Twenty years ago with a grant from the Colorado Council of the Arts, Elizabeth Fajardo a Jeffco PTA mother of seven and Carl Ruby the media specialist for Thomson Elementary in Arvada, CO, published their first children’s book, Holy Mole Guacamole & Other Tummy Tales(97).
The multi-cultural stories in the book highlighted traditional family food tales complete with recipes and a lot of humor. The goal at that time said Fajardo
was to “create a book that all children from many different cultural backgrounds could relate to. Family recipes proved to be great common ground.” Ruby and Fajardo gleaned the stories and recipes both from their own family traditions and from residents of Denver's numerous ethnic neighborhoods. Foods featured in the book include everything from black-eyed peas and Italian pizzelles to matzo balls and Navajo tacos.
The Tummy Tales Book Series
*Holy Mole Guacamole & Other Tummy Tales(97).
*Pinch A Lotta Enchiladas & Other Tummy Tales( 02)
*Chili Today Hot Tamale & Other Tummy Tales(04)
*Ole Posole & Other Tummy Tales(06)
*Frijoles, Elotes y Chipotles and Other Tummy Tales( 2015)
Fajardo who is now the director of the Journey Through Our Heritage ( JTOH) program, a multi-cultural leadership outreach program at Metropolitan State University of Denver along with co-editor Carl Ruby were able to gather illustrator Arlette Lucero illustrator and bilingual editor Ed Winograd in 2014 to begin work on the new book. With support from the MSU Denver, JTOH Student Org., community members and the Colorado Folk Arts Council the new book for the first time has authors who once were read the books as youngsters.
Nelson Moreno a junior at MSU Denver contributed his own story and helped edit twos stories in the in the book. “ Frijoles is a book about passing on not only traditions but the legacy of storytelling” commented Ruby who remembers when Moreno came to the Aurora Fox as a fifth grader from Crawford Elementary to hear Tummy Tales from the first books. “ We have come full circle. The next bookBizcochitos Por Mi Hijotes& Other Tummy Tales ( 2017) will feature four stories from MSU Denver students along with other community members. This has now become the legacy of a new generation.”
“After ten years we are excited to tell the stories of our community and hear how a bowl of green chili can heal a broken heart or how a small garden can change the way a family looks at life.” said illustrator Arlette Lucero, whom is also is excite that the illustrations for the first time ever are in color. “This book has a lot of special surprises for everyone.” added Lucero.
To order books email reneefaja@hotmail.com or jtoh2016@gmail.com
Or go to the following book stores :-
All families share a common thread: they celebrate the important events in their lives with special foods. This book is a collection of stories from ten members of the Rocky Mountain Storytellers' Conference. Each is a family story that includes recipes. It is a delightful and warm look at the unique ways families cook together. This book is a continuation of the traditional family food stories started in the book, Bon Appetit!
Here's a story directly from
Frijoles, Elotes, y Chipoltes Oh My!! & Other Tummy Tales
Frijoles, Elotes, y Chipoltes Oh My!!
By Renee Fajardo
It is fall and in my six year old mind this is the season of the singing leaves. This is because the brilliant gold and yellow leaf litter that is strewn across yards and alleys ways makes a musical sound like wind chimes when the slightest breeze blows.
On this particular Friday my little brother Mark and I are visiting our daddy(his name is John) for the weekend. Our mama Barbara is working at the Rexall Drug Store until Sunday night. Normally if we are good our daddy will takes us to see her at her work so we can buy candy and drink root beer floats that a boy called the soda jerk makes for us.
“ Where are we going daddy” I ask when I realize we are not driving in the right direction towards our mammas work.
“Today Dolly(this is the name my dad calls me when he is trying to be very nice because he knows I am going to be very unhappy about something) you are going to your great grandmas Sarah’s house because I am going hunting. Your grandma Esther and grandpa Al are taking your little brother to the doctor for his vaccinations and you are going to stay with your bisabuela for a few hours.”
This is when I notice that the back of my daddy’s El Camino is filled with stuff: a canvas tent, a green and silver metal cooler, tin canteens sweating water droplets, a rifle he calls the thirsty-odd-six, and a sleeping bag. My daddy is a hunter, he brings home wild game for us ever autumn and we have venison steaks and burgers all year long. My grandma Esther, his mamma says it runs in his blood because our people lived in the mountains of southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico hunting and fishing before any other people who lived here. Back then before our people married into the families who came from across the oceans, we were called Picuris Pueblo.
I stomp my feet on the floor of the truck and protest loudly. “ There is nothing to eat at my bisabeuleas house! No pop tarts, no space food sticks, no tang , no macaroni and cheese! I do not want to go there! I want to go with grandma and grandpa to the doctors and watch.”
