eG Foodbog: Caroline

[Adam Balic]

More commonly in the English-speaking world they are underestimated. If you read "ethnic" cookbooks (a term that I wish would go away) published for an English language audience, whether they are Indian, Chinese, Mexican or what have you, servants are the ghosts in the kitchen.  You'll find the odd mention.  The simple peasant soup they prepare. The mother who consults with them in the morning.  The author who loved to go into the kitchen and talk to them as a child. What they don't say, and it's one reason, though not the only one why the recipes often seem so complex, is that there is someone in the kitchen who can wash the vegetables, shell the peas, make the juice, and do a lot of the ordinary everyday chores.

←

Very well said.

Another phenomena that I have seen is where "ethnic" cookbooks have made an attempt at modernisation. Often they get branded as "inauthentic" because there is not mention of "traditional" methods, which is not good at all or the flip side of this is that the authors are so careful about being throughly modern that there is no mention of the legion of servants that formally had a place in the kitchen.

Either way it is the servants in the kitchen that loose their voice.

[MarketStEl]

Thank you for a highly enjoyable blog, Rachel.

Food is much more than sustenance, as you are aware, and every good blog is much more than a chronicle of a week's meals. The best ones, like this one, are windows into culture, place, and society, and raise as many interesting questions as they answer.

Guess I'll have to continue the explorations on your own Web site.

[Chufi]

Rachel, thank you for a wonderful blog. I have been reading bits and pieces during my busy week but am looking forward to reading the whole thing at leisure over the weekend.

I have a strange and inexplicable affinity with Mexican food, I say strange because I'm pretty sure I haven't ever tasted 'real' Mexican food, but for some reason when I read about it or see pictures of it it really strikes a chord with me. I need to get to Mexico one day and try to find out if I REALLY will love the food as much as I think

Anyway, thanks for the glimpse of your life, and talking so freely about all aspects of it.

[racheld]

Rachel

←

Finally, a hand shot! I'm so glad you posted his---I have such a sweet spot for hard-working hands.

And I always get a little tickle of laughter when someone mentions flan. Chris will talk away beautifully in Spanish with the waiters at any Mexican restaurant in town, and then order the "Flay-in."

Don'tcha just LOVE a Bubba?

Edited October 18, 2007 by racheld (log)

[Jaymes]

I've never heard of stock in a Mexican salsa. For me one of their great joys is that you are free of all that awful stock mess, expensive, time consuming and not really good for home cooking in my opinionated view. Here you've got great-tasting, fat free, easy to prepare sauces that anyone can afford.

Regarding the stock, I must say that I've seen a great many recipes, including the one for salsa verde that I got from my friend Lolita in Queretaro, that call for what seems to me to be almost ubiquitous powdered chicken broth.

[C. sapidus]

tastykimmie: Pork, thanks, I missed that somehow.

Rachel: I will look forward to reading more of your writing. You taught me a great deal about Mexico, provided considerable food for thought, and influenced our dinners for the next few weeks. Nice job, and thank you!

[Marigene]

Thank you for the wonderful blog. I enjoyed every word!

[Domestic Goddess]

Thank you for the very informative blog. I have spent hours yesterday researching on La Malinche and her influence/story on Mexican history and culture. Maraming salamat!

[Jamie Lee]

←

This pic gets my vote for Oscar for Best Pet Picture!!

The intensity, the desire, the aggressiveness.... it's so a winner! I love your blog, but with your permission, this will be my new wallpaper, and if you agree, my new avatar.

(I think I'd just use the eyes!)

[Margo]

Lovely squaring of the circle you just performed, Rachel.  I'm glad you did bring them out of the shadows.

This does raise a question that's as sociological in nature as it is culinary, but nonetheless relevant:  Might the widespread adoption of highly processed convenience foods by American home cooks, and the concurrent increase in the proportion of all meals Americans buy at restaurants or supermarket take-out counters, have something to do with not only the migration of American women from the domestic sphere to the world of work but also the general disappearance of servants from all but the homes of the wealthiest?  I can think of a time in the US when many homes we would have called--and still call--"middle class" had, and were designed for, servants: the physical evidence of them is everywhere (19th-century rowhouses with cramped top stories, turn-of-the-20th-century streetcar-suburb houses with rear stairs and third floors, both of which were separated from the rest of the house by doors).

All this occurred over the course of several decades, so we who lived through it probably did so unaware of what was happening.

←

I'm really glad you raised the servant issue, too, Rachel. And Sandy, there's been some good scholarship on the changing shape of domestic life. More Work for Mother, by Ruth Schwartz, brings out the irony of how dishwashers and other convenient appliances increased the US woman-of-the-house's chores, because (1) she no longer hired servants now that she had these machines to do the jobs "for" her; and (2) standards of "good housekeeping" changed.

Back to Rachel, though--this has been such a fascinating blog. Mexico has such a rich culture, I look forward to reading more of your insights into it.