Reflections and Connections: The Most Sensual Room in the Home

by Rob Adams
Contributing writer
Food is so much more than nourishment to body and soul. From choosing what to eat to the art forms applied during its preparation, it is the key pillar of any family’s culture no matter where on the planet they call home.
This life-sustaining activity is the workshop wherein the most powerful connections that bind generations of families are made. The process of putting food on the table is where traditions are formed, rituals codified, and ties woven.
I remember when I was just a kid listening to my mother’s description of Frances Jaramillo’s demonstration of Mexican cooking to the Relief Society.
Frances came to us from New Mexico and added spice to our community for 40 years while raising four children. One of the four, Manuel, is my age.
One day he brought to school a few homemade tortillas from his mom’s kitchen. Thats where I learned the remarkable difference between a mass-produced tortilla and one created at home in the old way, perfected by generations of love.
Frances began her demonstration with the staples, locally grown pinto beans and either pork or beef. She then added fresh vegetables including tomatoes, onions, garlic and whatever else deemed necessary to make the dish come to life.
When steam started to rise off the pot, she would pour the spices into the palm of her hand, combinations that might include ancho, coriander cumin, Mexican oregano maybe even some cinnamon or cacao.
She’d toss them in, stir a bit, inhale the aroma, spoon a taste to her tongue, toss some more, and stir, smell and taste again until it was perfect. After a few minutes all the ingredients softened and exposed their combined aroma to the room.
When one of the ladies blurted, “How are we supposed to know how much of all that stuff you’re tossing in?”
Frances looked up with a puzzled expression, then confidently proclaimed “Just keep adding bit by bit until it smells right, then taste it – you’ll know”.
Her comment reflects simply what she learned from her own mother many years before. Measuring cups and spoons aren’t important. Sensation is all that matters.
To a bunch of white ladies, this made no sense, but communicated an important truth – preparing a meal requires the full engagement of all five senses, not just eyes on a recipe card.
My tiny mother, Jewell Redd Adams, is a force of nature and repository of memory.
She has the reputation for making dinner rolls, though from her size, you’d never guess she ate many. That was our job.
She was asked to provide dinner rolls for countless funerals, wedding celebrations, family reunions and numerous other community events. Etched permanently in my memory are the days those rolls were baked.
Whose emotions aren’t stirred by the smells of that process? From the tangy fragrance of the yeast doing its work to the warm auras surrounding the oven as they are baked. Finally, they come out in a warm burst.
Then when mom’s not looking, I grab one, barely cool enough to handle if I’m quick. I break it open and bathe my face in that sensuous vapor. I drop a dollop of butter into the fold, then toss it morsel by morsel onto my tongue. I’ve died and gone to heaven.
The most sensual room in any home is the kitchen, whether it be a room enclosed by four walls with a modern oven, a tent on the plains, or a cookfire and cast-iron Dutch oven under a cedar tree.
The sights, sounds, smells, touches and above all, tastes coming from that space provide the magic threads that are slowly and gently woven into the fabric that make up our lives.
The same fabric binds the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their mothers across multiple generations since time began.
(Rob Adams is a San Juan County native who has spent much of his life outside the area dreaming of home.)