Ashley Dyer Friday April 29, 2010
Quote Search: Rituals
Preparation of Food
1. Preparation of onion for Christmas Rolls – “Take care to chop the onion fine. To keep from crying when you chop it (which is so annoying!), I suggest you place a little bit on your head. The trouble with crying over an onion is that once the chopping gets you started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can’t stop.” (pg. 5) - the preparation of the onion is hard, seeing that it causes people to cry. The ritual of preparing onions introduces the theme of crying. Tita was supposedly very sensitive to onions and whenever they were chopped she would cry, even in her Mother’s belly. Her violent onion-induced wails eventually bring on an early labor and Tita was supposedly swept into the world amidst a flood of tears (magical realism), which foreshadows her miserable life.
2. Preparation of sausages for Christmas Rolls – “The sausage for the rolls must be fried over very low heat, so that it cooks thoroughly without getting too brown. When done, remove from the heat and add the sardines, which have been deboned ahead of time. Any black spots on the skin should also have been scraped off with a knife. Combine the onions, chopped chiles, and the round oregano with the sardines. Let the mixture stand before filling the rolls.” (pg. 9) – this ritual seems hard and time consuming. You must be very careful to follow the directions carefully and exactly so the food will turn out good. Seeing that Christmas rolls are her favorite food, Tita enjoys this ritual enormously because of the pleasant aroma created by the food. Tita believes that the first time she smelled this wondrous fragrance was when she was still in her Mother’s belly (magical realism), and it persuaded her to trade the peace of ethereal existence in Mama Elena’s belly for life as Mama Elena’s daughter.
3. Making of sausages – “On Mama Elena’s ranch, sausage making was a real ritual. The day before, they started peeling garlic, cleaning chiles, and grinding spices. All the women in the family had to participate: Mama Elena; her daughters, Gertrudis, Rosaura, and Tita; Nacha, the cook; and Chencha, the maid. They gathered around the dining-room table in the afternoon, and between the talking and the joking the time flew by until it started to get dark. Then Mama Elena would say: “That’s it for today.” For a good listener, it is said, a single word will suffice, so when they heard that, they all sprang into action. First they had to clear the table; then they had to assign tasks: one collected the chickens, another drew water for breakfast from the well, a third was in charge of wood for the stove. There would be no ironing, no embroidery, no sewing that day.” (pg. 9-10) – sausage making seems like a complicated, arduous, and time consuming task that needs many people to participate. This quote shows Mama Elena’s authority over the ranch as she is the one that decides when it is time to stop and everyone starts cleaning up without questioning her. It also indicates the role of women in society and the things they are expected or often do. These tasks involve: preparing food, cleaning, ironing, embroidery, sewing, etc.
4. Preparation of eggs for Chabela Wedding Cake – “Place five egg yolks, four whole eggs, and the sugar in a large bowl. Beat until the mixture thickens and then add two more whole eggs; repeat, adding the remaining eggs two at a time until all the eggs have been added. To make the cake for Pedro and Rosaura’s wedding, Tita and Nacha had to multiply this recipe by ten, since they were preparing a cake not for eighteen people but for 180. Therefore, they needed 170 eggs, which meant they had to arrange to have that number of good eggs on the same day. To get that number of eggs together, they preserved all the eggs laid by the best hens for several weeks…The eggs are placed in a cask containing crumbled sheep fodder, allowed to cool, and then covered completely…When she had beaten barely a hundred eggs, the phenomenal energy required for the task began to have a bad effect on Tita’s mood. To reach the goal of 170 seemed unimaginable.” (pg. 25-26) – the process for making the wedding cake for Rosaura and Pedro’s wedding definitely required a lot of time, seeing that it was prepared for a larger number of people than usual and the number of ingredients had to be multiplied by ten. The fact that Tita had to prepare the cake for the wedding is ironic, seeing that the wedding is between her sister and her true love. It is a very arduous task for her not only physically, but mentally too, seeing that she doesn’t have any motivation to create the cake other than her sense of obedience.
5. Castrating chickens – “The castration is done by making an incision over the chicken’s testicles, sticking your finger in to get a hold of them, and pulling them out. After that is done, the wound is sewn up and rubbed with fresh lard or chicken fat. Tita almost swooned when she stuck her finger in and grasped the testicles of the first chicken. Her hands were shaking and she was dripping sweat and her stomach was swooping like a kite on the wind. “ (pg. 27) – the castration of chickens does not seem like a very appealing process and Tita definitely does not like being in charge of this task. During this ritual, not only the chickens are being tortured, but Tita is also suffering. She does not want to do this. She does not want to follow Mama Elena’s orders and traditions. She does not want Rosaura and Pedro to get married.
6. Preparation of quail for Quail in Rose Petal Sauce – “She went to the patio to catch the quail. When she had caught six, she carried them into the kitchen and got ready to kill them – which would be hard, having fed and cared for them for so long. With a deep breath, she took hold of the first one and twisted its neck, as she had seen Nacha do so often, but she used too little force to kill the poor quail, which went running pitifully around the kitchen, its head hanging to one side. She was horrified! She realized that you can’t be weak when it comes to killing; you have to be strong or it just causes more sorrow. It occurred to her now that she could use her mother’s strength right now. Mama Elena was merciless, killing with a single blow. But then again not always. For Tita she had made an exception; she had been killing her a little at a time since she was a child, and she still hadn’t quite finished her off. Pedro and Rosaura’s marriage had left Tita broken in both heart and in mind, like the quail. To spare the quail the pain she felt, Tita moved sharply and decisively, finishing him off as an act of mercy.” (pg. 49) – when Tita does not kill the quail right away, she causes a tremendous amount of suffering for the poor bird as it runs around the kitchen with its head hanging to one side. The ritual for preparing the quail leaves Tita thinking about herself and Mama Elena. Although Mama Elena is a strong and powerful woman that is merciless and kills with a single blow, Tita states that Mama Elena has made one exception for Tita. Instead of killing Tita in one single blow, she kills her a little at a time by causing her to suffer constantly. Tita is the poor quail suffering due to a weak twist in the neck, which is purposely done by Mama Elena.
