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FRIDA'S FIESTAS -- RECIPES AND REMINISCENCES OF LIFE WITH FRIDA KAHLO |
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SEPTEMBER: THE NATIONAL HOLIDAYS
A tricolor rebozo tied in a bow, for the Independence Day celebrations. For Frida as for all Mexicans, September was "the patriotic month." She threw herself into the festivities with her customary energy and excitement. At the beginning of the month she started buying little flags of green, white, and red cloth and distributing them around the house. She stuck them in the fruit centerpieces at meals, in her still lifes, and in the planters that lined the U-shaped hallway leading to the garden. She liked to buy little papier-mache caps modeled on late-nineteenth-century Mexican Army hats. She also bought wooden swords and cardboard bugles in green, white, and red and made gifts of them to the children who lived in huts hidden among the cornfields by the house. For me, the 1942 holidays were unforgettable. On September 15, we went to the Mexican Night that the authorities of Coyoacan organized every year at the Centenary Park. The next morning we watched the military parade in the center of town, and we ended the day with a grand dinner to which my father had invited his old friends, comrades all in the Nationalist struggles. This was a dinner for politicians. Among those in attendance were ex-President Emilio Portes Gil, Narciso Bassols, several times member of the presidential cabinet, the former Secretary of Agriculture Marte R. Gomez, the economist Gilberta Loyo, the engineer Juan de Dios Bojorques, and, of course, Juan O'Gorman, the young architect and revolutionary painter. Frida began her preparations for "going to the chapel" with don Diego on the afternoon of September 15. She dressed as the richest matron from the Isthmus of Oaxaca, choosing an authentic Tehuana dress with a traditional red embroidered yellow huipil, a black silk brocade skirt with a white flounce, and a golden yellow rebozo, also of silk. She put flowers in her hair and wore eight of her favorite rings and the golden chain that my father had bought for her in Tehuantepec. When night fell we took a stroll through the cobblestone streets of old Coyoacan in the company of friends. We headed for Centenary Park, where the annual fair was held. There were rides, fireworks, little cardboard bulls bristling with firecrackers, and the star attraction, the sideshow, where comedians poked fun at the politicians and local gentry while the audience sang raunchy songs in accompaniment. This sideshow held special charm for Frida. From the moment she set foot in it, she did her best to add to the ongoing exchange of wisecracks and jokes. My father was delighted to be there; he, too, joined the action and laughed hard at his young wife's witty remarks. The actors soon figured out who they were and began improvising on the themes of Frida's beauty and her fat husband's ugliness. The audience roared. I felt mortified and embarrassed for my father, but be took it all in stride, putting up gallantly with the teasing. When the show was over we melted into the dense crowd pressing toward the concessions that had been set up around the garden. We intended to try each and every one of the Mexican delights that the women from the market were peddling. Early the next morning we piled into my father's Ford station wagon. My father wanted to watch the parade in the center of town and make sketches. We got home in time for Frida to set the table and prepare for the arrival of don Diego's friends. Since all of them were Nationalists and authentic patriots, Frida had asked Eulalia, her wonderful cook, to make some of the dishes that were customary at the time of the National Holidays, especially a number of Frida's personal favorites: a kind of fish soup made with snapper, "national flag rice," and chiles in walnut sauce. The ingredients that go into all of these dishes are the colors of the Mexican flag. There is an interesting story about the origin of chiles in walnut sauce, the most famous dish of Puebla cuisine. It is said that one of the first presidents of Mexico visited the capital of the state (also called Puebla) one September early in the nineteenth century, shortly after the struggle for political independence had been won. In their determination to please him, the women of Puehla invented something unique to add to the feast of regional dishes: famous chiles in walnut sauce. These are basically poblano chiles stuffed with picadillo, covered in a sauce of fresh-ground nuts, and garnished with pomegranate seeds. In honor of the President of Mexico, the dish combined the green of the chiles, the white of the ground nuts, and pomegranate red. Frida set the table with her best white Puebla ware, which featured a cobalt blue rim and the initials F and D in the same color. She brought out blue blown-glass tumblers and pitchers in the same style filled with patriotically colored drinks -- the green lime water, white rice water, and red Jamaica flower water. In September the markets abound in green, white, and red prickly pears from the country's semiarid regions, and the limes are said to be sweeter and juicier there. Frida chose a Tehuantepec bowl decorated with flowers for the centerpiece. She made it into a still life composed of the above-mentioned fruits stuck with little Mexican flags and two or three quartered pomegranates. As if by magic, the centerpiece became one of Frida's paintings. The guests were clearly delighted by these specialties of the house. In the end, it was impossible to know whether they were more entertained by the endless conversation, during which everyone restated their revolutionary ideals and seconded the great painter Rivera's views on the current crisis in Mexican politics, or by the painter Kahlo's splendid cooking.
The entrance to Centenary Park in Coyoacan, where Frida would go for morning strolls.
The dining room of Antonio and Francesca Saldivar's Colonial house, where Frida's Independence Day fiesta was re-created. MENU Snapper Soup
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