The following recipe is one that Frida Kahlo got from her mother’s cooking journal. I would like to thank Maggie Van Ostrand for allowing me to use this recipe from her article on Frida Kahlo, The Five Senses of Frida. The original recipe appeared in Frida’s Fiestas: Recipes and Reminiscences of Life With Frida Kahlo by Guadalupe Rivera Marin.
I have been to Mexico numerous times and love the regional variety of food. Thousands of dishes from moles to sopa de lima; in fact, one could probably have a different dish every day and never repeat the same meal. In honor of Frida Kahlo’s show at the Philadelphia Museum here is one of her favorite dishes. Like her, just a little spicy.
CHILES STUFFED WITH PICADILLO
* 16 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded, and deveined
* Flour
* 5 eggs, separated
* Corn oil or lard
* Tomato Broth
Stuff the chiles with the picadillo, then dust them with flour. Beat the egg whites until stuff. Beat the yolks lightly with a pinch of salt and gently fold together with the whites to make a batter. Dip the chiles into the batter and fry in hot oil until golden. Drain on brown paper. To serve, place the chiles in the tomato broth.
PICADILLO
* 3 pounds/1,500g ground pork
* 1 large onion, halved
* 3 garlic cloves, chopped
* Salt and pepper
* 6 tablespoons lard
* 1 small onion, finely chopped
* 1 pound/400g tomatoes, chopped
* 1 cup/75g shredded cabbage
* three quarters cup/100g blanched almonds, chopped
* half cup/60g raisins
Cook the pork with the onion halves, garlic, and salt and pepper to taste for about 20 minutes. Drain the liquid and discard onion. Heat the lard in another pan and sauté the chopped onion, carrots, and zucchini until the onion is translucent. Add the tomato, cabbage, almonds, raisins, pork and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for about 20 minutes, or until the mixture has darkened and the tomato is cooked through.
The influx of people from Mexico to New Jersey means that all these ingredients are readily available in most towns with a Latino presence. Don’t be scared to make these as they are pretty simple to put together and if it’s good enough for Frida, it’s good enough for you!
My wife and I have been waiting such a long time for a Frida Kahlo exhibit to come to a local museum. This year we got our wish. The ads called to me like a siren’s song. They were well done in dramatic red for effect and the name Frida in yellow. I swear I heard a Mexican corrido! The whole band swooped in and played a special song dedicated to Frida. It went something like this:
Querida Frida te quiero admirar pero mi corazón se rompe
porque Diego te hizo mal.
El que te quiere te quiere ahogar. Con sus disimulos y pinches mujerzuelas te quiere matar.
Pinta Frida, pinta, no escondas tu dolor.
Explícame en colores tus disgustos y rencor.
Pinta Frida pinta, enséñame tu amor.
Amarás con tu roja cinta, tu negro pelo y esconde el alcohol.
Frida, Frida linda dale como puedas.
En tu silla o en tu cama, mientras Diego te la pega con tu propia hermana.
Frida, Frida hermosa no mires para atrás.
Frida, Frida hermosa quítate el puñal úsalo como brocha para tus amarguras derramar.
Anyway I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah. Finally, a Frida exhibit in the tri-state area all for me! I mean for me to take my family and Carmen a close friend. So I go online to the Philadelphia Museum’s website and order my tickets. Not cheap. For my daughter, wife, friend and it was over $85; add parking, gas, lunch, tolls and a must stop at the original’s Pats Cheese Steaks and there goes my paycheck. But that does not matter. We love Frida! More importantly, we wanted to expose our daughter Maya (named after the Mayan Indians of Mexico) to Frida’s artwork. Maya who is only eleven loves art, museums, music and life. Sometimes, I think she is my conscious. You know like on television, the devil on one side and angel on the other. Maya is definitely an angel. Papi, you can’t leave the water running while you brush! Papi, if we don’t recycle we kill the Earth. Papi, don’t use bad language! Anyway, I can’t take a long shower, toss my cigar wrapper on the floor or curse Newark-style anymore. Got to love your conscious.
We arrive at the museum at our scheduled time of 2:30 pm and, unlike their website claim, there is no available handicapped parking. The one perk of being paralyzed suddenly and unexpectedly ripped from under me. My God, why? Why is every space taken? Did I not recycle? Did I not take short showers? It took us 30 minutes to find a free space, which the kind security guard carved out of a loading zone.
