Pura Vitamina
I can’t tell you if it was the peanut sauce or the fish boiling that landed on your smell receptors first. I can’t tell you if it was the onions or garlic or salt that made your tongue sweat within seconds. I can tell you that the smell of caldo de pescado enveloped every hair and pore of your body and every cross-stitch of fabric on your clothes. The smell that would only begin to dissipate after a tía would boil vinegar and water in the kitchen.
I can also tell you that every single sopa de pescado was full of “pura vitamina.” My mom’s claim for most of her cooking was that it was full of healthy vitamins and minerals that were very specific in their usefulness for all ailments and diseases.
Sopa de pescado, or caldo de bagre, or encebollado de pescado (all fish soups) were always very good for the brain, high in potassium thanks to the plantains, and good for the immune system thanks to just about everything else. I heard this information every. single. time. they made a fish soup.
This knowledge had been passed down from generation to generation, with prologues of “mi abuela decía” or “mi mami decía” — my grandmother used to say or my mom used to say. Later, when I was old enough to pay attention to the 6pm newscasts that were always on at dinner, I realized that a lot of what my mom had been preaching was true — science backed it up. And, as an adult I began lamenting that a lot of the healing information about our food was starting to disappear.
I remember spending time at friends’ houses as a teenager and purposefully sticking around long enough for their moms to invite me to stay for dinner. As an Ecuadorian-American kid in Brooklyn, hamburgers and hot dogs were a treat. Throw in a side of sweet corn, French fries, and lemonade made from a cylindrical canister and I was giddy. But, when I would get home and my mom would ask what the white parents had served me, she would snicker, “Eso no tiene nada de vitamina” — That has no vitamins whatsoever.
I once watched a friend’s father launch into some belly-aching on the living lounger soon after dinner. His wife brought him some pink stuff and some white stuff that looked thick but soothing. In my home if you had a stomach ache, someone was going to make you some oregano tea. Which, to a kid from Brooklyn used to putting oregano on his pizza, felt weird. But the dang tea worked. It always worked.
Nowadays, while information is quick to gather, I feel several generations removed from life-providing information. I can rattle off a handful of details as to what certain foods and teas are good for. But my information seems mechanical, echoes of years of googling. It doesn’t come close to the authority wielded by the woman stirring a humongous pot of soup with a large wooden spoon and talking about how the boiling fish head is going to do wonders for your intelligence. Pura vitamina, she says.
Follow me on Twitter: @MrCLedesma
Want to keep reading? Use my affiliate link to become a Medium member today.
