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What I learned from a bowl of posole
I felt like making posole this week. So I did. Hot weather or cold, I’m a sucker for caldos of all kinds. I like the watery ones where you have trouble catching the pasta and I like the chunky ones where it’s hard to get one of every ingredient in each spoonful.
Unlike most other caldos, there is something about posole that puts me in a different place. Each time I make it, I think of my ancestors who would serve the dish during holidays and other special celebrations. I think of how much time in a day a mom would spend just to get what was needed together to make this heartwarming meal.
Walks to the local market or farm. Deseeding chile pods. The grinding of fresh herbs in the molcajete. Chopping, dicing, and pulling. Scooping, serving, and eating. For the middle-aged mama and tia, this was only half the day. The rest of it was spent sweeping, folding, and hanging.
Today you could buy ready-to-eat posole in a can. It brings us convenience but all the rest is lost. The important values that aren’t measurable by the cost savings, often only realized by the passing of time.
We lose moms teaching us how fresh cilantro can be used in different dishes and why it is so well loved by the Mexicano. We lose being a good helper when someone asks us to help pick up the bandeja full of raw hominy. We lose seeing…
