Safe Space Asado De Boda by Antonio Viramontes
The chocolate had been soaking in water all night, as if it too had lost sleep anticipating the excitement of the following day; it was after all, accompanying the most awaited guest at the wedding tomorrow, el asado. We had spent all day in the camion that took us into Jerez, the nearest town with a mercado. Mama Carmen, my grandmother, a strong hard-working older woman with a broad back, slightly hunched from spending all her life bent over a stove, insisted I go with her to help carry bags. In reality she insisted I go so I could pick out my very first Barbie doll, something I had been asking for but my mom and dad sternly refused to get for me. She was my very first ally.
The year was 1988, it was a particularly foggy morning in mid-late October; the kind of morning where you could smell the grass and taste the dirt simply by opening the front door. The fiestas honoring the patron saint of El Cargadero, a small rancho in the mountains of Zacatecas Mexico, were just a few days away; the crisp air had that wonderful feeling of eagerness and anxiety. Just a few days ago all of my tías and tíos from el norte arrived for the very anticipated wedding of tía Carmen. I loved when my relatives from el norte would visit because I was showered with gifts; that year I got a Tom and Jerry T-shirt, LA GEAR shoes, second hand toys and a bag of Hershey’s kisses. Tia Carmen was a short, petite and incredibly sassy young woman who had just turned 23, but for some reason the gossip mill of the rancho criticized her old age. In el rancho any respectable young woman would have landed a husband by the age of 20, so at 23 my tía was a “quedada”, single leftovers.
Tía Carmen chose to get married in October for one reason and one reason only, with the upcoming fiestas approaching, her wedding promised to be a very heavily attended event, increasing her social clout. Tía Carmen always got her way and her wedding was not the place to spare any expense; she convinced Papa Toño, my grandfather, to slaughter a cow and several pigs for her wedding day. The cow would become birria, and the pigs, well they would become the main attraction of the dinner plate. Like every other bride in el rancho, like my grandmother and her mother before her; she would have asado de boda, made by her mother. Asado is a very popular wedding dish in Zacatecas, it was made popular during the Mexican revolution when Pancho Villa arrived to Zacatecas after a victorious battle and requested a dish be made with pork and chiles to celebrate, so the people of Zacatecas made him their most special dish, asado de boda.
It was the morning of the wedding day. Mama Carmen's house felt like a hurricane hit it because people were running in and out of the overcrowded rooms, fighting to use the one and only bathroom in the house. The hot water was long gone, but that didn't seem to matter; all my tías and primas sacrificed a hot shower for a cold one, in order to ensure that they looked like they were walking a red carpet. Except, not so much a carpet, but rather a dirt and stone street no less worthy of glamour. Mama Carmen was not concerned with her hair and makeup or dress, she was in the kitchen cooking. I wondered why she wasn’t getting ready; it was her daughter's wedding after all, but Mama Carmen was in her kitchen, cooking; she lived in that kitchen. A small adobe room, with a chimenea in the corner; everything was brown except for the olive-green refrigerator and matching stove and a plastic white table cover plastered with yellow flowers that covered the humble wooden dining table. I was in the kitchen playing with my doll and watching Mama Carmen cook. I loved watching her cook, but there was something different about today. Today she was not making tortillas or some variation of carne con chile verde, today she was hunched over el cazo cautiously stirring the contents within it; the familiar smell of chiles, canela, chocolate, sorrow and love stewing within that small adobe kitchen.
That morning Mama Carmen was silently connecting with the food she was making, infusing it with ingredients impossible to buy: joy and sadness. As I played with the doll she had just bought me, I started coughing as she was deveining hundreds of dry chiles colorados while gently wiping tears off her cheek; chile colorado has a way of lodging itself in your throat like the dry sand of the high desert. She saw me coughing and handed me an orange wedge which provided the refreshing mirage my dry throat so desperately craved. Next to the dry chiles was a bowl full of colorful orange rinds, stoically awaiting to fulfill their role of perfuming the asado while providing a cleansing element to the pallet. After the chiles were deveined, they were submerged in a steaming water bath to soften them up, almost instantly the color of the dark dry chiles changed to a lively vivid red. The soaked chiles had begun a new life, just like Tia Carmen was about to.