My daddy got a stern look on his face and he told me in no uncertain terms I was not going Dr.s’ to watch my little brother be tortured. We drove on in silence. After we dropped my little brother off at with my grandma and grandpa ,my daddy got back in the car and began to tell me a story.
“ When I was in college before you were born , I live up in the foothills of Fort Collins on a farm with my friend and class mate Will. We only had three dollars to our name and it was to last us all week until we got our pay checks. We had no food in the cupboards at all. No beans, no chili’s, no corn ,no nothing.”
My daddy went on to tell me how he and his roommate went out and bought hunting licenses. Then they drove all the way up to into the mountains to hunt. They were so happy when got their deer but it took them hours to prepare it to take back home to eat. When they got back to the farm they had deer liver and onions and then ate deer steak for the all winter long. He told me how he had never realized how it felt to be really hungry until that day in college. That he was not lucky enough to have a pantry full of beans, rice, dread chilies or corn like he had had at home with his parents. That having to go hunt for your dinner made you appreciate your food.
“ Yuk, that is not food. That is meat!” I stammered under my breath. “ I would rather eat nothing than liver and onions after I had to walk up a river and drag my deer down a cliff”
My daddy just laughed and then told me that nothing to eat could mean a lot of different things to different people.
Once at my bisabeuleas casa I waved good bye to my daddy through the picture window and went into the kitchen. My bisabuela Sarah was up stairs napping cuz that is what vejitas do as they are so old and full of wisdom that they need a great deal of sleep.
My great uncle Jake was in the kitchen, he is actually my daddy’s uncle but I call him tio also. He was wearing his pink apron with ruffles and poka dots on it. I always call tease him and say he is my auntie Jake cuz he dresses like a girl in the kitchen. He laughs at me and tells me men and women can whatever they want to wear even pink aprons.
“Are you hungry mi jita ?” he called from the sink.
“ I am not eating anything here at all cuz you have nothing to eat .” I yelled back.
“ Mira, do not yell , come in here and help me make tortillas.”.
“ I do not want to get my hands all icky uncle. I want to do something else.” I protested .
Mi tio was patting little balls of masa between his hands. I like the smashing sounds it made as he pats the balls into little round cakes that he then heats on a flat skillet called a comal. On the stove next to him in a big pot of boiling water are the frijoles. He cooks these beans all day long until the water has turned into a luscious brown gravy and the small pods are as tender as marshmallows. Steam from the pot has already begun to collect on the windows in little droplets. I do not know this now but one day this memory will make me cry because it is the in many ways it is the the symbol of my childhood. Looking out the fogy windows into the back yard garden of mi bisabielas house was like looking into world of my ancestors. I could see all that had passed and even walk there briefly, but my future was outside the front door and something from the past I would not be able to take with me. My own children would not grow up gardening or hunting, but they would know appreciate how to cooks beans, chili and corn
“ Why are you so sady mijeta? I know you did not have breakfast your grandma told me so and unless you are waiting for your daddy to bring back a deer for lunch you should eat some cominda.”
“ I want some pop tarts and tang! “ I stubbornly demanded.
“ The best food you will ever eat is the food that you have hunted or grown yourself. This means that you work the soil, plant the seeds, water, weed and care for the plants. Then you pick the food and prepare it with your own hands. This makes the food special to you just as when your daddy hunts for a deer. Comida is more sacred when you have to work for it and not just go to some Mercado to buy it in a package.”
I made a grimacing face and stuck out my lower lip. “ Then go outside into the garden and help your tio Geroge bring in the corn and chili. “ My uncle Jake directed.
My tio Geroge was also my great uncle, he too was my daddy’s uncle and the eldest son of great grandma Sarah. He loved to garden and in a small patch of dirt in the back yard he grew tomatoes, corn, beans, squash and every variety of chili peppers you could image. When he was younger he had worked on the railroad but now he spent his time tending to the three sisters as my uncle Jake called the beans, corn and squash and growing the most fragrant roses.
“ So uncle Jake says I am to pick some vegetables for him to cook.” I announced to Uncle George.” There is nothing good to eat in the house.”
Uncle George just chuckled and told me to come look at the corn stalks. There to my surprise were beautiful huge ears of corn wrapped tightly in green silky leaves. I picked the two biggest ones and sat them on the porch. Next my tio told me to look under the big squash blossom as there to my delight were three lizard green zucchinis .. It was like hunting Easter eggs. Then there were the chili’s, red ,yellow and green with names like habenero( very hot) , jalapeno (medium hot) , poblano(tastey ) Anaheim( sweet) and my favorite, strung on string across the fence smoke dried jalapenos called a Morita or Chipolte.
