The Great Tortilla Debate, With or Without Hands

 

                                                                                       

How far back must we go to find the tortilla debate answer?

     From 1967 to 1969, I was in North Carolina, stationed at Fort Bragg, where we were lucky to have one Mexican restaurant in town (probably in the whole state), Pancho’s, a swanky place, table cloths, silverware, plush booths, upscale, and pricy. Pancho’s was such a hit with the military and locals that the owner made enough money to buy a plane and fly in his supplies from Ciudad Juarez.

    On very low-grade NCO salaries, my friends and I could only go once a month, payday, but the food was delicious, Jalisco-style. I was a chorizo and egg fanatic, not very creative. The "good stuff" costs more, anyway. There was this one time. I’d taken a piece of tortilla, wrapped it around the lump of chorizo, and ate it. Sabor! I noticed the owner, Pancho, looking at me. Just as I was about to shove another tortilla-full into my mouth, he frowned and shook his head. He wasn’t happy. I had no idea why. I scooped up another tortilla full, and ate. I told my friends, who looked over at Pancho.

     He came over to our table. I don’t remember his exact words, but politely, with respect, and like an older uncle, he explained to us the difference between eating a meal with tortillas at home and in a restaurant. In the 1950s and '60s, families rarely ate at restaurants--too expensive. Pancho's explanation  made sense, I guess. Essentially, he told us it wasn't polite to eat with your hands, in public. I never thought about it as eating with my hands. Nevertheless, his words have stayed with me all these years.

     Another time, while traveling  through Mexico in the early 90’s, my father, brother, and I took a taxi from Guanajuato to San Diego Alejandria, Jalisco, a long trip, and we’d started early. When we arrived, we asked the driver to join us for breakfast. We found a place, not a restaurant, really. San Diego was pretty small, and the place we found to eat more of a warehouse, a woman cooking, one meal on the menu, breakfast, chile verde, eggs, and beans. My dad, brother, and I took our tortillas and went at it. The taxi driver placed a napkin on his lap, picked up his spoon and knife and began eating. I’ll never forget the look on his face. He smiled politely but must have thought we were uncivilized pochos, eating with our hands.  

     Of course, people eat as they were taught or the way food tastes best to them. As for tortillas, my Mexican, American family…right, comma not hyphen, my grandparents, older uncles and aunts born in Mexico, my parents’ generation born in the U.S., always ate Mexican food with tortillas. My Chicano relatives ate mostly Mexican food with tortillas as utensils, sopping up the juices at the end of the meal with the tortilla, often leaving the utensils untouched. My Mexican-born relatives used tortillas like bread, to help the food onto the silverware, clean fingers afterwards.

     I never thought much about it, the way we used tortillas to eat. 

     My dad had a knack for it, tearing off a piece of tortilla, molding it into different shapes, and using it like a spoon, a fork, or a knife. His fingers moved around the plate like a performing artist, a certain style and rhythm to each movement. Me, I liked the “skip loader” method, taking a fork and scooping the food onto a piece of tortilla shaped like a bucket on a bulldozer. Corn tortillas don’t work as well as flour tortillas. They’re too small, dry quickly, and tear in the wrong places, unless you get them fresh and warm. Whatever! You make it work. 

     Once, a close friend watching me maneuver my tortilla in my fingers, pushing aside the food, and scooping up the favored piece of meat said it looked “pretty primitive” eating with my hands, tearing at the food, like a soldier in the army of Attila the Hun. Huh? I was in the privacy of my home where, I figured, people ate the way they wanted. Apparently, not where my friend comes from. He said, even at home his family eats tortillas but doesn’t wrap them around the food or get their fingers all drippy with sauces and salsa then have to wipe on a napkin or rag.

     Like I said, I never gave it much thought. All I knew is that the food tasted damn good, and I could get a little bit of everything in one bite with just a piece of the tortilla. Then it hit me, egg yolk and salsa soaking my fingers. I really was eating with my hands and my silverware, untouched, beside my plate.

     Is the way we eat tortillas a Chicano thing, like the way we speak Spanish, “marketa” for “market,” “wacha” for “watch” or “look,” etcetera, something that would drive my Mexican-born relatives crazy or wild with laughter? Is it a class or regional distinction, like does a Manhattan sophisticate use bread at mealtime the same way an upstate New York farmer would? Do the Maya eat tortillas the same way ranchers from Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Michoacan eat tortillas? Do Chicanos or Mexicans in Colorado, Arizona, Texas, and other southwestern states eat their tortillas like Californians do?

