Vale más amigos que dinero en el banco.
Friends are worth more than money in the bank.
My mother and I make a special trip to Chimayó every fall, not to gather holy dirt at the famed santuario, but for something almost equally revered: Chimayó chile.
We’ve always relied on Chimayó friends and relatives to grow chile for us, since we don’t have farmland. In fact, our immediate family was separated from the land quite a while back, and we lost our self-sufficiency in chile. The separation began when my great-grandfather, Reyes Ortega, opened a weaving shop in Chimayó (he was the first to do so) and spent more time weaving and less in his extensive farmland in Chimayó and Truchas. Reyes continued to grow chile for his family’s consumption, though, and I have seeds from his plants. But when Grandma acquired land from him above the Acequia de los Ortegas and built her home there, she didn’t have access to irrigation water. Her three children didn’t grow up farming, although most of their neighbors and relatives did. (Grandma’s family did haul all their domestic water, including drinking water, in buckets uphill from the ditch.) Still, they all acquired a taste—you might say an addiction—for the homegrown chile from Chimayó.
Precious few in number are the farmers who still grow the old, “native” Chimayó varieties of chile. These small, crooked, but extremely flavorful chiles were decades ago supplanted in mainstream markets by hybridized varieties that are bigger, meatier—and, in my judgment, far less flavorful. Back in the first half of the twentieth century, chile from northern New Mexico dominated the national chile trade, but growers in Chimayó couldn’t compete when agricultural interests in southern New Mexico and in other states took up mechanized chile farming on a large scale. As has happened with much produce, by sheer economies of scale the big growers began to depress prices and to determine tastes at the consumer level. Chimayó chile was all but forgotten for some time.
Most Chimayó growers kept huertas of chile near their homes, even if they no longer grew chile for cash. They still do. We’re fortunate to have connections to some of these elite growers. For many years, our source was Sofía Trujillo in Rincón de los Trujillos, a Chimayó neighborhood not far from the Plaza del Cerro. Sofía’s husband, Genaro, was a son of Grandma’s Tía Senaida. This made Genaro Grandma’s primo and Sofía, her prima. Since Sofía was also a dear friend, she was under a certain obligation to offer us chile. But prima Sofía stopped growing chile years ago and has now passed on. For the past decade we’ve relied upon Tomasita. (I don’t give her full name because, with locally grown chile so scarce, I don’t want to reveal our current source.)
So, as we do every fall, we’re making our pilgrimage for chile. We turn on State Road 76 toward Española and pass by Trujillo’s Weaving Shop, a fine establishment set up by Grandma’s cousin Johnny Trujillo. We manage to resist the temptation (mine only) to stop in at the Chile Red Tavern, the only local bar in Chimayó, and we sail on down the highway, commenting here and there on familiar homes and landmarks: the ruins of Moose’s Bar, now just a pile of crumbled adobes; the roadside descanso for Tommy Martínez, killed at the spot over a drug deal gone bad; Orlando’s general store, the last of its kind in town (Orlando’s grandmother was my grandmother’s first cousin, so he’s another primo to call on now and then). After the estafeta or post office and the Holy Family Church, we turn up “Tomasita’s arroyo,” as we call it.
The general neighborhood here is anchored by a local chapel, La Capilla de Nuestra Señora de los Dolores. In deference to this old capilla, this part of Chimayó is often called the Plaza de Dolores, although there is no recognizable plaza anymore. The neighborhood is also referred to as Plaza de Abajo, the Plaza Below. The Dolores chapel is similar in size to the several others in the valley, from Santa Cruz all the way to Potrero—perhaps a dozen in all, each dedicated to its own santo patrón (patron saint). For most of the valley’s history, these chapels served the religious needs of extended families or small neighborhoods, since the nearest official branch of the Catholic Church was in Santa Cruz de la Cañada, ten miles down the road—a long haul, in the days of horse and wagon. The Holy Family Church and Parish were designated in Chimayó in the 1960s, just across the road from the Dolores chapel.
Visitors to Chimayó assume the santuario is the primary Catholic church in Chimayó and the seat of the local parish, since it is the focus of the famous pilgrimage and the destination for most tourists coming to Chimayó. But the santuario was for many decades just another of these neighborhood chapels, albeit the largest. (In fact, it belonged to my ancestors in the Chávez line, descendants of Bernardo Abeyta, the founder of the church.) This misconception irked our late cousin Modesto Vigil so much that he often made it a point on Good Friday to walk against the flow of the pilgrim traffic, away from the santuario toward the Holy Family Church, excoriating the pilgrims. “You’re going the wrong way!” he would shout at the thousands of walkers streaming along the highway. “The sacraments are in the other church, not the santuario!” He was correct, of course; the santuario is but a mission administered from the parish center a few miles down the road. But his single-handed crusade was in vain.
Few drivers on Highway 76 even notice the lovely white capilla dedicated to the Señora de los Dolores, standing in an apple orchard across the highway from the new church. We pass it by, too, as we hurry along and turn up Tomasita’s arroyo and into her driveway. Tomasita comes out of her house to welcome us. I can feel myself slowing down to Chimayó time again as she walks toward us, waving and smiling.
