The truth about cats and dogs, not the movie version
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- September 29, 2024
- 451
Last week I read an article titled “What Immigrants Do Eat” (The Ink, by Anand Giridharadas), and I was startled once again to see many have fallen for one of the oldest tropes in the book.
It’s why the answer to “why do we continue to ask questions about race in 2024?” still needs answered. Because if we have to write response essays that explain what food immigrants do eat, racism is still alive and well and being used for gain.
I remember a moment in time somewhere in the ‘70s — the scenario and place shall not be named — but I recall the accusation that certain people were gathering bugs and adding them to their meals.
If they were, more power to them.
In Mexico there is a rich gastronomy centered around indigenous foods including insects.
“Within Mexico, the southern, central and southeastern states are the main producers and consumers of insects. Some examples are aphids, beetles, butterflies, grasshoppers, maguey worms, jumiles and escamoles. Its consumption, far from being considered a food of last resort, is done for its taste and tradition; people describe them as a clean, tasty and nutritious food that is also in abundance,” Regina Campos of Modern Mexican Mercadito wrote.
There is a restaurant in George’s town called La Gruta (The Cave) where we dined on a menu of delicacies that included insects. If you’ve never had a tasty salsa made from the maguey worm, you haven’t lived.
Eating cats and dogs who are pets — I did not want to write about this, but I cannot let it go — it’s the dehumanization and othering of immigrants to make you fear and despise them. Is this what we’ve come to? Or is this how it’s always been?
In politics the ones feeding you these lies seek your vote.
Unfortunately, immigrants and their foods have always been denigrated until they become mainstream.
Too much garlic.
Too much curry.
Too much chili pepper.
And then wham, we’re eating at taco trucks on every corner and can’t get enough. We eat pizza and butter chicken like we created it. We flock to Mexican restaurants because the cuisine is rapturous. But the roots stretch far back into the annals of history and how it all began because an immigrant brought their recipe to America and made it for others to enjoy.
And today, in 2024, some want us to believe legal Haitian immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. This, instead of digging further into the jump in the city’s population and what the growth meant in terms of expansion, and we wonder why questions about race are still being asked.
This lie has been debunked yet persists.
Many in Holmes County come from European roots. We brought our recipes with us. At some point the yeasty breads and potato recipes might have been looked on with suspicion. But because it’s what we knew, we kept cooking and adapting — until it was part of the framework of the area.
Imagine if we had embraced the Native Americans in our area and learned their cooking. American gastronomy would look and taste much different if we hadn’t labeled it and them as savage.
Only those who experience this type of racism know it has never quite gone away. And every once in a while, it rears its ugly head in astonishing fashion.
Yesterday I cleaned 25 poblano peppers, given to me by a wonderful, prolific gardener. I charred them, scraped the skin, removed the seeds and gently stuffed cheese inside them. Then I rolled them in flour, battered them in a meringue that had the egg yolks gently folded back in and fried them until puffy. I blended tomatoes and salt and made a sauce, which I ladled into my Dutch oven with the peppers. Poblanos are tricky. They can be spicy or mild, and you don’t want to overpower them with a heavy sauce. The sauce must be gentle, enough to cradle the pepper, enhance it, not smother it. Then I let it simmer.
Eating a dish like this for the first time is a kind of nirvana you can’t describe. It’s an opening of the senses, a creation of new pathways for your tastebuds, something unknown. I sat at my mother-in-law’s table in Mexico when I had my first bite of chiles rellenos. I sat under her tutelage. I learned and observed.
There are people who will benefit if you fear immigrants and their food. Just turn on the TV or the radio. It’s a constant.
I, for one, will be at my house and in restaurants trying new-to-me cuisines. We cannot end racism and its evil roots until we end it within ourselves. We just have to want to identify that it exists there and blow it into oblivion.