“ Oh uncle George these are like little gems, they are so beautiful. They shine in the sun like you polished them with pledge furniture polish.”
My uncle laughed a deep laugh of amusement. “ There is not chemicals in this garden, little one” he declared. “ Only Goods sunlight , fresh soil and clean water.. I even smoke dry the jalapenos myself to make the chipoltes. Here take a little bite and see what these taste like”
I looked at the most wrinkly dried up chili peppers I had ever seen. I pinched a bit of the pepper and put it on my tongue. It was not hot like I expected but smokey like a camp fire and warm. I gathered in my arms the corn , squash and the dried chili’s to take into my uncle Jake.
Once instead he directed me to wash my hands and then shuck k the corn by pulling the green leaves and corn silk off the cobs. We used a butter knife to scrape the little kernels. They popped with a sweet juice as they came off. All the little kernels were put in a big bowl. Next we washed an cut the squash into half dollar size pieces. This was then added to the bowel. Finally the dried chilis were crushed in a matate. This stone slab has been used in my family for more than 50 years to crush herbs and spices for seasoning our comida.
Then the squash was thrown into a sizzling hot frying pan with butter and cooked until it was slightly soft, next the corn kernels and the chili were added. The aroma that a arose was delicious and made my mouth water. After the corn was warmed chopped garlic, parmesan cheese , more butter and cilantro were mixed in. A squirt of lime juice and wah laaa…perfection , my tio Jake said.
My uncle , mi tio in the pink apron at that moment became my hero. He was a man filled with passion about food and family and his creations were tortillas, frijoles, elotes and love. We sat down to a big bowl of beans with corn on the side and steamy buttered round balls of masa patted into discs of perfection.
“ Jita, “ he said as I stuffed my mouth. “ The way you look at life will determine how you live your life. The glass can be half empty or half full. The cupboards can be bare or waiting for the opportunity to be filled with possibilities.”
I laughed at my tio “ Well even though I said there was nothing to eat here all I got to say to you uncle is…Frijoles, Elotes, Y Chipoltes, Oh My!”
And that Oh my moment would last me a life time. My bisabuels, my abuelss, my tios and tias and even my own mama and daddy and my brothers were all there in that moment and it was a moment that I would pass onto my children in so many ways that I can not explain. But most of all it was there that I realized it is always about how you look at life that counts
Chicken Soup for Latino Soul
ENCHILADAS FOR LIFE!
© Copyright by Renee Fajardo, all rights reserved. Published in Chicken Soup For The Latino Soul 2005 And in Seasoned Siestas of Color 2004
My familia is from Colorado. It was rumored that we all came up from New Mexico about a hundred years ago and intermarried with the Europeans who had immigrated to the southern part of the state to work in the coalmines. The result was a colorful mixture of customs and cultures. Christmas usually was a celebration complete with tamales and Irish jigs. The most important ingredients according to my paternal grandmother were laughter and a love of life, and a good bowl of beans!
This new generation of mixed blood would one day be labeled as Chicanos. Growing up, my brothers and I knew only that we were extremely fortunate to have a larger-than-life family that worked hard and loved deeply. We did not realize we were, by most American standards, poor, or that the stigma of being half-breed Hispanics in an Anglo-run world had caused our ancestors much heartache.
Instead, we thrived in the glow of our family’s commitment to making sure the next generation survived and bettered themselves. I was in my first year of college when I returned home for a family celebration. It was my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and the whole Fajardo clan was busy with preparations for this auspicious occasion. While helping make what seemed like a million enchiladas, I stood at the kitchen counter and looked over at my great-aunt Lucia.
She was a beautiful woman, about 70 years old at the time. Being the youngest of eight siblings (born a decade after my grandmother), she usually took over the role of head cook for all family celebrations. Her reasoning was that she was younger and had more stamina. I suspect it was because she could roll enchiladas faster than any human being alive. It was a God-given gift. I admired her greatly and was always amazed at her dedication to every detail of our fiestas. She baked all the bread from scratch, made tamales days ahead, cooked green chili to die for, and made enchilada sauce that to this day makes me weep with joy.
For the first time in my life, I really looked at her that day. She was always so busy with the comida or organizing the last details of preparing the food, she never had time to talk about herself. I smiled with puzzlement at her devout self-imposed exile to the kitchen stove. It occurred to me that my tía cooked for all of us and had been doing so for all of our lives. She had no grandchildren of her own. All three of her sons had died tragically, and her remaining daughter was childless.
