SOME SAMPLE DISHES AND DELICACIES OF SPANISH COLONIAL TEXAS

By

Richard G. Santos

In considering a family’s or people’s cuisine, there are several factors that have to
be considered. In the first two columns of this series we have considered (1) geography
(land locked fertile, water rich savannas with low rolling hills) and (2) climate of South
Texas from 1575 to end of Little Ice Age immediately after the U. S. Civil War. We have
also considered the (3) Native Americans and (4) national origin and therefore cultural
background of the founding European families of Spanish, Portuguese, Basque and
Mediterranean States. In this unique segment of the Spanish North American Frontier, the
(5) religiosity of the families (Sephardic practicing Jews, Crypto (secret) Jews, conversos
(New Christians) and Old Christians, has also been considered. Finally, (6) the flora and
fauna of South Texas has been considered in regard to the availability of edible items in a
food rich environment.
Home cooked dishes were and still are also governed by (1) ethnic cuisine, (2)
family tradition, (3) product availability and (4) economics. Today, and not during the
Spanish Colonial period, we must add education (health consciousness, doctor
recommended, advertising and printed recipes). For example, the Canary Islanders of San
Antonio and Basque of Coahuila were maritime cultures with a seafood cuisine but
suddenly found themselves land locked in South Texas. The same can be said about the
Sephardic whether practicing Jews, Crypto or coverso, not having kosher products
available. Hence as previously stated, the Spanish Colonial Families of the Spanish North
American Frontier (especially Northeast Mexico, Texas and New Mexico) learned to
blend, mix, adapt and adopted dishes from each other and their environment. It has also
been noted and must be remembered, that the Native American and Sephardim were the
two ruling cultures. This becomes most obvious in the cuisine native to South Texas.
One herb native to North American adopted by the Sephardim as the required
bitter herb of the Passover Seder and a Lenten dish for some South Texas Catholic
families, is quelite (amaranthus retroflexus). There are actually three different herbs
known by the same name in Spanish and in U. S. English they are called (1) redroot
pigweed, and (2) curly leaf pigweed or (3) careless weed in South Texas. The bitter herb
is pulled from the root and washed thoroughly. The leaves can be served (1) as a
replacement for lettuce in a salad, or (stewed/boiled/cook) as a replacement for cabbage.
As the required bitter herb, some families still serve it with lamb or carbito al pastor
(roasted baby goat) and albondigas (potato or tuna fish patties). Some families replaced
quelite with nopalitos (cactus leaves, breaded or fried). And even though Pan de Semita
(Semite bread) can be found year round, it is traditionally required at the Passover Seder,
Lenten or Easter dinner by families unaware of the origin or significance of the dish.
Quelite is so much a part of the culture that it has its own folk song. Composed
who knows when by some unknown person, the song says “Que bonito es el quelite”
(How beautiful is quelite), “bien haiga quien lo formo” (blessed be He who made it),
“que por sus orillas tiene (because it has on its edges/leaves), “de quien acordarme yo”
(someone I recall). “Mañana me voy, mañana” (Tomorrow I leave, tomorrow), “mañana
me voy de aqui” (tomorrow I leave this place), “y el consuelo que me queda” (and my
consolation), “que se han de acordar de mi” (is that they will remember me). As I noted
in my book Silent Heritage, the undated folk song certainly has a Sephardic essence. It is
like the phrase “de mejores lugares me han corridor” (I have been expelled from better
places).
As Spanish explorers noted on first contact, Native Americans ate an animal de
barba a cola (beard to tail). In the waste-not tradition, another Native American dish not
found in restaurants but still made by some South Texas Tejano families is sangritas.
Fresh blood from a slaughtered cow or goat is collected and warmed with spices (as per
family’s taste). It is served as a stew or soup with or without pinto beans, potatoes, or
ground beef. This fresh blood dish is not to be confused with morcilla (blood sausage)
which is cross-cultural.
Tripas (beef, goat, pig or jabalina) intestines after being thoroughly washed and
