I went to visit my family in Houston, TX for the Christmas Vacation. I had an awesome time sharing with my relatives and friends by going to restaurants, house parties and church. Also, I really enjoyed the weather which went up to 75 degrees. Wearing shorts in the winter season feels great!!!
But the thing that I probably enjoyed the most besides celebrating Jesus' birthday at Midnight Mass with my family was... FOOD. Yes, believe it or not. As a good traditional Mexican family, we always have food on the table or in the fridge ready to eat at any time during this time. Turkey, glazed ham, rice, beans, mushed potatoes, tortillas de harina, bunuelos, lots of desserts and of course, the headliner of every Mexican Christmas dinner... TAMALES. Gotta love those bean, chicken, pork, cheese tamales, right?
Well, it was time for me to come back to Buffalo, NY and my mom (who had made 25 dozens of tamales) said: "Mijo! I'm gonna wrap you some tamales and uncooked tortillas so you can take them up there and eat them." Uhhh, that was actually a good idea, I mean, in the time that I have been in Buffalo, I have not seen a single tamal yet. I agreed with my mom and stuck some tamales and uncooked tortillas in my backpack and parted to the airport.
So, there I go, all prepared to arrived to Buffalo with my nice jacket, winter boots and all. I get to the TSA inspection and stopped me... all of a sudden, I went from the "nice traveler" with his nice boots to "la India Maria" (google her) with tamales and tortillas in her "morral" (backpack). "What is this sir" the inspector said, "well, mhhh, tamales and tortillas" I replied. She stared at me for a bit and with an "I don't know what to do" look she said: "Well, let me run it through the machine again." By this time, I was holding the line and almost everyone got to know that I had those tamales and tortillas on my bag. Not that I was ashamed, it's just that you don't see here that often and holding the line for some tamales and tortillas can be strange for other people. They just might not know how important our authentic food is to our heritage. Was very funny to me though, hehe.
To end my story, I might just say that I am glad that I brought that food with me... I just ate some flour tortillas with butter for breakfast and made me realize how wonderful is the Mexican food tradition. To think that what I ate for breakfast today is what my ancestors invented, sometimes because of the lack of meat or other foods. It is a privilege to have been given such a great blessing.
