homemade pan dulce
lately i've been missing my granma's cooking. i miss her but its like grief takes turns switching from one thing to miss to the next and well the past week or two its been her food.
i think about the long talks i'd have with her, and she'd tell me about the days she would cook and clean for this rich jewish family in beverly hills...she'd tell me about the way they loved her food. her chicken salad with apple...and how she'd garnish it and dress it all up so nicely. i think about them and wonder if they remember her food like i do.
must do. she'd tell me that they told her she should open up a restaurant her food was so good.
ox tail stew, skillet cornbread, mac n' cheese (or mac as she started calling it), potato salad, greens, black eye peas, eggs n' grits, spaghetti...
i recently wrote a short scene about her making me & my brother peanut butter and jelly sandwiches...and i'm sure oatmeal or malt o' meal will creep into my writing next.
i don't even eat red meat...but i want ox tail stew this fall and winter. just to have a taste of life with her again.
it got me thinking.
i started to think of all the foods she'd cook for us and i started comparing it to all the things i cook for my family...and i started to realize how much soul food i cook for my family.
and then i started thinking about the kids favorite foods...cornbread, stuffin', mac n' cheese, cabbage, (sweet) potato pies, peanut butter n' jelly, malt o' meal, cream of wheat and oatmeal...
i'm passing her down...i'm passing down the culture, the food, the love she taught me to cook with. i don't cook the way she did, i've learned to veganize or make things healthier (if they need it)...but the flavors...the love is all still there.
so why did i make pan dulce after making biscuits yesterday?
well, i was thinking about her breakfast of eggs, grits, bacon and biscuits and decided to make some homemade biscuits.
the biscuits didn't visually turn out too great (so no pics), they didn't rise as they should of because i added more milk than necessary and didn't cut them right (thanks nina for schooling me on biscuit cutting) but they taste good...real good...and the kids and e loved them.
a little piece of granma i thought.
well then as i was making them, i thought about e and his childhood...and the things he loved as a boy...particularly...
pan dulce.
mexican sweet bread.
so. good.
and so i made some. i made some so that the kids will have their southern black roots and their mexican roots in their taste buds. so that they can one day recall...when they are older...what their heritage taste like.
recipes and family foods are so important. food is so much a part of who we are. it is our culture. it is how we show love and nourish our families.
i want them to know mexican food...even more so...birria, sopa, frijoles...real mexican tacos (as e says), tamales, sopa de pescado...all the foods my suegra cooks...good food. like fried potato tacos and (vegan) cheese enchiladas. i want them to learn how to make tamales at her kitchen table like i have...and tortillas too.
it all is so important. food and culture is so important.
so e promises to make more of his mexican tacos. the ones he remembers from his mother's kitchen. and i promise to continue making black eye peas, cabbage, and cornbread.
and we promise to have my suegra come over this year and us video tape her making tamales...and have her teach us again (though together we can piece it together).
and i promise to call my papa, my mama and my aunt patty up when i need instructions on granma's recipes...and like she did, they can coach me through them...even if i think i know...i promise to call.
it is all so important. to hold on to who we are...where we come from...and the food of our people.
i may be a black girl, but i make a sweet pan dulce. e says it is better than what he remembered, the bread softer...sweeter. its the love i put into...the love that granma taught me to cook with.
he ate one up...and then kissed me..."thank you baby...can't wait to eat this for breakfast tomorrow."
be luv,
ki

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