rinsed, are generally fried in their own fat. Someone with a strange if not unique sense of
humor at Night in Ole San Antonio, advertised them as “Mexican French Fries”. The
same is done with pig or jabalina tails which are also not served in restaurants but
consumed at traditional rural homes in South Texas. Chicharrones (cracklings) are
frequently made by modern day vaqueros (true cowboys). The outer skin of a pig or
jabalina is sliced into strips, boiled, shaved, washed, then fried in their own fat in discos
(tilling discs) or pailas (kettles). A Texas Department of Public Safety officer (highway
patrolman) this last Monday said he thought of me while making chicharrones last
weekend. He added his fellow law enforcement officers concluded it was easier and less
laborious to purchase the commercial packages at a grocery store! I thanked him and
reminded him I had filmed vaqueros preparing tripas and chicharrones at Duval County,
Texas in a documentary titled San Diego de Duval. So I am aware of the process.
Carlos McDermott, a vaquero Tejano and survivor of the Battan Death March,
made the pan de campo (cowboy bread) in that documentary. Using a cast iron dutch
oven over embers, Carlos mixed eight cups of flour, a palm of shortening, a middle of the
palm amount of espauda (baking powder), some milk and several pinches of salt. He
kneaded the dough and divided it into several dutch ovens and let it rise. After a while he
lifted the cast iron lid, checked the dough and placed the dutch ovens on the embers. He
periodically checked the dutch ovens and at one time he signaled it was time to place the
fajitas (skirt steaks) and Polish sausage on the grill over the embers. I gained weight and
inches around the waist attending many pachangas (cookouts) during the five years I
spent filming, interviewing and recording Tejanos of the Coastal Bend and Lower Rio
Grande areas of South Texas.
Like albondigas (potato or tuna fish patties), capirotada is another Sephardic dish.
It is a traditional bread pudding served during the Passover and Lenten seasons which
coincide. Depending on size of the family and tradition, the cook will mix milk,
cinnamon, raisins, brown sugar, cheese and allowed to simmer over medium heat. When
ready, the mix is poured over slices (or chunks) of bread and more raisins or whatever the
family wishes to add according to their own family tradition. Capirotada can be found in
so-called “Mexican Bakeries” during Lent but nothing beats the special home prepared
delicacy with its particular traditions, recipes and memories of the home.
Up to the late 1970’s and early 1980s, nothing could compare with babacoa de
pozo on Sundays. A man and several friends would dig a pit according to the number of
beef or goat heads to be barbequed. Therefore, the pit could be 3 feet wide by five or six
feet in length and approximately four feet deep. Appropriate size mesquite limbs would
be set on fire and allowed to become embers. Beef or goat heads would be placed in
individual burlap sacks and tied at one end with wire (clothes hangar, barbed wire, fishing
wire), soaked in water and laid over bricks or a sheet of metal over the embers. The cook
and friends would play cards, drink, exchange stories or jokes and keep an eye on the fire
all night long. By dawn on Sunday the heads were ready to be removed from the pit and
served after the wives and children returned from church services. The eyes, tongue and
brain were usually served separately from the cheek meat. In some families the brains
were fried with onions with or without hot peppers (usually Serrano peppers or
chilepiquin/chile del monte). It has always interested me that this is the one dish Tejanos
prefer with Native American corn tortillas instead of the traditional Sephardic flour
tortillas. Is there any cultural or historical significance to this? It should also be noted that
for the last 20 years or so, barbacoa in being commercialized went from a backyard or
ranch “hole in the ground” pit to pressure cookers and indoor ovens. Likewise, it is easier
today to buy the tortillas at a grocery store than making them at home.
In closing we again remind you to send me your home recipes telling me who,
what, when and where the dish was prepared. Email it to richardgsantos@yahoo.com.
Thanks and provecho.

End ……………………… end ………………………. End ………………. End

Zavala County Sentinel …………… 3 – 4 March 2010