Tortillas

 

The house that was home for so many years, the house not far from where we live today, the house that was also a fair trade store, where our children grew up and where we experienced so much joy and heartache over their chronic health problems, was located across the street from a tortilleria.  We needed only cross the street to obtain fresh tortillas, and, at Christmastime, tamales.  I will never forget the smell of tortillas being produced—the timeless smell of white corn soaked in lime, of masa being gently toasted into planets of natural sweetness.  It makes me think of Hermann Hesse’s famous essay, “Über das Wort Brot” (“On the Word Bread”), where he says:

 Man braucht es nur auszusprechen und das in sich einzulassen, was es enthält, so sind schon alle unsere Lebenskräfte, die des Leibes wie die der Seele angerufen und in Tätigkeit versetzt. Magen, Gaumen, Nase, Zunge, Zähne, Hände sprechen mit. Es fällt uns der Eßtisch im Vaterhause ein. Rundum sitzen die lieben vertrauten Gestalten der Kindheit. Vater oder Mutter schneidet vom großen Leib die Stücke und bemißt ihre Größe und Dicke, je nach dem Alter oder Hunger des Empfängers. In den Tassen duftet die warme Morgenmilch. Oder es fällt uns ein, wie es ganz früh am Morgen, noch bei halber Nacht, vom Haus des Bäckers her gerochen hat, warm und nahrhaft, anregend und begütigend, hungerweckend und ihn halb auch schon stillend. Und weiter erinnern wir uns durch die ganze Weltgeschichte hindurch alle Szenen und Bilder in denen das Brot eine Rolle spielt.

 One only needs to utter it, to admit the word’s content into oneself, and already all our vital forces, those of both the body and the soul, are invoked and stirred into action. Stomach, palate, nose, tongue, teeth, hands, also utter the word. We are put in mind of the dining room table in our father’s house. Around it are seated the dear familiar figures of childhood. Father or mother are cutting slices from the large loaf, appraising their size and thickness, according to the age and hunger of the recipient. From the cups comes the smell of the hot morning milk. Or we recall, very early in the morning, when it was still half night, the aroma wafting from the direction of the baker’s house, warm and nourishing, stimulating and soothing, arousing, and also half-sating, a feeling of hunger. And, thinking on, we recall all the scenes and images in which, down through the entire history of the world, bread has played a role.

 Today, this is all I wish to invoke in my writing.  I won’t disown the language games that I’ve already played, some of which have yet to see the light of day, but I want to speak with simplicity and faithfulness of the humble bread that belongs to the world into which I was born and the neighborhood where I have spent most of my life—the fresh tortilla—and of those neighbors of mine who feast on it every day.