It’s not for the money that Tomasita grows chile. And it’s not just for the chile that we come to visit her. Now in her late seventies, Tomasita works hard taking care of the finicky plants through the heat of summer. She did this almost single-handedly for years while her husband worked away in Los Alamos. He’s gone now, and her kids are busy working most of the time. That leaves Tomasita alone in the huerta more often than not.
The art of raising chiles came to Tomasita through her father, Fidel Coriz, who planted his chile in the nearby plaza of La Cuchilla. In those days, Tomasita and her family had to work the chile well into the fall, tying ristras that her father would take to the Bond and Nohl store in Española to exchange for much-needed cash or for goods. It was for the money, then. Tens of thousands of ristras shipped out each year from Española on the railroad called, appropriately enough, the Chile Line (or, more formally, the Denver & Río Grande Western).
Chile ristras have been valued as trade items in New Mexico for a long time. One of our family papers, written in 1850, mentions two chile ristras, along with a long list of other items, as payment for the funeral Mass of María Pascuala Romero, my great-great-great-grandfather’s mother-in-law.
Now Tomasita admits she sometimes wonders why she labors away at growing chile, especially when the Acequia del Distrito (the “District Ditch,” the large ditch that comes from the Santa Cruz Irrigation District dam) is dry and the plants are thirsty, or when the weeds are thick and there’s no one to help hoe them. There’s a young child in the house, too, Tomasita’s grandson, for whom she cares while her daughter is away working. Between the child and the chiles and recovering from the recent loss of her husband, Tomasita seems a bit worn as she calls out the customary Chimayó greeting, “Get down!”—meaning to get out of the car and come in for a sit in the sala (salon or living room) of her house. It’s a ritual that happens in just about every visit to Chimayó. We simply must take the time to relax and partake in the plática. It’s about checking in with the gente, I’m reminded again.
Warm embraces all around are followed with “¿Cómo ha estado?—How have you been?” and “Oh, pretty good,” followed by a general health report. Then Tomasita says, “Pasen, pasen.—Come in, come in.”
I’m anxious to learn the family connections, so I ask. I’m amazed at the answer that spills out, from both Mom and Tomasita, a tangle of names and relationships that leaves me dizzy.
“It goes back to Severo Martínez,” Mom says, “who married Leonides Ortega’s daughter; Leonides was your great-grandpa Reyes’s sister. Leonides’s daughter died and left a baby girl named Fidelita. Then Severo married another of Leonides’s daughters, named Julianita. So he married two sisters, see?”
I don’t see, even though I’ve had all this explained to me before. But Tomasita picks up the thread: “Severo’s parents were Epifanio and María de los Ángeles Martínez. Besides Severo they had Petrita, Sabina, Faustina, and Cayetano. Petrita had Bernardita, my mother, as well as Evangelia, Pula, Manuel, Ascensión, and Juliana. Therefore Petrita was Fidelita’s aunt, Bernardita’s first cousin, and my second cousin.”
“But none of these had Ortega blood, except for Fidelita,” Mom points out, “because she was Leonides’s granddaughter. Severo by his second wife, Julianita, had Pulita, Seledón, Antonio, Oralia, and Susie. I think there was another girl between Oralia and Susie. Leonides had Francisco, Miguel, Romana, and Gregoria, besides the one that died and Julianita. Gregorita’s husband’s name was Eugenio; they were Orlando’s parents.”
“I knew Gregorita, and of course I know Orlandito,” I interject, using the diminutive form of Orlando, as my grandmother used to refer to him. “Gregorita was Grandma’s cousin. But I still don’t see how she was related to Tomasita.”
“She wasn’t, really. Tomasita’s grandmother, Petrita, was a sister-in-law to Gregorita’s mother, Julianita. So Tomasita’s mother was Gregorita’s cousin, through marriage.”
“So we’re not related, really?” I ask.
“No, but we’re primos!” Mom and Tomasita laugh.
I’m totally dumbfounded that these women can remember so many names and connections, and I’m ready to move on to the chile.
Tomasita has two houses: one where she lives and one where she processes and stores her chile. She and her husband built the smaller “chile house” by themselves soon after they were married, and they later built the house where she now lives. Both places have salas apportioned with soft sofas and easy chairs, with rows of family photos and religious images on the walls. I get the feeling the chile house has become a kind of refuge for Tomasita.
We enter the sala in the chile house. It’s late fall and very cool inside, since the place is unheated to keep the chile fresh. It reeks of chile peppers—an old, familiar, and intoxicating fragrance that stirs nostalgia—and puts us in the mood for buying and eating chile.
We sit, and the conversation continues, in Spanish then English then back, about the weather, the family, with always kind words of remembrance about my grandmother, who was very close to Tomasita’s mother, Bernardita—hence the privilege of getting to buy the cleanest, brightest, most pungent and flavorful red chile powder I’ve ever seen. But we don’t mention chile at all at first; it would be impolite to rush to the transaction. (As Mom says when I try to rush past formalities like this, “¡Quieres pasar la acequia antes de llegar a la puente!—You want to cross the ditch before you get to the bridge!”) We’ve come for the talk, for the reconnection, to check up on each other, as much as for the magical substance as red as blood that will consummate our friendship.
