From a young age, certain foods and ingredients would be woven into the stories that my father would tell me about his own formative years as a first-generation Mexican immigrant. He was second-to-youngest in a family of 16 that would travel around the country as migrant workers, following the crops and eating dishes resourcefully made from the fruits and vegetables that they would pick, utilizing the same cooking methods as their ancestors before them.
A bold-flavored salsa roja crafted using an ancient Mexican mortar and pestle isn’t just something to eat with chips; it’s the same salsa my grandmother would make. Husk-wrapped tamales, plump with filling and spices, will always be synonymous with family and Christmas. And a perfectly charred flour tortilla toasted on a comal is, in my opinion, truly the only way to enjoy one.
Once I moved out and lived on my own, I found myself holding on to the culinary traditions that I was raised with, partly out of comfort and partly out of pride for my heritage as a Latina.
In order to keep the magic and meaning of my culture’s food alive, and more importantly, to share it with people that might not be familiar, I gathered the cooking gadgets of my childhood into the following list. Each of these tools are endowed with a deep-rooted history and have been used in the kitchens of Mexican households 100 times over, including my own.
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