The Magnificent Torta and How it Saved the Cinema Part 1 of 2 by KimB

[Editor's Note: This story was written by KimB]

While many people are familiar with the more common Mexican dishes like tacos and enchiladas, not everyone has had the joy of encountering a Torta. A Torta is a Mexican sandwich on a french roll. It is unlike any other sandwich you might have met.

When Mexico was part of the French Empire, they learned and mastered the art of making french bread. And while tortillas are the main staple throughout Mexico, french rolls called “bolillos” are a wonderful discovery.

My first encounter with a bolillo was on my first trip to Mexico. Mom, my Brother and I arrived in Mexico City and of course an adventure happened. Not one we wanted though. Although there were many parts of this adventure, the encounter with the bolillo is what I will focus on for this story.

As in all adventures, something had gone wrong. What had gone wrong was: the money transfer my Mom had made from the USA to the local Mexican Bank had "gone awry" and when she went to the Bank, the money wasn't there. And as this was way way before Debit Cards and 1-800-Call-Your-Bank-For-Help, we had to wait for: The Mail. Not only did we have to wait for the mail, we had limited funds to cover us for the 2 weeks needed for the mail messages to go back and forth.

Neither my Mom, my Brother nor I were strangers with having to "make do" with limited funds and peanut butter was a staple in our household. Unfortunately, peanut butter is not a staple in Mexico and coupled with Rule 1 about food, we had a serious challenge. There wasn't anything we could eat that we could afford.

We hit the local Mercado (outdoor market) and bought bananas. I love bananas but we had to ration them between the 3 of us. It was really tough looking at bananas and not eating one! We went out during the day sight seeing and did whatever we could to entertain ourselves, as long as, of course, it cost nothing.

Mom took us see some of the nearby shops and one was a bakery. There were all sorts of sweets and cookies in the window but all we could do was sniff. I spoke almost no Spanish at the time and wandered towards the back end of the small store. There were three large bins full of “somethings”. Each bin had a “something” of a particular size. Small ones on the right, Medium ones in the middle and Large ones on the left. I had no idea what they were. I watched as people came to the bins and took out the “somethings” and paid for them.

Mom and Brother had already moved along to the next store and I stopped to ask in my poor Spanish: “What is it?” [¿Que es?] and how much the “somethings” cost [¿Cuánto cuesta?]. The Bakers gave me a small one to try [ ¡Cómalo!] and told me it was 10 centavos.

It was Heaven! It was the most delicious bread I'd ever tasted. I might have been just a bit prejudiced since I'd only had bananas for a few days. I raced to tell my Mom and Brother about this wonderful discovery!

Soon, I had dragged them both back to the bakery and showed them the bins of bread. I told them they were only 10 cents each and we could buy TEN for 1 peso! THAT was definitely IN the budget and Mom promptly bought enough for all of us to enjoy.

Every morning, until the Bank mix up was resolved, Mom sent me and my brother to the bakery with 1 peso to buy 10 bolillos to go with our bananas.

[End of Part 1]



Bolillos