Forty-two pieces of Frida’s works all in one place — close to a quarter of her 200 total portraits. There are portraits such as the Henry Ford Hospital (1932), The Broken Column (1944), Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940) — all here. The exhibit also featured photos and personal effects of Frida and Diego Rivera, her husband and famous muralist. This exhibition marks the hundredth year of Frida’s birthday, which was 1907, although you may hear conflicting stories about her actual birthday since Frida would often state that she was born in 1910, the year of the Mexican Revolution. Frida and Diego were at one time or another members of the Communist Party and both believed strongly in workers’ rights and the right to unionize. Frida was a person who believed in the human rights of everyone and often identified herself with the working class. Her Tijuana dresses and servant outfits marked many of her paintings and photographs. She was never ashamed of wearing clothing that reflected her culture. In fact, she embraced it. At the age of six, Frida was stricken with polio, which caused her to have a limp. However, this is not the event that marked the duration of her life struggles. In 1925, a bus she was riding collided with a tramcar and her leg and pelvis were severely injured. This incident marred the rest of her life and is evident in many of her paintings including The Broken Column. She had over 30 operations many hospitalizations years of bed rest. She suffered constant pain, spent many months in the full-body cast and sometimes used a wheelchair.
Diego Rivera, the love of her life, also caused Frida anguish and desperation. His many affairs were indeed a source of anger for Frida especially the one which involved her sister Christina. Frida, of course, learned that the best way to get even was to have affairs of her own, some which included women. Many of the paintings at the Philadelphia Museum are samples of her struggles with love, life, and a lifelong disabling condition. They exhibit her appreciation for Mexican culture and her love of life notwithstanding her many challenges.
We picked up our tickets at the window and rushed off to the exhibit only to be confronted with a line 200-people-long. Luckily we were escorted to the front, as if Frida was saying step this way. We all received headsets with built-in voice tours. Basically, one pushes a number in the recorder that corresponds to a work of art and you hear a brief explanation of it in your headsets. I walked around slowly taking in all that Frida had to offer. I looked intently into her eyes and she stared back. She seemed angry and confused. As if asking, where am I? I took my eyes off of her and I looked around and it hit me. There was something missing in this great exhibit. What you ask? Latinos!
There were no Latinos to be seen for miles. One of the security guards kinda looked Latino but I wasn’t sure. Regardless he was paid to be there. Frida the socialist would not have been happy. She would not have been happy to see that her life and her work are now segregated and her own people are not there to see it. Her work had become a commercial success. Diego would be so proud. However, the line of people waiting to see her pain on canvas led everyone to a huge gift shop immediately outside her exhibit area; she was all the rage. It was truly sad for me who had waited so long to realize that many Latinos cannot afford the ticket price or could take a day off of work to come see Frida’s exhibit. What happened? Where are all the Latino children who are looking for inspiration and a role model? If they came they would see a person who struggled to never gave up. A woman who was one of the first to go to a university made up of men. Someone who learned from pain that life is worth living even when you think there’s nothing worth living for. Where were the Latinos from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and, most importantly, Pennsylvania? I think Frida would be highly disappointed that her works have become a way for free institutions such as museums to make a buck. I understand that many of these pieces come from various other institutions and private collections. However, I cannot get past the fact that there are no Latinos there. Maybe that is too broad of a statement but it appeared to be the reality when I was there.
In all fairness, we must all look in the mirror as it relates to appreciating the culture and historical treasures which we have been left. It is easy to blame the Philadelphia Museum and other institutions of “historical learning” — they are an easy target especially if they did not perform due diligence in reaching out to the Latino community. However, the Latino community in general and more specifically parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents are responsible when Latino children are not present at these events. If the price of the ticket is too much money then use other venues to get the same point across.
What is that point? That Latinos as a people have made great contributions to our culture and others and our children should know what those contributions are. If you’re in Puerto Rico, then go to the Taino ceremonial parks. If you’re in Mexico, then visit the many pyramids that are there. Further south in Central and South America, more culture abounds with Mayan, Olmec and Aztec ruins. Visit the free museums in many of our countries, which feature Latino artists, culture and history. In today’s era of high-tech toys, flat screen TVs and cell phones, it is easy to program the digital babysitter to watch over our children. However, it is a crime against our culture and the sacrifices made by so many previous generations to allow Microsoft and Apple to erase our collective memory.
It is a beautiful thing when Anglo-American discovers Frida Kahlo and all that she offered the world. It is a tragedy when you ask a Latino child who Frida Kahlo was and they don’t know. Therefore, I challenge anyone reading this to take a few hours, pick up his or her kids and go see the Kahlo exhibit (http://www.philamuseum.org/). It will transform your relationship with art and make you love Frida. If you can’t do that before May 18th, then visit El Museo Del Barrio in New York City (http://www.elmuseo.org/), or introduce your child to a book about famous Latinos. By the way, Christopher Columbus was Italian.
