Breathe
By Paz Austin
It is not uncommon in Mexico for people to fall in love with a dish, for us to feel attracted to a handful of ingredients boiling in a casserole and for hidden memories to move within us as we enjoy a small bite. Laura Esquivel wrote her greatest work based on this common feeling that lives in us Mexicans in relation to how we experience food.
It is a divine gift to man to be able to live intensely through the sensations provoked by a dish. This experience has led us to create gastronomic culture and therefore an endless number of protocols and rituals around our tables. A representative case isthe Pozole Thursday of Guerrero, a theme that inspires my lyrics in this installment. The Pozole Guerrerense is a clear example of the gastronomic policy and the relevance of culinary culture in the history of Mexico. Not in vain CANIRAC has promoted the Guerrero Pozole Day for every fourth Thursday of July and through various actions such as fairs, exhibitions and competitions is celebrated in 85 municipalities in the state.
Well, in Guerrero on Thursdays there is a pause in the middle of the week, it is the day when people gather among family, neighbors and friends to eat the emblematic spoon dish. Live music is present in fondas and community kitchens to play the most romantic boleros and the joyful sounds of the region. I invite you to imagine being surrounded by happy people singing and toasting to the warmth of agave cupreata mezcals and refreshing themselves with Yolis and jugs of aguas frescas. This is how you experience Pozolero Thursdays in the most beautiful port in the world.
Tere Cabrera was a woman I would have loved to meet, to sit next to her in her kitchen to see how she cooked the pumpkin seed pipian to season the famous pozole verde Chichihualco style, the region where much of her family comes from and the best recipes of grandmother Clarita Adame. It is said that she used to organize the best pozole Thursdays in Acapulco, she would open the hallway of her house for anyone who wanted a plate of chicken and pork pozole to enjoy with her and her family. There were many who insisted and encouraged Tere to turn her love for cooking into a business and that is how in 1995 she opened the doors of La Casa de Tere.
If you come to Acapulco you will find an almost apocalyptic scene by the sea, the now Diamante Beach seems to resume its original name: Revolcadero and there are a lot of buildings tossed by the fury of the sea and the rain after hurricane OTIS. However, despite all odds, ACA , our ACA, is still standing. If you travel the beautiful Scenic Highway, on the mountain you can already see some of the most emblematic restaurants open as well as other new hot spots that have emerged from the crisis as a response to the faith of some investors. If you follow the course and cross to the coastal road and reach the unbreakable Baby O and enter the surrounding neighborhood, you will find behind the most resilient Disco in the world what I consider one of the best kept secrets of traditional Mexican cuisine: The treasured Casa de Tere.
At Tere's house you are greeted by typical piñatas of multiple colors and inside in the cool palapas there are simple tables that do not draw attention away from the paintings on the walls, inspired by the lacquerware of Olinalá de Guerrero, which by the way is one of the few handicrafts that have the protection of Denomination of Origin where we can appreciate the fauna of the area such as storks, herons, deer, dolphins and squirrels among others. This distinctive work was commissioned by Tere's family to a local painter named Rendón as a tribute to her coastal roots.