Eventually we’ve touched on all the important topics, covered all the recent deaths and illnesses, lamented all the terrible losses and celebrated all the new gains (like Tomasita’s darling but very demanding grandchild). We finally turn to the chile—and the news, at first, is not good. We’ve come late in the season, and Tomasita has sold out all her chile, not to mention the few dozen ristras she tied. I try not to look disappointed.
But then Tomasita brightens and says, “I’ll sell you some of mine,” suggesting the nearly unthinkable possibility she would break into her own stash for us. “Oh no,” Mom protests, “We don’t want you to do that.”
“No te acongojes—Don’t worry,” Tomasita insists. “Anyway, I kept a few extra pounds, just in case.” As she leads us to the back room, I imagine it’s something like entering a private wine cellar in Provence.
Tomasita reaches into a box and extracts four or five one-pound baggies of chile powder while my mother continues to protest and I scowl at her to stop resisting.
“Will this be enough?” Tomasita asks.
“Of course, of course,” Mom replies, graciously accepting at last.
“Do you like chile caribe?” Tomasita asks me as she surveys the stores in her fragrant chile hoard, looking for something to gift us.
“I love it,” I blurt out, unable to hide my greed at the prospect of getting hold of this special grind of chile. (Mom gives me a look that says, “Te ofrece almohada y quieres colchón.—She offers you a pillow and you want a mattress,” a dicho that is roughly equivalent to “She gives you an inch and you want a mile.”) Chile caribe looks like the flakes that come in shakers on tables in Italian restaurants; it’s made by grinding up dried pods very loosely, rather than taking them to the mill for a fine grinding. Grandma simply used to crumple chiles in her hands or crush them with a pastry roller to make caribe. Caribe has a tangy, sharp flavor distinct from the taste of the fine-ground chile powder, even though both grinds of chile come from the same pods.
Everyone has their special chile obsession. For some it’s fresh green. For others, it’s caribe. For me, it’s Tomasita’s red chile molido (ground red). Still, caribe is a special treat, not to be passed up. It reminds me of mornings with Grandma, who often fixed chile caribe with eggs and papas for breakfast. Tomasita says, “I’ll just give you this,” handing me a plump pound of chile caribe.
Before our transaction with Tomasita can be consummated, we have a final ritual to perform. I open a baggy of the chile molido and stick in a moistened finger, then transfer the pinch of crimson powder to my tongue. A sweet sharpness floods my mouth and relays into my nasal passages and then down my throat, leaving a satisfying, lingering warmth. It’s fresh, pure, real—not that I ever doubted that it would be. Tomasita roasted and then cleaned each pod by hand, removing every seed and bit of stem or leaf. She took her harvest to the miller in Río Chiquito and saw to it that the pods were ground to just the right consistency.
Mom repeats the finger-dunking ritual. The product of Tomasita’s labors is coursing through our systems like fiery tracers in a dark sky. This is satisfaction. After abrazos all around, we place the comfortingly hefty bags in our car and head back toward Santa Fe.
Cada oveja con su pareja.
Each sheep with its partner. (Everyone has a like-minded friend.)
Cuídame de mis amigos que de mis enemigos yo me cuidaré.
Protect me from my friends, for I will protect myself from my enemies. (Some friends are worse than enemies.)
Dádivas quiebran peñas.
Gifts break rocks. (You can break down a person’s animosity with gifts.)
Dime con quién andas y yo te diré quién eres.
Tell me who you hang around with, and I’ll tell you who you are. (You are known by the company you keep.)
El más amigo es traidor.
The friendliest one is a traitor. (Beware of overly friendly people.)
Él que a buen árbol se arrima, buena pedrada le dan.
He who moves close to a good tree gets hit hard. (Said of one who tries to get in with people of higher class and is painfully snubbed.)
Esos son desaires que se agradecen.
That is a snub that is welcomed. (You did me a favor by rebuffing me.)
Más moscas se cazan con miel que con vinagre.
More flies are caught with honey than with vinegar.
Nadie puede obligar a quien lo quieran.
You can’t force anyone to like you.
No le debo ni los buenos días.
I don’t even owe him a “Good morning.” (The time for civility has passed.)
No quiere al indio pero el guayabe, sí.
He might not like the Indian, but he likes the piki bread the Indian makes. (Said of someone who doesn’t want anything to do with a person, but will gladly take what the person has to offer.)
Que se empine pa’ el Norte pa’ que le caiga la nieve de golpe.
Let him bend to the north so the snow will hit him with full force. (Stubbornness is rewarded with consequences.)
Vale más amigos que dinero en el banco.
Friends are worth more than money in the bank.
Vale más solo que mal acompañado.
Better to be alone than with bad companions.
Vale más un vecino cerca que pariente lejos.
It is better to have a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.