Monthly Archives: January 2008

Recipe: Oaxaquena Sopa de Elote-Corn & Squash Soup

This is a delicious vegetarian, corn based soup that I adapted from the kitchen of Dolores Chavez. I guarantee you will love it. The tomatillo adds just enough of a bite to be satisfying without any fire. Chayote squash is green and looks like a pear — most supermarkets near a Mexican immigrant population will have it.

  • 1 can creamed corn, 12-16 oz.
  • 1 can whole kernel corn
  • 6 cups water (or if you prefer, chicken stock)
  • 4 tomatillos, peeled and quartered
  • 4 lg. carrots, peeled and sliced
  • 4 yellow crook neck squash or 2 chayote squash, cut into 1-2″ chunks
  • 1/2 large white, red or yellow onion, diced
  • 3 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
  • 2 T. EV olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • Combine the two cans of corn in a blender and pulse until coarsely pureed. Add to stock pot and combine with the liquid. Sautee the onion and garlic together in 2 T. olive oil until glazed and slightly browned. Add to the stock pot along with the raw carrots, squash and tomatillos. Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Salt and pepper to taste. Delicious on Day 2, 3, and 4, too!

Pigtails, Ribbons & Aprons: Las Abuelas

Las Abuelas (Ah-bway-lahz), the grandmothers, come together at Teotitlan market every morning to shop for the day’s meals for their families. The daily morning market is essential to the social fabric of village life for older women, a time to socialize, exchange news, and for some, I hear tell, take a nip of sweet flavored mezcal together, a ritual, I suppose, to seal their sisterhood. The abuelas get to the market via tuk-tuk, riding in the front seat or flatbed of a battered pick-up or by foot, carrying on laps or under the crook of their elbow the traditional shopping basket woven from split bamboo and trimmed in wide palm leaves. There is a status associated with the baskets: the fineness of weave, size, and added decoration, such as miniature baskets suspended from a garland encircling the perimeter. The grandmothers wear their hair in braids woven with ribbons. Mostly, they are burgundy red. They can also be brown, green, blue and yellow. I don’t know if there is a significance to the color, and this is something I will need to find out and report on. My guess is that each village has its own color preferences and customs. The women from Benito Juarez and Santa Ana del Valle and Tlacachuaya will have a variation on this theme. Sometimes, the braids hang loose and and tied together at the end forming a V down her back. A braid will extend far beyond the waist. Sometimes the braids are wrapped around the top of the head and give the appearance of a crown. This is useful, too, because a basket can be carried on the head, balanced, as the woman walks along with a grandchild in tow or with arms swinging free or carrying a bouquet of flowers for the home altar. The grandmothers wear the traditional handwoven, cochineal dyed wool wrap around fabric that is the skirt (falda). It is tied with a sash (fajas) that has a balled tassel on the end. The blouse (blusa) can be cotton and hand embroidered or commercially purchased. Sometimes, the skirt is a subtle check and the blouse is a polyester floral, having no particular significance other than personal preference. The costume is then complete when it is topped with a checked and machine embroidered or applique apron. In the market, the wife of a local English teacher (a man who lived in the states for 15 years before returning to Teo), sells intricately embroidered aprons. This is the “overblouse” uniform of village women from Mitla to Tule. Most buy aprons at the Sunday market in Tlacalula where the selection is so vast, over 50 different stalls of apron vendors or so it seems, in every shade and color combination. Aprons sell for 120 to 250 pesos depending upon intricacy of design, and whether both the front and back are embroidered. Scallop edges, huge flower or animal designs, embellished pockets and button closures will command a higher price — one more symbol of economic position in the community. To find these stalls in the market, you have to wander way back beyond the food vendors — ask: A donde estan los mandiles? Mandil is the Spanish word for apron. Few of the young women who stay in the village are wearing this traditional dress. Jeans, Gap or Tommy Hilfiger t-shirts and sweat shirts, and Nike tennis shoes are the ubiquitous uniform of teens and young adults worldwide. Young matrons of the village in their mid-20’s to 40’s will wear a store bought dress topped with an apron. Only the grandmothers carry on the traje tradition. In a few more years, will this be a memory captured by our photos as cultural traditions change and adapt and become subsumed by the dominant culture. I marvel as I sit in the market or meander down the streets at the tenacity of these women, their strength and fortitude and beauty, their survivorship, and wonder what the village will look like in 30 years when they have passed on. Will their dress be part of the museum exhibit only to be brought out during the annual July village fiesta that features the parade of the canastas? And I ask myself, am I being a romantic, romanticizing a way of life that is destined to change?

