In Praise of Older Women: Aquascalientes, Cicero

In Praise of Older Women: Aquascalientes, Cicero

Lately, I've been getting cooking tips, mostly non-verbal, from older women; by older, I mean like over 65; by women, I mean mostly African-American and Hispanic.

Recently, I learned how to cook tasty greens and make good beans by speaking with or, more often, watching how older women shop and the kinds of choices they make.

Today, at Aquascalientes, my favorite local Hispanic grocery, I was hovering around the carnitas, resplendent in a grease-streaked display case. I opened the lid, and grabbed two meaty hunks, glistening and steaming. I was pretty happy with my catch. Then an older Hispanic woman sidled up and eyed the pork. I stepped back, deferentially, and she jumped in, picking expertly at the gnarled black curls that carpeted the bottom of the cooking pan. She eschewed the kind of big beige hunks I had gone after. She filled her paper container and disappeared, leaving me looking downcast at what I had thought were excellent picks from the meat pile. Rethinking myself, I went back in and pulled off some of the frayed strips of blackened flesh that spread across the pan and all along the exterior of the piggie, scrapping the bottom of the pan to excavate porcine stalagmites.

At home, youngest daughter and wife concurred: they liked the crispy, darkened meat better than the inner, moister, whiter meat (though they liked both cuts a lot; the carnitas today were outstandingly good). This darker meat was thickened with pan drippings, chewy with richness; the spongy threads had absorbed the essence of the pig. The lighter meat, while it was moist and delicious, lacked the tasty dimensions and rugged, toothsome texture of the funky dark strands.

So what have I learned? What I learned is that my knee-jerk response is pathetically "American": if it's bigger and blander, it seems to be my first choice. This is a sad conclusion: I'd like to think that I would (at this point in my eating life) be immediately attracted to food that's smaller and taster, more colorful and more flavorful, or simply more interesting. I guess this is a lesson that I'm going to have to keep learning. I am resolved to just stand back, watch older women work, and keep trying to get it right.

Aquascalientes
5901 Roosevelt Road
Cicero, IL
708-656-6503

In praise of women of a certain age:

'Galina vecchia fa buon brodo'

Translation: Old hens make good soup.

MMMMM....Pork Gribness

Steve Drucker wrote:In praise of women of a certain age:

'Galina vecchia fa buon brodo'

Translation: Old hens make good soup.

Hey Steve,

The quote makes a great point about several things, including food. It's long been my belief that older stuff does, indeed, make better soup (e.g., old vegetables seem to yield a more pleasing broth than fresh green stuff, and, as the quote suggests, gnarly old birds seem preferable in soup to spring chicks).

I have examined McGee and other sources to try to locate a food science explanation for why the older stuff actually makes a better soup than younger stuff. So far, I just know that it does.

Hammond

PS. "Vecchia," as I understand the meaning of the word (Antonius or Alphonsus, correct me if I'm wrong) is actually closer in meaning to "decrepit" than "old." Still, the point holds.

David Hammond wrote: "Vecchia," as I understand the meaning of the word (Antonius or Alphonsus, correct me if I'm wrong) is actually closer in meaning to "decrepit" than "old." Still, the point holds.

I can't vouch for the translation. But here's how it came about:

The saying originated with a neighborhood guy, Clem Savarro, who had a landscaping business. Years later, when we opened the restaurant, we thought it would be neat to put it up in neon. Unfortunately, the only way we knew how to say it in Italian was in dialect, and sure as hell we couldn't spell it. The girlfriend of one the waiters was Italian born, from Florence I believe. She did the translation back to Italian -- after she heard it from us in dialect and in English.

Since she was about 90% bi-lingual, we took her word at face value, and got this old neon guy (a true artist) to do it up. He even made us a neon chicken. We still have the sign, too, although its currently boxed up.

...geez, everything's a story.

I'm no Romance linguist, but I've alwayd understood "i vecchi" to be simply at the other end of the age spectrum from "i giovani." As in Spanish, i.e., "viejo," the term when used to address someone would seem to connote a gentle ribbing, maybe like "old-timer," rather than disrespect. Then again, Latin folks are much more up front/less hung up about recognizing things like superannuation and corpulence, at least in others.

As JeffB says, vecchio is just the opposite of giovane for the most part, but of course terms like that easily take on various affective shades of meaning in certain contexts. The term vecchia, as a noun meaning 'old woman', which DavidH mentions, probably does generally carry with it an indication of decrepitude or at least frailness, as well as other qualities that one could imagine being tied to the phrase "old woman" in English.

By the way, in SteveD's post there's a little typo that should be noted for those who like the expression and don't know any Italian: the word for 'chicken' or 'hen' here has two l's: 'gallina'. Hearty thanks to him for this really beautiful and multi-levelled little expression.

One of the many things I lament about the 'cultural development' (increasing gravity of illness is also a sort of development) in this country is the almost complete loss of command for most people of traditional, proverbial expressions, our English analogues to the Italian gem that SteveD has cited here. Given that many such expressions deal with agriculture or nature or old trades and handicrafts, they easily can become outdated for people who live in modern, industrial and urban settings; these expressions lose first some of their force and, in some cases, they also can over time lose all their meaning as people's experiences becoming increasingly removed from the things and practices around which the proverbial expressions are built. But many of these expressions can survive a long time in a literate society and, indeed, it seems to me that the loss or garbled reinterpretation of proverbial expressions is quite pronounced here in the US and much less so in England (or, for that matter, elsewhere in Europe).

That's why we should "ride the crust of the wave..."

And remember, "the proof is in the pudding..."


A

In a small effort to include some American history, the following was attributed to Benjamin Franklin:

In praise of older women: they don't yell. they don't swell and they're grateful as hell.

I googled to check if this may be urban legend, where I found Old Mistresses Apologue - Letter, June 25, 1745

If you live long enough, you grow old whether you want to or not!

Well, since we're tossing out quotes about older women, here's one we included on recently invitations to a birthday party for my mother.

Older women are like aging strudels'the crust may not be so lovely, but the filling has come at last into its own.

-Robert Farrar Capon, priest-chef

My favorite part is being able to attribute the quote to a "priest-chef". My sister and I thought this quote was hilarious. Others, surprisingly to me, just comment that it's a lovely quote, with no indication they find it humorous in the least.

Cheers,

Aaron

Mexico, where I lived for many years, has some of the wisest "dichos" I've ever heard. Of course, "Gallina vieja hace buen caldo" is a popular saying. Here is one of my favorites on the topic of older things:

Mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo

This is one of those sayings that is much better in the original language, but its meaning to me is; "the devil knows so much because he is old rather than because he is the devil". The more I think about this one (and the older I get) the more I like it.

Bill/SFNM:

That's a very good one too.

The theme here really is more 'vecchio/viejo' but I'm having trouble rremembering any that have to do with old women or old people in general. Anyway, for the chickens out there, lest they feel a little neglected, let me pick up on that theme with the following saying from (central/southern) Italy:

Il gallo che canta male � quello che canta di pi�.

"The rooster who sings badly is the one who sings the most."

A quasi-universal truth is expressed in this saying but it also reveals something of the fatalistic view of life and society that Italians traditionally have had.

A