Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-12-25
HOME LIFE IN MEXICO.
TIE PARAPH2RNALIA OF A MEX.
ICAN KITCHEN.
Adobe Ranges and no Use for Stoves
al Modern Conveniences of
the Sixteenth Century.


Special Correspondence of the REooRD-USIoN.
MEXICO, December IA, 1886.
A Mexican kitchen is study, and to do
it and all its queer utensils justice would
require a column space. There are no
cooking stoves in Mexico-except among
foreign residents-nor even the freplaces
of our grandmothersi days. The native
Grange" is of adobe-a sort of wide shelf
built into the wall, about a foot high,
without pipes, of course, but with an open
ing in the roof above which serves for
chimney Sometimes the fire is built of
sticks on top of this shelf, or of charcoal in
little hollows made at intervals in it, and
occasionally it is used merely as a shelf
upon which to set large earthen pots which
contain the. charcoal fire, the smaller cook
ing vessels being placed within this pot.
In good many houses there is not even
this apology for stove the charcoal pots,
placed upon the floor, answering every
purpose.
WHERE THE ADOBE RANGE Is USED.
A small mud oven is generally built at one
end of it and often the oven is a detached
affair, somewhere out of doors, resembling
a great clay beehive. These ovens are
heated by building a fire inside of them
until the adobe is red hot then raking out
the Goals or embers, putting in whatever is
to be baked and closing the entrance with
a stone. Any housekeeper knows that
cakes, pies, and many other articles of food
which enters largely into the American
hal
with no way to regulate the heat of the
oven, but-fortunately for Mexican cooks
those things are never attempted here.
There is very little wood in Mexico which |
a northern housewife would consider fit to
bUrn-generally only the gnarled and
twisted branches OF mountain trees, which !
are sold by weight, instead OF our method |
of measurement. Economy in fuel being, |
therefore, the chief consideration, the char |
coal pots are most commonly used, and |
boiled or fried dishes are the rule.
In the center of every kitchen stands its |
most important factor,
THE METATE,
For tortilla-making. It is a fiat stone per-
haps three feet long by two wide, being
raised at one end so that 1t inclines at an |
angle of forty-fve degrees. The tortilla- !
maker kneels on the f1oor at the elevated |
end of the metate, and-the corn having |
been previously well soaked in weak lye, |
and still quite wet-she brushes it into
paste with a stone rOiling-pin, the mixture
gradually sliding down the inclined plane
into dish placed to receive it. When a
quantity has thus been crushed it is rolled
into balls and left until required. 1t is as
tonishing what an amount of corn family
win consume in a day in the form of tor
tilias-the Mexican " staff of life When
a meal is On the tapis the griddle is heated,
or a smooth, flat stone. Then the cook
takes lump of the prepared corn paste
and shapes it into thin, round cakes by
wetting the hands and spatting the mixture
between them. The cakes are then baked
brown in a twinking-and as a substitute
for bread one might 90 further and fare a
deal worse. If they were only sailed a
little, or leavened with soda, or if one had
butter to eat upon them, it would De vast
improvement. II is needless to say that
butter is
A sUPERFLUoUs LUXURY
Very seldom INDUCED in here. One may
get it in tin cans imported from the North |
by paying from 81 to 81 80 per pound, at |
ones own risk of being able to eat it. |
There being no ice in the country, nor even |
cellars in which TO keep such perish
able " commodities, it is far better to make |
up ones mind to do as the Romans, and |
dispense altogether with such unnecessary |
edibles.
The majority of Mexican kitchens are |
entirely destitute of all those commonest |
articles of furniture which we consider in
dispensable. For instance, in thousands of |
kitchens there is neither table, chair, cup |
board, wash-tub or bucket Farther pots |
serve for pals; the washing is always done |
out of doors in the nearest stream or tank |
a long adobe shelf built against the wall |
answers for table and cupboard and the |
serving classes of Mexico are more accus- |
toned to sitting upon the ground than IN |
chairs. The kitchen has seldom any sort |
of floor but the original earth upon which |
the house is builded-or, at most, only |
coating of cement, much as cellars are |
treated in tie North-but they are univer-
sally clean and orderly. Ii is not an appe- |
tizing thought to consider that your tortillas |
are made and baked by servant
souArrED UPON THE FLOOR.
With only cloth between the paste and
the ground-that all the dishes and cook
ing utensils are probably kept piled up on
the floor in a corner when not IN use, and
that in preparing the meals Mexican
cook invariably uses the floor for all those |
purposes to which tables are devoted in
other countries; but a little observation
will convince you that you are IN no dan
ger of getting your "peck of dirt" sooner
here than elsewhere, and that the Mexican
servant is probably much neater than his
average Irish or negro prototype
Whatever else American housekeepers
NAV find worthy of imitation in Mexican
methods, l am sure that
DIsH-wAsHING
as practiced here will not be one of them.
The Mexican dish-washer, not being both
cred bya table generally seats herself Sc
renely upon the floor beside a pail of hot
water. She has no soap, but little an0le
root makes strong suds, and IN lieu OF
cloth she uses a tiny brush broom. The
only disagreeable suggestion about these
dish-brooms is that they are precisely like
those used to brush hair-from the head
of the family" down to that of the hum
biest crerado-and the fear will intrude that
they may sometimes get mixed ike
Buttercup's babies Comparatively few
combs are used in Mexico, but these little
brooms (exactly like our whisk-brushes)
answer equally well for variety OF pur-
poses.
The dishes are not wiped, but are rinsed
and turned up to dry-sometimes IN a
wooden bowl or on the adobe shelf but
generally are ranged on end along the floor,
leaning against the wall. Strange to say,
they always come to the table clean and
shining-but fancy their condition if the
average American servant was allowed to
do likewise
The brass spoons and steel-bladed knives
are kept bright enough to see your face in,
though no Bath bricks or patent compounds
are employed in their notwithstanding
but pure,
UNADULTERATED DIRT.
The servant whose duty it is, takes them
out of doors, kneels upon the ground, digs
up little fresh earth, and holding the knife
or spoon on a stone, polishes at her leisure
| anu glad to tell you that, despite dirt
doors and the absence of all those convent
euces which we consider indispensable, l
have never yet seen dirty kitchen in
Mexico, although l have examined scores
OF them Evervthing is kent as hriuEt and