Tastes Like Home
All photographs by Elisa Garcia.
By Elisa Garcia
Growing up in a Mexican-American household means your mom had frijoles on the stovetop when you came home from school but you asked for bologna and cheese sandwiches on white bread as a kid to fit in with your peers. It means understanding that you can in fact enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tortas. The best of both worlds.
Food has always been a way to connect with my family. Whether it was helping my grandmother assemble tamales with my small hands, rolling out sugar cookie dough with my nina, or rolling up taquitos with my mom. It was how we showed love. It was how we embraced our heritage.
When I moved to Reno as a child, some of these traditions became old memories. But those memories helped me evolve into the baker of the family. Figuring out how many things I could create with flour, sugar, and butter opened a whole new world of sweets for me. I used my family as guinea pigs trying recipes I had only seen in panaderia windows. I knew the taste I was looking for but didn’t have the recipes. That’s not to say I don’t pull out my Aunt Natalie’s banana bread recipe card anymore, but I learned how to appreciate both old and new.
I began doing the same thing with poetry. I took memories and stories and turned them into something to share. In the same way that a recipe can be passed from one generation to the next, our stories can too. Poetry and baking are taking ingredients inherited and making something new. Something that still tastes like home.
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Cafecito and Conchas
I grew up in a house that had pan dulce for breakfast on Sundays.
I would rise from my bed, smelling fresh coffee brewing,
and see a plate of colorful pan dulce waiting.
I loved the orejas, held them up to my ears, and became an elephant,
made the puerquito oink as it walked along my plate,
but my favorite were the conchas.
Vibrant pink shell,
sometimes as big as my head.
I would crack it open,
admiring the airy loaf.
Would pour milk into a mug large enough to dunk the sweet bread under,
bubbling till it was just right.
Would sneak in sips of my own “coffee,”
mostly cream with a splash of dark roast.
I wished to be a grown-up long before I knew what that meant.
Sometimes, if I pick up bread from the panadería after church,
I can close my eyes
and remember the table from my L.A. home.
Elisa Garcia is a Mexican-American writer and spoken word artist who was born in Los Angeles and has been shaping the Reno poetry scene since 2009. She is the current City of Reno Poet Laureate and a proud member of the Spoken Views Collective. She is the first Latina Poet Laureate. Elisa has guided young poets at Brave New Voices and made history as part of Reno’s first-ever team to compete at the National Poetry Slam. Through her poetry, she delves into family, identity, and the tender journey of self-acceptance - using her words as both resistance and a path to healing. Now based in Reno, she facilitates writing workshops, curates special events, and occasionally taps into her competitive roots on the slam stage.