. Even an innately perfect fruit.”

“Well.” He harrumphed. “Our little Mexican berries are sorry looking but oh, how they taste…” There was no arguing. We’d pass by the roadside stands weighed down with the topic of our conversation, the aroma inescapable.

There is a favorite expression “Sabe mejor con el polvo.” It tastes better with a little dirt. Mexican dirt. The señoras fan away the dust from their roadside fruit, the beloved woman who passed on her molcajete to me solemnly assured the touch of lava stone ground into to each of my newly learned salsas was essential, the late night breezy taco stands were always filled with the smell of a country I now consider a second home— burned earth, perfumed chiles, carmelizing meats.

I have traveled it top to bottom, savoring four exquisite years of living and countless visits drawing me back. When I encounter a Mexican native in this land, the memories and flavors are palpable. I want to thank them—for a culture, a place, that is so essential to who I have become, to how I think about food, communities, neighbors. But how to say all this? Usually, a smile is enough.