As Mama Carmen was frying the cubed, washed and salted pork in a light lard bath, she asked me to hand her a bag of cinnamon sticks. As I picked up the bag of brown, beautifully curled cinnamon sticks I immediately noticed they resembled the curls dangling from the head of my doll. Mama Carmen swiftly took the bag from my small hands and began grinding them in the blender. In a matter of seconds, the small adobe kitchen was saturated with the smell of Christmas. I couldn’t help but smile as the scent of cinnamon tickled my nose and pinched my cheeks. She asked me to hand her a bag of cloves, and like the cinnamon, into the blender they went to be pulverized. The strong, bold scent of the cloves harmonized beautifully with the smell of cinnamon still lingering in the air. My senses could not take it: cinnamon, orange peels, chiles and cloves were dancing a waltz in my nose, dancing to the orchestra of my rumbling tummy.
I noticed a few bags of bolillos on the kitchen table. I began picking at one of the brown, warm and slightly toasted bread pieces as I continued to cautiously observe my Grandma cook while trying to decide if my doll would wear her hair up or down to the wedding that day. Mama Carmen saw me eating the bread and smiled, she didn’t smile often, she didn’t have to, her brown, teary eyes were always full of joy and happiness. She then took the bolillos and cut them into thirds, and once there was a mountain of bolillo pieces on the table she began to toast them in a pan. It was all coming together; I could sense it; I could almost taste it. The chiles soon became salsa and went into the cazo, where the pork was being fried with the dissolved bolillos, piloncillo, bay leaves, orange peel, cinnamon and cloves. Lastly, she added the chocolate, which had been soaking all night, and gently stirred the asado with the grace of a mother caressing her newborn's head. For the next thirty minutes she kept vigil over the cazo, stirring and crying, occasionally wiping tears from her eyes while looking over at me and smiling.
“Mijo, do you want a taste?” she asked. Those are the words I had been waiting for all morning. I put the doll down and sat in one of the mismatched chairs surrounding the dining table. She placed a small plate in front of me, equal parts asado and red rice. It was so hot; the steam that came off it and danced to the sounds of the mariachis that had just arrived. I dipped the spoon into the asado, which was a beautiful burnt pomegranate color, and brought it to my nose before it made its way into my mouth. Comfort, safety and love is what that first taste of asado felt like. There was a level of intimacy between the simplicity of the ingredients and the stories they were telling me, stories of my ancestors on their wedding day. The spiciness of the chiles felt warm like a mother’s love, the chocolate provided coziness and the piloncillo sweetness.
“You know you can’t take the doll to the wedding” Mama Carmen said.
“I know”, I replied.
“Let’s put her in a safe place” She said, “that only you and I know off, and every time you come to my house you’ll know where she is.”
I always knew I was different; she knew it too. Differences in a child are not always celebrated. I learned this after all the times my mother scolded me over my mannerisms, or perhaps it was the time my dad took a rope to my back when I refused to tend to the farm animals, like all the other boys my age. Just like the subtle flavor of the bay leaf is hidden in the asado, I learned to hide parts of who I was, but I could never hide them from Mama Carmen, because just like she had created a safe place for my doll, she had created one for me too.
As a child I was obsessed with weddings. Going to a wedding in el rancho was like attending a fashion show with great music, delicious food, and cake. I loved seeing the brides leave their house, the moment when the parents blessed their daughter, dressed in virginal white, and kissed her forehead as she kissed their hands. For me it felt like a sailor tying a knot in my throat, a knot that only the blaring trumpets of the band could dissolve. In Zacatecas there isn't a bride who doesn't fear staining her elaborate white wedding dress with the deep burgundy sauce of el asado, but it's a risk they are all happy to take; because for many it is a wedding gift from their mother. It embodies warmth and love; it is a final embrace between a mother and child as the child navigates into wedded life.
I got married in 2016. Asado was not served and my mother was not in attendance, but each year as the month of June rolls around, I am transported back to Mama Carmen’s kitchen and to the wedding celebrations of el rancho. It has become tradition that on my birthday my mom makes Asado de Boda for me; I may never have the wedding I once longed for as a child, but once a year I get the precious embrace of asado, made just for me, by my mom.
About the Author
Antonio Viramontes (he,him,his) was born in Orange County CA and raised in the beautiful state of Zacatecas Mexico until the age of 7, when his family migrated back to CA. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and a Graduate Cert in Theater Arts from the University of California Santa Cruz. Over the last 12 years he has been developing and maintaining programs that address health needs of the LGBTQ+ community through his role of Director of Health Programs at the LGBTQ Center OC. He is currently working on completing a Master in Public Health so he can continue to address the emerging health needs that arise in his community.
Paypal email: tonyviravega@gmail.com
Insta handle: @tonyviravega
