I’m a big fan of the Stuff White People Like blog — I’ve known a lot of white people who seemed sort of bummed that they didn’t have an “ethnic” background other than being able to say things like “my great-great-grandparents were from, like, Poland.” Embrace the whiteness. Wear your sweaters and shorts while you study French abroad.
Anyway, reading it made me think that someone should start a Stuff Brown People Like blog, something similar to that “Ask a Mexican” column. I nominate Stella because she always reminds me of the things I know about brown people, but often forget. Like when I went over to have barbecued goat at her parents’ house and I got really full from the goat and the sausage and the chicken and the rice and the potato salad and the pan de polvo. As I was preparing to waddle out to the car, she said, “Hold on, I’ll fix you a plate.”
Now, don’t ever try to leave a Mexican’s house after a party without taking a plate. One, it can’t be done — no one will let you. Two, it’s bad form, as the English (white people!) would say. All I wanted was a little goat, because my mom wanted some. But that’s not how it works. Somehow I ended up with 2 plates … and a bag of cookies. Stella kept dashing around the kitchen, spooning and spearing and sliding food onto the paper plates before wrapping them with foil. I kept saying, “I don’t need that much, really. I’m only going to be here another day — that’s enough food for a week.” Like a true Mexican, Stella continued, oblivious to everything I said.
Ken said, “What’s the deal with plates? Every person who’s come over here has left with a plate.”
And Stella said, “You have to take a plate. That’s just how it is.”
And it’s true. My grandmother leaves every family function with a plate, sometimes more if she doesn’t want meat flavors mingling with the cake or if one of my aunts or uncles couldn’t come or if she has a health care provider who can’t cook and she wants to have extra meals around. And truthfully, if Stella and Ken had been at my house, I would’ve been thrusting food upon them as well. I guess that makes me a real Mexican, too.
1 response so far ↓
esthela // July 31, 2008 at 6:47 am
This weekend at my mom’s house, In the valley–duh!–she saw a neighbor walking down the street through the window and made me run outside to have her come in. She waved back and said she was going to the other neighbor’s and she’d swing by on her way back. On her way back, we were sitting down to eat and we practically assaulted her (I helped) until she sat down and had a meal with us. And not just any meal, but you know–a meal with 5 times more food than you can ever possibly eat in a lifetime. I could tell by her expression while she ate that she had absolutely no room and I’m 100% positive that it’s because she probably just had a similiar meal at the house she had just come from. Arriba!