I knew in my heart this must have been a terrible burden for her to bear, but I had never heard her complain. I never heard her once mention the hardships she had witnessed as a child growing up. Nor had I ever heard her speak of the humiliation she had endured because she was from a poor Chicano family. I knew from others in the family that my abuelos and my other old ones had seen great misfortune and pain.
I gathered my nerve and stared at her a long time before I asked her about her life. I recall stammering as I asked her how she always seemed so happy when she had lost so much. I think I even told her that most people would not have been able to go on after losing so many children.
What she said to me that day changed my whole outlook on life. She looked at me, wiped her hand on her apron, and smiled. “Mija,” she said softly, “I look at my life like making enchiladas.”
I laughed when I heard her say this, but she went on. “You see, my sweet, little niece, you start out with the corn tortilla, that is the foundation of the enchilada, and it is the family. Then you dip the tortilla in warm oil, which makes the tortilla soft and pliable to work with. I like to think of the oil as sacred, it is an anointing of the familia with all that is precious in life. It is similar to going to church and having the priest put sacred oil on your forehead.
The family is being blessed. “Next, you fill the corn tortilla with cheese and onions. The queso is sweet and rich, made from the milk of life. It is symbolic of the joy and richness of this world. But how can you appreciate the queso without the onion? The onion may make us weep; yet it also makes us realize that there is a reason the cheese tastes so sweet. That reason is because there is a contrast to the queso, there is a balance to the joy…Sorrow is not necessarily bad. It is an important part of learning to appreciate this life.
“Then, the enchiladas are covered with the most delicious sauce in the world. A sauce so red and rich in color, it reminds me of the blood of the Christo, a sacrifice of love. Still, to this day, my mouth waters when I smell enchilada sauce cooking on the stove. The most important ingredient in the sauce is agua.
“Water is the vital source of all we know. It feeds the rivers that make the great oceans. Water rains from the skies to nourish the fertile earth so the grains, grasses, flowers, and trees may grow. Water comforts us when we hear the sound of it flowing over mountain cliffs. Water quenches our thirst and bathes our tired bodies. We are baptized with water when we are born, and all the rest of our days spent on this earth are intertwined with water. Water is the spirit of the sauce.
“The enchilada sauce also has garlic, salt, chili powder, and oil. These are the things that add the spice and zest to the sauce. Making the sauce is a lot like making your own life; you get to choose the combination of ingredients, and you get to decide just how spicy and salty you like it.
“When everything is put together, you have the ‘whole enchilada.’ You must look at the enchiladas you have made and be happy with them. After all you are the one that has to eat them. No use whining about maybe this or maybe that, there is joy, sorrow, laughter, and tears. Every enchilada is a story in itself. Every time I dip, fill, roll, and pinch an enchilada, I think of some part of my life that has gone by or some part that is still to be.
“Mija, you have got to pinch a lot of enchiladas in this life! Make that experience a good one, and you will become la viejita like me.”
I couldn’t believe that my auntie, who had never spoken more than two words about her philosophy on life, had just explained the universe to me. I wiped my hands on my apron and laughed.
“Thank you,” I said between tears and smiles. “I will never forget what you just told me!”
By Lucy Lopez Dussart Lucero
When I was around eight, we moved from Somerset, Colorado because there was not enough work at the coal mine. It was a few years before the Great Depression, but even then, things were getting hard for the workers.
My papa, a stout Belgian, and my mama, who was Mexican/Spanish/Indian, worked hard to raise us. I was the youngest, and my memories of the Western Slope, where I grew up, are good. I loved the mountain air, the clear running streams, the smell of the pines in the Elk Mountains, and playing with my friends. But Papa’s work was dirty, and his lungs were filled with coal dust. Mama made do with the little we could afford. I loved picking choke cherries in the fall and waiting for the train in summer so the caboose man could throw oranges to us kids.
When I was 8, we moved to the plains of Northern Colorado, so Papa could make more money working at the sugar factory and could stop coughing all the time. It was an ugly, unfriendly place compared to my lovely mountain home.
One day, Papa was arrested for bootlegging. His mother stayed with us while he was in jail. She helped pay his fines and get him out. But she had never liked Mama and called us kids “half-breeds.” When he got out, she talked him into going to Missouri with her.
So Mama had to raise us younger kids (my older sisters, Josie and Mary, had moved to Denver). She never complained or said anything bad about my mean old grandmother. She just packed us up to Brighton, Colorado, to a farm owned by a Japanese man named Socorro. The oldest boys worked as farm hands, and we were able to stay together.