     I stopped using my tortilla like a fork or spoon, for sure not in public, and especially not at a lunch meeting with my peers. Oh, I might backslide, sometimes, when I’m alone eating breakfast at home, more out of nostalgia, but I try to be less bronco, even though I know there are cultures that do eat with their fingers, like in the Middle East and Asia. Certain meals are best eaten by hand, like burritos, tacos, fried chicken, and sandwiches. I don't think I'd dig into meatloaf and gravy with a piece of bread. I once saw a friend, a socialite, devour a broiled chicken breast, using only knife and fork, and didn’t leave a morsel of meat on the bone. She even apologized and said etiquette called for one to leave a little food on the bone, I assumed, to appear less savage. Isn’t that really culture, a way to civilize us and separate us from our four-legged brothers and sisters?

     Truth be told, I’ve eaten at many Mexican friends’ tables and have never been to one where silverware was not part of the table setting, even with Mexican food on the menu. My cousin in Mexico City served lunch and dinner in four courses, like the Mejicanos in the film, Like Water for Chocolate, first soup then salad, the main course and finished off with dessert, both freshly baked bread and tortillas on the table, the tortillas in a container. No one dared eat their meal only with tortillas and no silverware. Yet, she descended from the same Mexican roots as I, a Mexican ranch in Jalisco. So, why were her table manners so different than my Chicano kin folk?

     So, all this got me to thinking, where did the various customs of tortilla eating originate? Was it only my Chicano family that used tortillas to pick up their food, as my friend had insinuated? I didn't think so, but I didn't know for sure. So, what does a teacher do when he wants to find an answer? Research.

     I decided to research the topic and asked my Facebook friends to help out. I wanted to prove to my friend that my family wasn’t the only one that ate certain Mexican meals solely using tortillas and no silverware. There had to be others. 

Question posed: is it bad manners to pick up your food using only tortillas, in public, or should you also use silverware?

Hypothesis: Many Mexicans in L.A. eat their meals using only tortillas, even if they get their fingers drippy. Hmmm, not very scientific or scholarly, but it'll do.

The non-scientific results

Responses: 142 total.

Respondents: 45, almost Chicanos and Chicanas, one Anglo, and a couple of half-bloods, a near fifty-fifty split between male and female, most, but not all raised on L.A.’s Westside, a few Eastsiders, one from as far as Redlands, no out-of-staters that I could tell. Since the 1980s, many of my Facebook friends and relatives were driven away from the Westside to the wilds of San Fernando and Canyon Country because of high property values. Who knows what tortilla customs they picked up out there.  Also, many respondents have roots in central Mexico, like Zacatecas, Jalisco, and Michoacan, and some from lands to the north.

Results: as I guessed, more than half said they eat their meals using only tortillas, silverware, maybe, maybe not, and they carry no cultural baggage about it, some down right indignant at the suggestion of being impolite. The remainder use both tortillas and silverware. 

Aaron Casillas said his dad uses only tortillas, applying the “pinch” and “scoop” method. I took this to mean, scoop up juicy meals, like picadillo, chile colorado, and mole, and the pinch for the drier meals, like carne asada, carnitas, and carne molida (or is it mollida?).

Some elders, like Mike Bravo’s tio Ralphie, would, according to Mike “…never let me use a fork or spoon when I ate my food.” Yet, in other families, there was disagreement on the tortilla issue, like Cherrie Vasquez’s older brother Charley, who would “tell me it wasn’t cool to eat with the tortilla only and my younger brother Andy just used tortillas.”

Playwright, John Difusco, the author of “Tracers,” who is married to a Chicana, wrote, “Lupe Marie and her brothers are ‘scoopers’ as were her parents, and grandparents. According to Ancestry [Lupe] is 46% indigenous, 35% Spanish, so maybe indigenous have this one.” John suggests a connection going back to the Aztecas, I gather, which is very possible in the great tortilla eating debate. Margaret Manley asserted, “Our Indian [ancestors] had spoons. Many were found in the piramides.”

