Text by: Carlos Dragonné
Experience lived by Elsie
Méndez
It is said that for knowing Morelia, you have
to walk it and, listening to those who live here, after a delicious
breakfast at the hotel’s terrace with a view of Madero Avenue that
points to everything in our way, I took the streets. It looks like, from
the first moment, a message is waiting for me to remember something. I
wonder what the message is between the buildings in this day that starts
now.
Madero Avenue takes me to what will be the first
encounter with nostalgic today. In front of me, imposing, is the
entrance to the Candy Museum, a huge building inside which the
recovering of history and tradition behind these delights, emblematic
part of the state and Mexico all around the world, becomes evident to my
eyes. I’m welcomed by Gerardo Torres, present director and owner of
both, the museum and factory, for besides being the guarding place of
such unique flavors, it is also the oldest factory in the country, for
it has been opened continuously since 1840, and it has passed from
family to family and from generation to generation until in 1939 it came
to Luis Villicaña, who taught his children and grandchildren the
urgency of not allowing modern times to prevail over the necessity of
these flavors. Here, amongst the cabinets, the halls and walls
overflowing with more than 300 varieties, watched by the staff that, as a
bonus credibility for our travel in time, wears the typical clothes
from the Porfirian era of late 19th and early 20th century. Gerardo
walks me to discover the main points of candies, from the moment they
were conceived by the colonial monks and, then, when recipes and
processes arrived at the old pink quarry stone mansions, where the
morelian families perfected the art of making ates, laminillas
(a very thin candy strip that comes in many flavors), rielcitos,
arrayan, and the Burnt Milk Marbles. This last ones is the most
recent adquisition to this vault of memories and ongoing traditions, as
Gerardo, with emotion and broken voice from it – which, of course, I
shared –, tells that this was a candy he enjoyed when he was a kid both
because the unique flavor and the long tie it took to finish it and
that, one day out of the blue, it disappeared from the stores in the
city. Convinced that it was something destined to be only in that corner
of the mind devoted to long lasting memories, a friend of his told him
about an old man that, far away from the growing city, between alleyways
of a distant community, still was making this particular candy and
that, neither his sons or grandsons, ever learned how to make. Torres
gets very emotional remembering what it was talking to him, tasting this
marbles again and, above all, listening as the old man shared the
recipe, not because the business implications, but a true conviction of
keeping this candy alive, the same that today is made between these
walls and, of course Gerardo’s favorite.
And this
is what everything looks like in Morelia: made for remembering the
origin of what we are and what makes us a country plethoric with history
and anecdotes that, as time passes, turn into legends. With a bag of
candies and a bottle of Rompope, I took the street again and start
walking back to downtown. Again, this feeling that the old mansions and
streets want to tell me something, overwhelms me as I walk slowly the
five blocks I’m from my destination. Arriving at main plaza in front of
the Cathedral, something got my attention and the first message was
clear. I left the bag with the candies and the bottle of Rompope down in
the floor and walk to a street vendor that, in exchange of a few pesos,
gave me back a piece of childhood and a giant smile. What did I bought?
Soap bubbles. Yes… that little jar with a mix of water and soap that
comes in a variety of colors which, after blowing through a little bent
wired – always wrapped in thread matching the color of the soap mix –
creates soap bubbles that float through the air until popping. There I
was, a grown up woman, playing and attempting to create either as many
bubbles as possible or the biggest ones, as kids from all ages run by my
side to get into the streams of the fountain in front of the Cathedral,
in what looks like a sort of everyday gaming ritual and something that
everyone around applaud, enjoy and share at any time. Amongst the
laughter, I was able to understand the first message that Morelia was
holding for me and what makes this city one of the most magical places
I’ve been in my travels through Mexico. Morelia was asking me for
childhood memories and timeless smiles.
Back in my
hotel, there was more to expect today. I’m convinced that every path in
our life cross in the right moment with others, and the roads we choose
to travel always have an upcoming and surprising result waiting for us.
Once again, I was about to prove it. The terrace at Los Juaninos
Hotel was the meeting place for a chat with Erick Legaria, a man that
has fought to rescue, support and defend the rightful place of the
Purepechan communities in the day by day life of the state. Behind his
gray greened eyes, Erick hides his look full of stories that took him to
get inside the communities for creating cultural programs and rescue
projects for traditions that, also, can make this communities self
sustainable. It is unavoidable being caught in the way he communicates
his thoughts, what he does and how he believes in the importance of
respecting the long lasting processes as he is trying to close the gap
between the indigenous communities of Michoacán to reclaim a rightfully
owned place. As we talk, Madero avenue stretches beyond our sight and,
aware that I’m hypnotized by this image, Erick points just in that
direction to tell me that it is there where the town of Santa Fe de la
Laguna is located, a place we will be traveling to the next day and in
which he is performing an amazing task with a project called Athesithu,
a word that, in Purepechan language means “Place of Chirimoyas”; and
where we will meet Berenice, a regional cook that, according to Erick,
will touch my heart. As afternoon disappears and night takes its place,
with the lights of Morelia highlighting the pink of its wuarry stone,
Erick and I hit the road for San Miguelito, a referent in the
scenery of morelian cuisine and, surely, a must in this or any other
visit to this town.
Managed by Cynthia Canelo, San
Miguelito is a real delight from the moment we walk through the
door. In its walls, Cynthia has captured the true spirit of a city that,
even today, struggles between its Mexican roots and the Hispanic
influence. In her own words, “It is the details of what we loved the
ones that we must take most care of”. Between a decoration that takes us
from the traditional Catrinas (a representation of death
created by José Guadalupe Posadas) and the carefully crafted shawls –
crafted, of course, by a regional artist – to the viceregal Mexico, our
table at the far end of what is called the “Old Maid Corner”, of which
I’ll tell you all about in other time, the dinner time passed better
than I have imagined. It was an evening between long time friends – even
when, most of us, have just met – talking about stories of Morelia, the
restaurant, the people and traditions and, most of all, what Michoacan
has to offer for the arriving traveler. Places and intermittent moments
of which I’ve never heard before, told by those who have made Morelia
his beating heart, enlighted the minutes between dishes, charanda and
regional mescal until the parting moment arrived. After everlasting
goodbyes, lengthen in a last attempt to squeeze the most of the moment, I
took the road back to my hotel.
Closing this day, the
message from Morelia was totally revealed at last as I closed my eyes to
recall every detail. The magnificent mansions, the scent of authentic
gastronomy, the laughter of people, the never lost childhood, but
expectant and watchful for those moments in which can be free again, the
slow and free walking on the sidewalks and, mostly, the warmth of the
people and the stories and traditions told in every corner, was calling
for me to remember my origins and my days as a child ina city very much
like this one, in which its streets saw me grow older between memories
and family as I trace my path that through which, years later, I
returned thanks to the magic of a city capable of remind us that, to
reach happiness, all we have to do is look back in our past, grab those
moments and, no matter where we are or how many years have passed, we
will always be able to repeat them with something as simple as some soap
bubbles thrown to the air between walls of pink quarry stone.
No comments:
Post a Comment