When I was young, my mother took me and my brother to live in Mexico while she worked as an artist and studied Mexican Painting Techniques. I think for most of the rest of our extended family, this is a rather mysterious period in my mother's life.
While there were many high-lights there were also low-lights for me as we lived and traveled in a foreign country. The high-lights were many and as I grew older have way way out shadowed the low-lights. It was tough for a young American girl to live in the culture of 1960's Mexico, but I was tough and stubborn and I made of it what I wanted. The things I learned have carried me well through my adult life and have made me much more aware that there are lots of other ways of doing things besides the ones we know or are familiar with and that not everyone does it “our way”.
We had many friends among the art community and they were all very tolerant of my brash nosiness. I was rarely excluded from any party or adult gathering. The topics were always interesting and I knew that many of the people I met were famous in their own rights and even at a young age I realized that if I just listened I could learn a lot.
Life with Mom was always an “adventure”, no matter where we were or what we were doing. Having an adventure every day was routine for us. We were always looking for something different or unique to do. We had very little money, so we had to come up with adventures that didn't cost very much and luckily for us, 1960s Mexico was a very inexpensive place to live.
We had only one rule: Don't eat from a street vendor. Of course, everyone knows that eating in any foreign country can lead to “hours on the porcelain throne” and Mom was very very strict that the only things that we could eat from street vendors were things we could peel (bananas), baked goods (breads and rolls) and soda pop that was opened in front of us. She was careful to take us to quality restaurants where the food was well prepared. I immediately loved Mexican Cooking and had a long list of my favorite dishes. When I got too nostalgic for American Cooking, she would take me to one of 2 or 3 restaurants that served HOTDOGS and GRILLED CHESSE SANDWICHES! For a 10 year old, I was in hotdog heaven! There was even a New York Style Delicatessen where we would go on special occasions.
Sampling new fare was always an adventure in its own right and not always a planned one! One time, my Mom, brother and I went to a distant Mercado (open air market). There were so many things to look at and as the day wore on, my brother and I were overcome with hunger. There were so many good smells coming from the cooking stalls, it made our hunger even more intense. Finally, my mother couldn't stand our whining anymore and handed us enough money to buy something from the cooking vendors. My brother and I stood looking at all the offerings and as we spoke no Spanish at the time, we had to guess what everything was. We debated a long time about what would be the safest thing to eat. We watched what other buyers were ordering and checked out each of the half-dozen or so cooking stalls. They must have been very amused to see two Anglo children drooling over the food!
At last we came to a decision: my brother pointed at 2 bowls of what looked like bean soup and handed over the money. Dutifully the vendor handed us two heaping bowls and two large handfuls of tortillas. We took them to the benches nearby to eat them. Mom, stayed a good distance from us, angry that we couldn't control our impulsive behavior. We had to look around to see how people were eating this bubbling hot soup. Soon we figured out that you tear the tortilla into sections and use it as a scoop. Even if a spoon had been offered we would never have used it; we were not THAT foolish. We dipped our first tortilla-scoop into the soup and took a skeptical sample taste. Our faces lit up with joy; it was delicious! We were soon scooping it up like it was the only meal we ever ate! Slurp, slurp, slurp down it went. We even soaked up even the last juices from the bottom of the bowl! We handed back the bowls and thanked the vendor.
Mom, come over when she saw we were finished, her anger diminished by the happy looks on our faces. We gave her a full report that the soup was excellent and cheap and we encouraged her to give it a try but Rule 1 took over and she refused saying she would wait until she could eat in one of the more acceptable restaurants. She remained convinced that we would be violently ill in a few hours and dire warnings were repeated as well as instructions about what to do if we became ill that night.
Our adventure in the Market continued long into the afternoon and we returned to the hotel for the evening meal. My brother and I were still full of soup but Mom ate a big dinner. We had our evening review of the day and my brother and I extolled the virtues of that soup over and over again. Luckily for us, no one became ill and we all slept well that night.
I can still remember the aroma and flavors of that soup and nothing has ever compared to it!
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