A Cook's Tour_ In Search of the Perfect Meal - Anthony Bourdain [111]
It was a long, sleepy afternoon while the food cooked. Relatives showed up for the meal; a table was set up in the backyard. We eventually sat down to a very fine mole poblano de qua jobte, accompanied by enchiladas, salsas, salads, and beer. I looked around at the faces at the table and saw the faces of my cooks back in New York.
‘Welcome to my little rancho,’ said Eddie.
He’d arranged for a Mexican Woodstock at his little ranch in the foothills outside Izúcar. It looked like it would be the biggest thing the town had seen since they’d risen up and slaughtered the French – the Triumphant Return of Eddie Perez. He’d hired mariachis, a pop band, a singing vaquero with dancing palomino, a lariat act. A soundstage was in the finishing stages of construction in the dusty, sun-washed lot behind a row of low structures. Chickens, roosters, cattle, pigs, donkeys, and goats roamed freely among the accordion cactus in the surrounding hills. He’d invited the whole town: the mayor, a representative of the local criminal fraternity, notables of every stripe. He’d hired the entire off-duty police force of the neighboring town to act as security, and an army of women had been pressed into service. Rancheros dug a pit for barbacoa. Little boys in button-down shirts and little girls in Communion dresses ran messages and shuttled cooking equipment to and fro. Cases and cases of beer, tequila, and mezcal had been laid on. Gallon upon gallon of fresh-fruit ponche was in the works. Long tables had been set and arranged under the thatched roof of a palapa. This was going to be some party.
Meanwhile, I was having my own Marlboro Man moment. It’s one thing to wear denim and cowboy boots in New York; it’s quite another to kick dust and dung off your Tony Lama boots, sit back in a shady corner against a plain adobe wall, tilt back your chair, and put your feet up on a post. A cowboy hat, in New York, is a fashion accessory never, ever to be worn – unless you’re a Chippendale’s dancer. In Puebla, in the midday sun, however, it’s a necessity. I tipped the brim of my spanking new hat down over my eyes to provide shade for my already-roasted nose and felt pretty damn cool. Sauntering into a spare outbuilding where some rancheros were already free-pouring tequila into dirty shot glasses, I brushed the dust off my hat and rasped, ‘Tequila . . . por favor.’
Sitting with Eddie and Martin – all of us in full ranchero dress with our hats and boots – watching a woman with Antonio’s face making tortillas on a comal a few yards away, recognizing the features of people I worked with and had worked with in the faces of the women cooking rice in a clay pot over an open fire, the girls cleaning cactus for ensalada de nopalitos, the old heladero hand-cranking fresh lime sorbet over ice in an old wooden churn, I had never felt so happy to be part of my strange dysfunctional family thousands of miles away, back in my kitchen in New York.
The big event began with the digging of a pit the size of a large grave.
A fire was built at the bottom and allowed to burn down to glowing coals. When it was ready, some rancheros lowered big pots of goats’ head soup into the pit, the stripped skulls dropped into the liquid at the last second by their horns, a pile of avocado leaves arranged around them. Sheep’s stomachs, stuffed with blood, spices, and mint – a sort of Mexican version of boudin noir – were carefully placed inside. Then five whole goats, cleaned and butterflied, were stacked one on top of the other and covered with more avocado leaves. (The goats had been slaughtered earlier in the day. Their skins were even now stretched and drying on Eddie’s roof.) The pit was then covered with a woven straw mat, which had been soaked in water, and carefully shoveled over with dirt. The various components would cook like this for about three and a half hours.
All over the arid lot, the pace quickened. From a sleepy, sun-drenched space, the ranch was quickly becoming a hive of activity. Everywhere, things were coming together, guests beginning