7. Preparation of Rose Petal Sauce – “Remove the petals carefully from the roses, trying not to prick your fingers, for not only are the little wounds painful but the petals could soak up blood that might alter the flavor of the dish and even produce dangerous chemical reactions…Pedro thought it would be nice to bring her a bouquet of roses to celebrate her first year as ranch cook…With just a look Mama Elena sent Tita away to get rid of the roses. Tita clasped the roses to her chest so tightly that when she got to the kitchen, the roses, which had been mostly pink, had turned quite red from the blood that was flowing from Tita’s hands and breasts. She had to think fast what to do with them. They were beautiful. She couldn’t just throw them in the trash…All at once she seemed to hear Nacha’s voice dictating a recipe, a prehispanic recipe involving rose petals…Tita’s blood and the roses from Pedro proved quite an explosive combination. When Pedro tasted his first mouthful, he couldn’t help closing his eyes in voluptuous delight and exclaiming: ‘It is a dish for the gods!’” (pg. 47-51) – the preparation of the rose petals is ironic, seeing that Tita does exactly what the recipe says not to do. The petals soak up her blood when she clasps the roses tightly to her chest and when the family eats the meal the dish produces “dangerous chemical reactions”, causing Pedro to be overwhelmed by the delicious taste of his roses and Tita’s blood combined, and Gertrudis to imagine herself on horseback with her arms clasped around one of Pancho Villa’s men that she had previously seen at the market. The meal creates a “new system of communication, in which Tita was the transmitter, Pedro the receiver, and poor Gertrudis the medium, the conducting body through which the singular sexual message was passed.” (magical realism)
8. Shelling Nuts – “Begin shelling the nuts several days in advance for that is a big job, to which many hours must be devoted. After the nut is taken from the shell, you still have to remove the skin that covers the nut. Take care that none of this skin, not a single bit, is left clinging to the nuts, because when they’re ground and mixed with the cream, any skin will make the nut sauce bitter, and all of your previous work will have been for nothing…She knew quite well that it wasn’t easy to shell a thousand nuts without getting sick of it. The only person she knew who could do it without any sign of fatigue was Mama Elena. Not only could she crack sack after sack of nuts in a short time, she seemed to take great pleasure in doing it. Applying pressure, smashing to bits, skinning, those were among her favorite activities. The hours just flew by when se sat on the patio with a sack of nuts between her legs, not getting up until she was done with it. For her it would have been child’s play to crack those thousand nuts, which required so much effort from everyone else.” (pg. 229-230) – shelling nuts is definitely a hard, time-consuming task, seeing that all the people who were helping deserted the kitchen after shelling nuts for a while. You must be careful not to leave any skin on the nuts or else the final dish will taste bitter. So, you have to do it perfectly. Even for Tita, the task of shelling a thousand nuts is hard and not fun. Mama Elena is the only person that takes pleasure in this task and never gets tired of it. This demonstrates Mama Elena’s strength and power.
Common Tasks
9. Sewing –
“‘Congratulations,’ she said, ‘your stitches are perfect – but you didn’t baste it, did you?’
‘No,’ answered Tita, astonished that the sentence of silence had been revoked.
‘Then go rip it out. Baste it and sew it again and then come and show it to me. And remember that the lazy man and the stingy man end up walking their road twice.’
‘But that’s if a person makes a mistake, and you yourself said a moment ago that my sewing was…’
‘Are you starting up with your rebelliousness again? It’s enough that you have the audacity to break the rules in your sewing.’
‘I’m sorry, Mami. I won’t ever do it again.’” (pg. 12)
Sewing seems like an easy task for Tita. So easy, that Tita does not need to baste her work. When someone bastes their sewing they use long stitches to hold the fabric layers in place temporarily and eventually remove the stitches after final sewing. However, although Tita is so good, if she does not follow the rules exactly, Mama Elena gets mad. This quote demonstrates the strict rules of the society and the strong authority of Mama Elena.
10. Washing clothes – “What grieved her the most was the extra work burning the clothes meant. It was the second time in her life that this sort of disaster had occurred. Now she had to wet the reddish stains with a solution of potassium chlorate, plain water, and soft alkaline lye, scrubbing them repeatedly until she managed to get them out, and this difficult job was added to her job of washing the black clothes her mother wore. To wash those, she had to dissolve cow bile in a small amount of boiling water, fill a soft sponge with it, and use it to dampen the clothes all over; then she had to rinse the clothes in clear water and hang them out to dry. Tita rubbed and rubbed the clothes as many times as she had rubbed Roberto’s diapers to remove the stains. What worked was to heat up a little urine, dip the stain in it for a minute, and was it afterward in water. That is the one way to make the stains fade away. But no matter how much she soaked the diaper in urine, she couldn’t get rid of the horrid black color. Then she realized it wasn’t Roberto’s diaper she was holding, but her mother’s clothes. They had been soaking in the pot where she had left them since morning, forgetting to wash them in the sink. Embarassed, she set about correcting her error.” (pg. 95-96) – this ritual portrays Tita as a servant of Mama Elena working hard to clean Mama Elena’s clothes. However, try as she might she cannot make the stains in the clothes go away. Later, she realizes that it is because for some reason she thought she was cleaning Roberto’s diapers instead of Mama Elena’s clothes and so she was using the wrong cleaning process. This shows how the slave role Tita is expected to play is slowly taking away her sanity and leaving her senseless