Sandra Cisneros’s grandfather didn’t hug, kiss, or even talk much—instead, he spoke through his handmade flour tortillas.
That’s what I thought I heard Grandpa Cordero say. Pure Dracula! And why not? He was a man who thrived in the twilight. Someone who rarely spoke, venturing from the kitchen or from his bedroom only to greet guests. “Buenos días, buenos dias, buenos dias.” Aapiece to each when welcoming us, shaking everyone’s hands, even the children’s, as if we were visiting dignitaries from a foreign country.
He wore work clothes all year round and squashed house slippers, a bandanna tied around his brow like the Apache, and, in the summer, he cut the sleeves off of his flannel shirts before Bruce Springsteen made it cool.Matachín Grandpa let the dough rise; then he pinched fistfuls, rolled them in his hands, and lined them up in rows like an army. After these troops had rested under a clean kitchen towel, he rolled them out into perfect moons with a wooden rolling pin.Grandpa pat-patted each tortilla in his calloused hands a few times to stretch them before placing them gently on the comal.
I think the memory of not having enough to eat must have haunted Grandpa forever, because he was never stingy with food. Ever. Sacks of oranges brought out from his bedroom off the kitchen when you least expected. Watermelons rolled out from under his bed. He spread newspapers on the kitchen table and on the floor and carved slices so wide we had to hold them with two hands, wedges so thick they hurt the corners of your mouth when you took a bite.The language he spoke fluently was food.
Grandpa Cordero left his birthplace during the worst violence of the Mexican Revolution, 1915, and like many immigrants, never returned to his homeland. But he planted seeds without realizing his harvest. He passed down to me his peanut butter tacos, his mistrust of authority, and his hunger for home.
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