Calabacitas de mi Casa

As a teenager, I had a plan: to graduate, leave home—and go to college to study art. It didn't exactly work out that way.  As John Lennon says in his song Beautiful Boy, Life is what happens when you're busy making plans. By the time I graduated from high school, my college fund had dried up; it had been used to tide us over after a family business reversal.

But, as the saying goes "No hay mal que por bien no venga."  It wasn't the end of the world.  In fact, there were advantages.  For one thing, I didn't pay a penny for my education at the local college where I ended up for two years, since I was on scholarship there.

Still, there were dramatic changes at home.  My mother, for the first time, went to work outside the home. It was traumatic for her as she had always been at home for  my father, two sisters and me. But dire necessity dictated this change.

Many problems arose from this sudden adjustment in the way we did things. The family, for example, was now in a terrific tizzy about who would prepare midday lunch for my father.  My sisters were still in school during the day and hiring a housekeeper to make his lunch was unthinkable.

My father awoke everyday at an ungodly hour to make his own fiery, chile-laden breakfast. Throat-burning chile vapors floated through the house at 6 am, waking the whole house. To our added alarm, he often left the frying pan on the fire as he left the house for work.  Certainly, my mother felt he could not be trusted to prepare his own lunch.  

Hence, the duty to uphold this family routine fell on me as the oldest but also because I finished my morning classes at the local college by 11 a.m. and had plenty of time to get home to prepare lunch for my father. By that time, I had learned at my mother's side how to prepare our typical family meals. One of these was calabacitas con pollo, which we always ate with corn tortillas hot off the griddle. My father liked his tortillas crackly and I liked mine soft.

I can imagine now so many years later that Papá, who must have felt in desperate straits at the time, was happy to arrive at noon and still find that some things hadn't changed. His eighteen-year-old daughter was home from classes with a meal waiting for him. We would sit down to a plate of calabacitas con pollo—with soft and crackly tortillas—and savor our new tradition.   After lunch he would lie down for a quick siesta before returning to work and I would rush off and still arrive on time for afternoon classes.

After two years at the local college, I finally left home  to continue my studies. As it turned out, I left art for my other love: language and linguistics. I married, had a child and the calabacitas dish soon become a part of our family tradition as one of the first solid foods (minus the chiles) I gave my baby, Alex. I used a food mill to give the zucchini and other vegetables a consistency a baby could handle.

What food traditions have you carried on to your children and grandchildren?  Are there any recipes that have special meaning for you?

Calabacitas con pollo

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Recipe Type: Main

Author: Gilda Valdez Carbonaro

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 35 mins

Total time: 55 mins

Serves: 4

Ingredients

• 1 lb of chicken pieces: wings, drumsticks, thighs etc.


• 2 lbs zucchini chopped into cubes


• 1 onion, chopped


• 2 medium sized tomatoes, chopped


• tsp comino powder (grind your own in a molcajete if you prefer)


• tsp ground pepper


• 2 serrano chiles


• 4 tablespoons (approximately) of olive oil


• Kernels cut from 2 fresh corn cobs


• Salt to taste

Instructions

1. In a large heavy pan, brown the chicken pieces in the oil over medium to high flame for about 15 minutes.


2. Add all the rest of the ingredients, lower the heat, cover and cook for about 20 minutes, until all the flavors have come together.


3. Be careful not to pop the serrano chiles, unless you want a spicier version. If you leave these chilies intact, they will provide flavor without making it overly spicy.

Note: I often cook this with pork, instead of chicken. If you use pork, be sure to cut it in small cubes, and brown them well, so that this flavor blends with the other ingredients.