MC Quixote

Dinner with Zapata and Villa Part 19

The year 1914, the place, Mexico City, D.F. Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa ride through the Zocalo on horseback, followed by a procession of their soldados in a huge march that looks something like a parade. You can actually see the event on video if you look it up online.

What did it mean? Why am I looking it up on the internet? Sure, it's an important historical event during the Mexican Revolution but I have a closer association with these events. Here's what happened.

I was over at my Grandma Adela's house and I saw an old black and white photo of a huge dinner that her mother had hosted. I looked closer and saw that some of the men were wearing bullet belts across their chests, so I had to get a closer look.

I asked Abuela if I could take the photo off the wall and she seemed just happy to see that I was interested in my family history, so she grabbed a chair and brought it over and I climbed up to get a closer look. I couldn't get high enough to pull the thin wire over the nail it was hanging on, and in pulling the silver frame off the wall, I ended up ripping the back off the old antique frame. I made sure to hold the sides of the frame together so that the glass wouldn't crash to the floor. The cardboard back fell off and the old photo floated to the ground.

Between the photo and the cardboard backing there was a yellow warn piece of parchment which had now landed next to the photograph. Adela's eyes lit up, it was as if she had found a secret treasure. She carefully unfolded the delicate paper and there was a detailed account of the entire five-course meal my great grandmother had served to Emiliano Zapata and Poncho Villa. Great Grandma had even listed all the beverages that were served on that fateful day.

This was a gastronomical documentation of Zapata's and Villa's almuerza at my great grandmother's house. My Abuela Adela was even more excited than I was. She started to gather up her grocery bags and said,

"Let's go to the market to get what we need to recreate this historical Mexican meal."

We walked the short distance to the outdoor market in Coyoacan, Abuela had me pull the cubical, metal shopping cart that she'd preloaded with her recycled plastic mesh shopping bags. Being such a patriotic discovery, we ended up putting together a shopping list divided into the three colors of the Mexican flag, it looked something like this:

Red

Tomatoes

Red Peppers / Red Chiles

Strawberries

Cacao

Meat / Beef

Beans

Watermelon

Radish

Cactus Fruit