Living without and longing for the flour tortillas of your Tex-Mex youth
When I’m desperate, I heat up a rice tortilla on the comal. You know, the kind found at alternative grocery stores: organic, without a trace of GMO corn, and unsatisfyingly gluten-free. Nothing like homemade tortillas, or tortillas from the local Mexican market.
I stopped eating flour in 2012, at the age of 38. After one week of what I thought was the stomach flu and a patch of oozing blisters on my chin, a doctor informed me that my symptoms seemed to be caused by a digestive issue. I couldn’t afford a formal diagnosis, so I completely purged my diet and slowly reintroduced foods, one at a time, until the symptoms resurfaced. I brought gluten back into the fold last, two weeks into my self-imposed allergy test, hoping for the best.
During my first couple of years of being gluten-free, I risked my physical well-being a few times by eating a flour tortilla in the Rio Grande Valley, because I knew those tortillas were the closest to the ones my grandmothers made. Both times I ordered a single barbacoa breakfast taco, and doused it in green salsa with a spoon of pico de gallo.
tortillas. Corn tortillas were merely what we had when we couldn’t get the real thing. My parents grew up in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, where the U.S-Mexico border is shared with the southernmost tip of Tejas — Brownsville, Texas, where I was born, and where flour tortillas and breakfast tacos were already staples. In my grandmothers’ kitchens, the rolling pins were hailed like saints on the wall.
I view that loss as the catalyst to denying my domestic role, the only role Abuelita Maria Luisa could embrace I watched my abuelita attentively. After she added each ingredient, I asked for exact measurements. Abuelita Maria Luisa merely showed me how to pinch my fingers and cup my hands. I have to admit, I knew then I would never be able to make tortillas like her, just like I will never live her life. She was 75, I was 34, we were both already familiar with loss. She had her first child at 18, my father, who died when he was 36.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Selena Gomez Is Back In The Studio Working On A New Album & We’re Smiling Along With HerWe've been missing selenagomez music this summer.
Read more »
Dior Deletes Johnny Depp's 'Tone Deaf' Twitter Ad for 'Sauvage' -- Featuring a Native AmericanYoud think Dior might think twice before releasing a fragrance ‘inspired by Native American culture’, naming is Sauvage, and having Johnny Depp as its face,' one wrote.
Read more »
Gwen Stefani Forcing Blake Shelton To Give Up Meat To Lose Weight?Is Gwen Stefani forcing Blake Shelton to give up meat and carbs to lose weight? Gossip Cop looked into this familiar story. It’s all nonsense.
Read more »
In Mexico, Lopez Obrador's 'Teflon' presidency is starting to show wearIs Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is scheduled to give his first state of the union address Sunday, losing his shine?
Read more »
A Rent Week Spanish Tortilla Recipe for the Haters (and My Birthday)This Spanish tortilla recipe might not be traditional, but hey, desperate times call for...yeah, you know.
Read more »
China, Japan, South Korea to step up cultural ties despite rows: ministersThe culture ministers of South Korea, Japan and China agreed on Friday to step u...
Read more »