Whenever my grandparents would return after the
posadas (9 days of religious observance before Xmas) from their hometown, Aguascalientes; the rear end of my grandfather's Cadillac El Dorado would be sagging from all the loot they brought. Ah, the good old days, before the 1 liter alcohol limit. There were perhaps 15 assorted bottles including Gusano Rojo mezcal--one of the most foul drinks ever made--Presidente brandy, Kahlua,
rompope; also candies, marionettes, wooden toys; and beautiful, over-sized paper flowers. I had assumed in my incurious youth these were a typical item found all over Mexico.
Each year they made the journey to visit our family--three days by car, first, from Stockton to Blythe, then Blythe to El Paso, and finally El Paso all the way into Aguascalientes before the dawn of the fourth day. The trip was full of road side eats, bribes to clear all inspections, the Chihuahuan desert, and a perilous highway race between my truck-driver grandfather, and a motorist somewhere between Chihuahua and Aguascalientes. I was fortunate to have gone with them twice, but each time I think about the fact that I could have been going every year, I get so upset. The idiocy of adolescence. I now realize that being in Mexico with my grandparents was one of the most impressionable times in my life, and far more memorable than a thousand wasted afternoons with friends long gone.
While playing the
Feria de San Marcos, the mother of all fairs in Mexico, in the birthplace of my father, and grandmother, I came upon
La Saturnina and my heart stopped--I lost my breath for a moment. I realized I never saw these paper flowers in all my trips throughout Mexico--they are a specialty of Aguascalientes. The entire time I dined at this welcoming, traditional
hidrocálido (people from Aguascalientes) restaurant I was thinking of my grandmother, and how she always brought those flowers back to decorate her home. I never thought about what that meant when I was young; was it something in her childhood, or perhaps some magical afternoon in the Jardin de San Marcos? It may be the only time she was vulnerable, nostalgic, and given to daydreaming.
It made me recall those two journeys with my grandparents driving from El Paso to Aguascalientes, Mexico; and how much things have changed in my cultural hometown,
mi tierra.
The menu is a monument to the classic cooking of my grandmother's youth, in a state overlooked by mainstream Mexofiles. Aguascalientes is like the Rhode Island of Mexico is respect to size, but has a strong gastronomy, one not known well throughout Mexico, and hardly at all in the US. It does have one of the greatest
carnita styles in Mexico, red
pozole,
flautas,
tacos de lechon,
chile de bola,
birria (we use oregano to garnish instead of cilantro) and so many dishes, but
La Saturnina is a perfect way to begin your discovery of my family's home state.
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