Life on the farm was pleasant after all we’d been through. My brothers George, Ralph, and Arthur worked the fields. We lived in a wooden house that was shabby, but clean and warm. We looked out over acres of growing, living horizon. We had a dugout like the one in the Wizard of Oz. You could stand on the mound on top of it and see the whole country. We had potatoes, onions, carrots, and apples. We were never hungry there!
My older sister Esther helped Mama with house chores. My youngest brother Jake and I did what we could to help. That’s when I learned to fry chicken and cook chili. Sometimes we’d run to the watermelon fields, break open a melon, and eat the heart out, like pirates. We thought it was great fun, but the farmer always scolded us.
One Sunday, Esther and I were walking to church, a few miles from our house. My brothers were out working the fields, even on Sunday. Mama stayed home to make tortillas for their lunch. I was wearing a beautiful lavender dress, which Josie made for me. I was proud and could hardly wait to get to mass to show it off. When I saw the church, I dashed into a field that we used as a shortcut. It would be a great day. I was sure I looked like a vision from heaven.
Suddenly, Esther yelled, “Slow down, Lucy, you’re going to fall!” Sure enough, as I looked up, I ran smack into a barbed-wire fence. When I got up, I was caught. I had fallen face first into the wire, and my lip was stuck. I was bleeding all over my hands and dress. Esther was crying, and folks were rushing to help me.
After what seemed like forever, someone freed me. Esther pressed a handkerchief to my swollen, bloody lip. I knew we’d miss mass, since I needed stitches. We hobbled to the doctor’s house and banged on his door. He was surprised to see two little girls, bloody and crying. But he fixed me up fast, even though Esther fainted in his office. We even laughed a little about that. But I didn’t laugh about what Mama would think. Because I had was careless, no one from our family was at the mass. That would be a shame, a vergüenza, for her. What would she do when she saw I had ruined my beautiful lavender dress? I longed to have her hold me and comfort me, but I dreaded what she might say.
I’ll never forget what I saw as we approached the farm. Mama was on the top of the dugout, jumping up and down like a jack-in-the-box, scanning the road, crying and yelling for us. How could she know that something bad had happened? We were too poor to have a phone, so the doctor couldn’t have called her. And no one had gone to tell her what had happened. But Mama had the gift of sight. Some say it was her Indian blood, but she always knew when trouble was happening. She ran and embraced me. She said, “I knew something had happened, I just knew it. I felt it when I was making tortillas!”
I started crying. I said I was sorry about ruining my dress and missing mass. She carried me inside and cleaned me up. When I stopped crying, she said: “Our people are from this land. We lived here before there were houses, farms, mines, or stores. We are forever tied to each other. Nothing in this world matters to us except family and community. Our family is our treasure. You and your brothers and sisters are everything to me. When you hurt, I hurt, when you are well, I am well. To have a good life, we just need to take care of each other.” In later years, I watched families torn apart by poverty, war, and anger, and remembered Mama’s words. I opened my heart to all who came to my home. I loved my family and raised them to love. I have never worried about what we did not have and have always been grateful for what we did have.
ONLY ONE DROP
Poem is an excerpt from "Refind Savage, Volume I"
© 2007 Copyright by Reneé Fajardo, all rights reserved.
One day there will be no more than one drop of blood left
Not enough to be recognized by anyone but those of faith
All the blood shed and wars and tears of the past
Will have washed away all but this one drop
Some will say that there isn’t enough left to count for anything
They will tell you that what you once were is no more
Breed out and bled dry, your people are no more
And as the future opens up with unimagined visions
You may not even care to remember that once we were warriors
That once this land as far as you can see was your heritage, your sacred place, your hearts home…
You may not even want to hold onto the distant echoes or
To say that once we were spoken words on the wind
Flying like eagles over the horizon of mankind
One day there will be no more than one drop left
Not enough to be recognized by anyone but those of faith
A hundred years ago your ancestors were ripped from the womb of their land
Their sun rises and sun sets were captured by those who came with out understanding
There was no turning back, no running away…
Those that did not die were swept into the fold of the masses…
And now there is only one drop of blood left
Not enough to be recognized by anyone but those of faith
Yet that one drop of blood for those of faith is forever
It can not be erased, eliminated or annihilated
It is forever
Like an atomic particle split in two, then four, then eight, then a millionth of a fraction…
It is forever…..
And it is enough for those of faith to reclaim all that there once was.
It is enough to spark a fire
In your soul it is enough to connect you to all that there was and all there shall be
Like a prayer from heaven it is a glimmering hope shining deep inside
One day there will be only one drop of blood left
And it is enough…