A lesson on eating soup for breakfast

A lesson on eating soup for breakfast
                        

The bowl was deep, and the broth was dense, packed with a flavor so loud it rang in my ears as the warm liquid sluiced down my throat.

Chunks of vegetables, chickpeas and rice circled, coyly scattering only to settle on my round soup spoon, as I sought the scant chunks of flavorful cabrito. I had squeezed fresh lime and ladled raw onion into the liquid, along with spoonfuls of salsa made with bright cascabel chilies. And along with the charred tortillas I held in my hand, my tongue raged with heat — that beautiful heat.

It was 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday.

Up until my 20th year of living, I had never eaten soup for breakfast. There must have been some sort of ancient creed I grew up with that never allowed this to happen. Pancakes and bacon for supper? Any day. An omelette with mushrooms, ham, peppers and cheddar? All nights of the week. When I first sat at an oil cloth covered table in deep Mexico, its bright flowered pattern smiling up at me — nervous about new traditions and tastes — and had a steaming bowl of soup set before me, well, the world tilted on its axis.

While I most often like to step outside of any standard norm set before me, I never had to face the bias I had for breakfast foods being eaten at … breakfast. I would never consider eating tuna casserole with my coffee, nor would I order a chicken salad along with my eggs. I was a cereal-toast-dippy-eggs-hash-browns kind of morning eater, and I didn’t know how insular I was in my eating habits. Quite literally, my mind was ready to be blown.

Along with leftover soup of any kind, there were bowls of beautiful legumes: pinto, black, lentils. These were combined and expertly layered with the broth, onions, pork and other succulent flavorings. When you dip a freshly made corn tortilla directly into the hot liquid, there aren’t enough words to describe the warmth that spreads through you body.

Another glorious discovery was eggs, beaten heavily in a bowl, poured into a pan of hot oil and gently fried, awaiting their bath of blended tomatoes, onion and jalapeno. Eggs are a typical breakfast food, but not in Mexico. There they are whipped and stuffed and folded into glorious concoctions: huevos rancheros, breakfast tacos with chorizo or the luxurious chilaquiles. I soon overcame my “breakfast foods only at breakfast” hang-up.

Living in the states, especially our area, we’re left mourning the dearth of excellent Mexican cooking. We’ve searched high and low and are left wanting every single time. We’ve tried all the Mexican restaurants — 100 plates of chile rellenos and 1,000 plates of tacos — and we’ve found they cater only to the American taste buds. It doesn’t mean it isn’t good; it just means we know what we’re missing.

But in the last 10 years, with friends in certain places, we’ve been able to track down kitchen tables where we can pull up a chair, have a fat stack of tortillas steaming in a basket and bowl of steaming pozole or consommé set before us, and bask in the vapor that wafts into our nostrils.

Last Sunday I sat for a moment and let the steam wash over me. If I closed my eyes just long enough, I could imagine I was sitting at that small table of learning from my past, a bowl full of tender meat and carrots and hominy, maybe potatoes and calabacitas, a just-off-the-comal tortilla, the specks of char important to the spoonful of soup hovering near your mouth, ready to combine in an explosion of flavor.

The golden light of morning shone through the curtains as I sipped sweetened coffee with canela, its flavor like an embedded memory, and the soup slid down my throat. And I was satiated.


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