Soledad with new year bread

Abuelas at the baptism

Editing My Collection: Oaxaca Folk Art & Textiles Sale

From time to time, I edit my collection and offer a small number of rugs, hand woven shawls, blouses, pillow covers and other Oaxaca textiles for sale. These include some beautiful cotton brocade blouses hand woven on a backstrap loom from the Amusgos tribe and embroidered beauties from Tehuantepec.  The tops from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec were purchased at the market in Juichitan.  They are intricate floral designs that are finely worked and lined. 

See my Gallery Shop online:  www.oaxacaculture.com where you can browse and order, or send me an email with any questions you have.

 Animalitos: I have several hand carved and painted copal wood alebrijes — a fantastical lizard, a brightly decorated  armadillo with a very long tail, a howling coyote standing on a “rock” from the villages of Arrazola and San Martin Tilcajete.

Woven Pillow Covers:   The pillow covers are like miniature rugs.  I commissioned several of them from Esther, a woman who lives just outside the village proper, and she is now able to earn a living because she just got a loom through Annie’s Women’s Project.  All are  complete with sturdy cotton backing and zippers.  Some have piped edges, too.

Rugs:  I have many small, medium and large sized handwoven and natural dyed rugs from Teotitlan that are for sale made by the Chavez family, and other weavers working in natural dyes.  They are made in a variety of  patterns and designs.  Most sizes are 2′ x 4′, 3′ x 5′, and 4′ x 6′.    Although, a few are larger, 6′ x 9′ and a 3′ x 9′ runner.   

Rug Costs in Teotitlan

How much does a rug cost in Teotitlan?  There is no standard answer because cost depends on many variables:  quality of wool used, size, whether it was dyed with chemical or natural dyes, the complexity of the design, and who made it.  Is it being sold directly by the person who made it or is it sold in one of the “retail” houses that sub-contracts with other weavers in the village and markets under the master’s name?  When I first visited Teotitlan del Valle, my quest was to find the “best weaver in town.”  As a weaver, textile artist and collector, I knew it was important to do my homework, visit a lot of weavers houses, look at the galleries of the famous people whose names are in every guidebook, and then get off the beaten path.  I wanted to find the highest quality weavers but also buy from a family that had not yet made an international name for themselves, support them directly and pay a fair price. In this quest, I learned a lot.  For example, many weavers buy commercial wool that is mixed with nylon, which is cheaper and not as sturdy in the long run.  Because I am an artist, it is important to me to support people who work with natural dyes because I love the subtle aesthetics of the natural colors.  I also wanted to uphold and sustain the early traditions of the Zapotecs (chemical dyes were a 19th Century introduction), and minimize the health impact of working with chemical dyes.  I learned that it takes considerably more time to prepare the wool for weaving when working with natural dyes, perhaps as much as 3-4 times longer, because the process has many steps.  It is not cost effective for a weaver who has only modest talents to work in natural dyes because the price of the product will have to be higher.  Only the most talented weavers, those who can achieve complex patterns using curves and circles, will command higher prices.   So, if you are looking for a real bargain, are you willing to compromise quality for price?  For example, a rug that is approximately 2-5/8 wide x 5 feet long, woven by a master weaver using the finest quality wool in the traditional caracol Pre-Columbian snail design using natural dyes, will cost around $600-700.  This is an intricate design requiring many curves and takes a couple of weeks to execute.  A modified version of this, the Greca pattern, will cost about $450-500, for a similar size.  Less complex patterns, such as Mountains and Rains or the Zapotec Star, require less skill and can be made faster, and will cost less.  A small 2 x 3 foot rug could go for as little as $80-125, especially if it is made with chemical dyes.  I have seen poor quality work in the village, rugs prepared with single edge cotton chord (not the finer quality double edge to ensure a rug lies flat), a less dense weave, single ply wool, and “muddy” chemical dyes sell for as little as $50.    Federico Chavez recently completed two very large, 10 x 12 foot, custom ordered rugs, which were $3-5,000 each.  Not many weavers will have looms that can create a textile that large.  The Chavez Santiago family house is committed to only working in natural dyes, so by virtue of this choice, rugs from them will be higher priced.  But, they will last a lifetime…or several lifetimes!  My recommendation is to read all you can about rug weaving in Teotitlan and make a list of the weavers who you would like to visit. They will be happy to give you a demonstration of their weaving and dyeing techniques, explain the process, and show you their work. Do not feel obligated to buy until you are comfortable, know the weaver, and are satisfied that you have explored all the possibilities. Weavers are artists.  Many of their designs are unique to their own families.  You will notice that there are subtle variations in patterns and designs among families throughout the village.  Some families, like the Chavez Santiago family, are innovating with new mixes of colors and patterns.  Mexico is a place where visitors are used to bargaining in the marketplace.  I do not know of any weaver who wouldn’t be a little flexible in their pricing, but usually it is no more than 10%.  But, consider that a 3 x 5 foot rug will take 30-40 hours of labor, and because Teotitlan weavers stand at their looms and are not able to work more than 6-8 hours a day, think about what constitutes fair compensation before you ask for a discount. 