Venice blues guitarist, Coco Montoya, writes, “I learned the technique (I assume he means the tortilla-only method) from my family, dad, mom, brother, aunts, and uncles, right or wrong, I still do it to this day.” Coco moves into the issue of ethics and morals, maybe philosophy, which is part of the original question posed: is it bad manners to eat with tortillas only, in public.

George Dominguez is a little more discerning, “I use tortillas on certain plates,” makes sense.

James Johnstone offered the great debate an interesting fact (a non-sequitur but relevant nevertheless), “Fact: Chinese had forks but decided the only place for them was in the kitchen and not the eating table.”

My comadre, Esther Yates, Brecht, from Santa Monica and a one-time restaurant owner, contributed, “Tortillas are the best eating utensils. Hell yeah, enjoy your food with a warm, soft tortilla!!! Yum, yum, yum. Tortillas!”

A Santa Monica boy, level-headed, Paul Gomez said, “When dining out, I usually use a tortilla to help put food on my fork. At home, I just use a tortilla.”

Conguero and Venice, W.L.A. boy, Ralph Chavez chimes in, with common sense, “How are you supposed to sop us chile verde from your plate?” To which, Margaret Manley offered a sobering reply, “With a spoon.”

Greg Rodriguez put an intellectual spin on the issue, "My hunch is utensils evolved into a sign of bourgeoisie finery that are additional, impractical steps of affectation that don't make sense in the daily practices of workers."

Aaron Casillas moves us into political territory, “That’s old school hang-ups. The Iberian colonists demonized Corn and Corn tortillas, as well. My grandpa hated them (I think he means corn tortillas not Spaniards but who knows for sure) because it reminded him of ‘being poor.’”

Writer Dan Acosta takes a more practical approach to the tortilla debate, “Whatever works best.” Pues si.

Bloga founder and contributor Michael Sedano reminisced, “I remember the staff at Izote in Mexico City looking on as I dug into my gourmet meal. I figured they were just Chilangos who’d never seen a real Mexican eat.” There you go, a Chicano had to go to the heart of Tenochtitlan to teach the Mexican City-ites a lesson on eating real Mexican food, Aztlan style.

Andrea Velasquez Molina really tells us her true skill, “I’ve done it (eating with tortillas, that is) even while eating menudo.” She goes on to describe her tortilla-menudo eating methodology, “I dip the corner of the tortilla, opened a little, in the soup and scoop in one or two pieces of the menudo. I only do this a few times…it gets a little messy.”

Tortillas don’t always rule in the debate, as Delia de Anda, reports, “My mom was born a raised in Mitic [a small Mexican rancho] and she NEVER (Delia’s capitals) allowed me to eat without utensils. She even taught me to only cut three small pieces of meat at a time. This ensured you chewed and did not masticate. Lol! She would get so upset when I dipped my bread or cookies into canela or chocolate. And I raised my son as I was raised." I guess that didn't work. "Ya me salieron las canas thinking about it.”

Bloga bloguero Rudy Ch Garcia wants to pass on the tortilla skill to posterity, “I taught my 3 n 6 yo nietos to eat with tortillas. So they could show off in Mexican restaurants. Son bien chules!” But Cherie Vasquez says that doesn’t always work. “I tried to show my Grand and Great-Grandkids how to pickup food with tortillas and they—won’t. The just look at me like I’m weird, 3^rd and 4^th generation and they are losing it. Sad.”

My daughter, Reina, who has four young kids, put a different spin on the tortilla debate. She said her kids eat breakfast, mostly with tortillas and no silverware, like their dad, a new generation of tortilla eaters. She said sometimes they fill-up on tortillas, not good, then wondered if that may be a reason why so many Mejicanos, especially on the ranchos during times of need, make their kids eat tortillas--cheaper and less food when there's little to be had. She also remembers visiting her grandfather in Zacatecas, out on the ranchos, and everyone ate tortillas, using silverware.

The comments go on, and in a real study, I’d start analyzing the data, but that's too much thinking, and might get dicey, trampling all over people's cultural values, even when it's just how to eat with a tortilla.  Now, all this tortilla talk, I find myself getting hungry, maybe a club sandwich. That way I don’t have to think about tortillas, for a while, at least until tomorrow at breakfast.