In my grandma's kitchen

I remember the first time my grandma made gorditas, smashed in with a fork, drenched in the butter-like spread that my sister and I always longed to taste in the setting of our own kitchen. My grandma would mold the thick, circular pancake made of masa harina in her wrinkled palms—she knew exactly what size they should be for her big-bellied grandchildren—and then placed it on the heated pan situated on her outdated stovetop. It was such a simple food, not even a dish, but the experience was so gratifying because it was something my mom would never make at home. It’s plain masa-colored surface turned golden brown as she cooked it, making sure that the inside was warm and chewy, and that plenty of steam would flow from the top when she stabbed her fork into it.

My sister and I knew this was a rare food experience that we needed to savor while my mom wasn’t around. My grandma, on the other hand, was indifferent to our taking two extra spoonfuls of artificial-looking butter and smothering it into the crevices of the gordita. We’d wait for it to melt before we dug in. We felt like fugitives trying to escape the health-conscious ways of our one-time marathon-running mother and previous Miss Panamerican titleholder, a memory she dwells on often.

To anyone who doesn’t know my grandma, a smashed gordita soaked in butter sounds like the average junk most Mexican children crave. It’s a cheap food that she would make for the six kids she had to raise by herself on the east side of Chicago after she ran away from an abusive husband in Guadalajara. I had the chance to visit my estranged grandfather on his cattle farm big enough for a family of 15 during a family trip to Mexico when I was nine years old. He lived there by himself with two dogs whose visible rib cages said it all: he was a selfish man. He had the leathery and tired face of someone who worked in the sun all day and cared little for personal relationships. His closest relationships were with a bottle of tequila and his rusted, mud-stained pick-up truck. He didn’t know my name, but it didn’t phase me. My grandma never went on these trips with us to Mexico. The kid in me thought it was because she was still in love with my grandpa and wasn’t prepared to dig up all those old emotions. My sister was the mature one and thought she just hated him.

I’ve learned more about my grandma through her cooking than in the conversations we’ve had. She let her two-foot-tall steel pot do the talking—the one that was dented and scratched all over the silver surface from years of cooking caldos for the big family she created. Her servings of caldo de albóniga, caldo de camarón, pozole and menudo always reached the rim of the bowl, especially after the frequent and welcome addition of her Mexican rice—the envy of every Guzman who tries to replicate her recipe on holidays. Generous portions of food waited for my sister and me on her thick wooden table tainted with the aesthetically displeasing floral patterns on her cups and placemats. Florals have since become engrained in my head as an indication of old age.

But my grandma never seemed to age. She was a short, plump and proud Mexican woman with all the confidence I could hope to attain by her age. She was always in the kitchen, always wearing the same cotton thermal underwear tops and bottoms. Year after year, when I would visit her small home, I was expected to march straight to that wooden dinner table upon arrival where I’d be greeted with the foods she knew I loved. I didn’t know much about my grandma other than that she loved me enough to feed me my weight in foods with a chicken bouillon aftertaste. But I felt safe whenever I sat down to eat in her home. Everything she cooked, especially the gorditas, tasted better because I ate it in her kitchen, a modest space with warm carpeted floors, outdated brown tile and kitchenware she kept from her previous life in Mexico.

Her kitchen had all the reminders of family; family pictures from the early 90s taped onto her enamel icebox, their white edges visible all around from the rips and tears and all the hands they’ve passed through.

Her home reflected the most important values I grew up with. There was always something cooking in her house because she knew the way into her family’s hearts was through their stomachs. Once I was old enough to understand the vulgarity of swear words, she would yell in my direction, “Pinche cabrón! You better stop fighting with your sister or I’ll kick your ass!” I let out a childish giggle because I found her obscenities endearing. Later on, I would realize that what she meant to say was, “Without family, you have nothing.” And she was the best example of this, something I remembered once I stopped holding a grudge after she took out the paddle to slap my behind when I misbehaved. When she was up for the task, she would invite the family to her house to make tamales for Christmas. She made it easy for my six cousins and me to assemble the cornhusks and the masa—my favorite part of the tamal. We’d form an assembly line that stayed intact for just a few minutes, until we got the bright idea of sneaking upstairs to steal animal crackers, artificial fruit cups and Welch’s grape juice from her pantry. We were gluttons, but my grandma wouldn’t have it any other way. Food brought the family together, so the more the better.

These gorditas defined my childhood food experience: the longing for food I always wanted but could never have, and the embarrassment that came with eating authentic Mexican food when everybody else was eating Lunchables. Lunchtime at my grade school was what set the cool kids apart from the weirdos. And it was weird to bring cheese quesadillas and rice in a plastic lunch bag. I liked eating traditional Mexican food in the security of my own home, but it was never something I wanted to eat in the presence of my grade school girlfriends. The ends that were cut off of their PB&J sandwiches on white Wonder bread were the cherry on top of what I considered to be the epitome of the All-American Girl’s lunch.

I forgot about these silly concerns in my grandma’s kitchen, the one place within a reasonable distance where I wasn’t embarrassed to be Mexican, and where I was proud to be part of a family who shows their love through food. But it was also a reminder that I had a long way to go before I could be the person I was inside my grandma’s house outside of it as well.