Comadres y Chismiendo: Girl Bonding Mexican-Style

Chismear (verb, meaning “to gossip”). A few days ago Janet (pronounced Yah-nette) and Dolores, her mom, and I are sitting around the table in the courtyard, gossiping about village life.  Dolores had just come back from a family funeral; the brother of her deceased father in law, age 94, had just passed, and it was a time for mourning and for catching up on the talk about town.  The hot feature of the day was news of a 14 year old boy who was a classmate of the Chavez’ youngest son, Omar, who had just married at 20 year old woman.  The woman had moved in with the boy’s family, as is the custom for newlyweds.   When Omar asked the boy at school, “what were you thinking,” the youngster replied that he was in love.  To make money, he intended to drop out of school and become a tuk-tuk driver, ferrying about passengers to and from the crucero or to the market or the torilleria for 10 pesos a ride in the 3-wheeler moto-taxi.  So, there we are sitting around the table, engaging in chismiendo — gossiping — about this turn of events in Teotitlan, a town of 8,000, where news of anything unusual or an impropriety travels fast.  Of course, everyone at the funeral (a two-day affair, including a mass and open house with lots of food, beer and mezcal) couldn’t resist the commentary of what a 14 year old boy was doing with a 20 year old woman and why the boy’s mother didn’t put her foot down.  We got a lot of mileage out of that one!  The next day, another sort of tragedy happened that was far worse, and the chismiendo became one of social commentary and revisiting the values of family and behavior.  A young father had been at a Saturday wedding, had too much to drink, and with his 5-year old daughter in the car, crossed over the center line going 80 km per hr, and hit a truck twice the size of his car in a head on collision.  The mother was at home with her 7 week old son.  The child was airlifted to the hospital in Oaxaca with a severed spinal chord and head injuries, heavily sedated to keep her from moving until the doctors could figure out what to do next.  Chismiendo continued all week between families and friends, the transgressions of the father who could not remember the accident, what would happen, who was at fault most — the father or the one in the big truck who also may have crossed the center line, and what life would be like for this child if she survived.  Eric’s cousin, Pedro, is a neurological surgeon and is was he who did the successful 6 hour operation several days later.  The child has movement in her legs and arms and with physical therapy will regain mobility, which is the great news.  As we sat around the table, talking about this, revisiting numerous times the details of the accident, the impact on the future of this family, of drinking excessively during the multitude of fiestas and celebrations around life cycle events that are continuous in the village, we explored how the reviewing of events imparts an important way of reemphasizing the values, norms and mores of the culture — that family is core, that parents must always be thinking about the well-being and safety of their children first, that drinking and driving responsibly is essential and that family and friends must also take responsibility, too, for the behavior of those who put their lives and those of their children in jeopardy.  The accident was a tragic reminder of what can happen when people don’t pay attention to the consquences of their behavior.