Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-02-07
A Mexican Kitchen.

Mexican kitchen is study. and to
do 1t and all its queer utensils would
require columns space. There are
no cooking stoves in Mexico. or even
anything like the fireplaces of our
grandmother days. One side of the
room was occupied by sort of shelf,
built into the wall. about breast high,
in the centre of which small wood
hire is kept burning. There is no wood
here which New England housewife
would consider fit to burn. only the
gnarled and twisted branches of noun
tain trees. and around a little heap of
these the earthen cooking pots are
ranged. If the family is small, some-
times the smoky process is improved
upon by building charcoal fire in
large earthern pot ard setting the
smaller cooking vessels within in. In
many houses mud oven is built at one
end of the shelf, or somewhere out of
doors. 10 heat the oven fire must be
quilt inside oft and the entrance closed
with a hot stone However, as baked
foodE''pie an things according to
the Englishman's observation-disclosures
not into the household economy. an
oven is altogether a superfiuous luxury.
In the centre of the kitchen stands its
most important benefactor, the metate,
for tortilla making. 1t is a followed
stone, the size of an ordinary bread
bowl, having two stone legs at one end,
which inclines at an angle of forty-five
degrees. The tortilla maker kneels on
the dirt floor at the elevated end of the
metate, and the corn having been pre-
yiously boiled in weak lye and still quite
wet, she brushes it into paste with a
stone rolling-pin, the mixture gradually
sliding down the inclined plane into a
| dish placed to receive it. When guam
| tlty has been thus crushed it is rolled
into balls and left until required. Itis
astonishing what an amount of corn a
family of ordinary size will consume in
a day, in the form of tortillas, the Mexl-
can ''statf of life" When a meal is on
the tapis, the last act in the drama
the tragedy, we feel inclined to say,
when suffering the after pangs of in
digestion--is tc heat the gridle, or more
commonly smooth fiat stone. Then
the cook takes very small lump at
once of the prepared corn paste and
shapes it into thin round cakes, with a
little, and in lieu of a dishcloth she uses
tiny broom brush, like our smallest
whlsk brush. The only disagreeable
suggestion about it is that these dish
brooms are exactly like those used to
brush hair-from the ''head of the
family down to that of the humblest
creado (there are few combs used in
Mexico) and the fear will intrude that
these brooms may sometimes get
''mixed, like Buttercup's babies! The
dishes are never wiped, but are turned
up to dry, sometimes in a tray or an
adobe shelf, but generally on the hard
dirt floor leaned against the wall.
Strange to say they all come to the
table clean and shining. But fancy
their condition if the average Irish or
negro servant were allowed to do like
wise The brass spoons and steel bladed
knives are kept bright enough to see
your face in, though no bath bricks or
patent soaps are employed in their
notwithstanding but pure, unadul-
terated dirt. The servant, whose duty
it is, takes them out of doors, kneels
upon the ground, dips up little fresh
earth and, holding the knife or spoon
firmly on stone, polishes at her leisure
Despite dirt floors and the absence of
all those conveniences which we con-
slider Indispensable, l have never yet
seen an untidy kitchen in Mexico.
Everything is kept as bright and fresh
as hands and amole can make it, even
to the cooking pottery which is of neces-
sity smoked black whenever used. If
we could combine their innate neatness
with our improved methods, the result
would be that cleanliness which we are
told is "akin TO goodness. "-Spri'aQteld
Republican.