Chipa II

       Last year, I wrote a long entry about Paraguayan cuisine that specifically focused around what the famous Paraguayan author Agusto Roa Basto described as “fragrant, golden rings” in his well-known book entitled “Hijo del Hombre” (Son of Man). What I was referring to is more than just a simple food that people here enjoy with a passion unparalleled by any equivalent food in America. It is called chipa, and to say that it is just a food would be an insult to the Paraguayan way of life. Simply put, chipa is more or less a tough corn and manioc flour cake that is consumed in every corner of the country, and I am certain would illegal in the States to make without serious oversight of the necessary ingredients. Despite individual families’ variations it is essentially made using the same ingredients with little variation. Every Paraguayan from infancy throughout their entire lives is exposed to copious amounts of the biscuit like treat. However, its importance stretches into the religious fabric of the country because during Easter and the week leading up to Easter, families bake bountiful amounts of chipa in their back yard ovens known as tatakuas. The chipas are to be eaten as the primary source of food starting on good Friday and ending on Easter Sunday. In other country’s the tradition is to fast or just to avoid meat, but in Paraguay all you eat is chipa, which let me tell you after two days is sort of sitting out on the table, the chipa transforms into a sort of crumbling rock that even the dogs struggle to chump through. This time last year, I was starving on Easter Sunday because of said tradition, and was immensely relieved once Easter was over that our diets could resume normally through the reintroduction of proteins.

      This year my perspective was different in that I now live alone. That allows me the privilege to make chipa, receive chipa, but not depend on it as my only form of sustenance during the week. Having made chipa already one time before with my host family during the three month training period I was somewhat familiar with what the primary components to construct the perfect chipa were, but didn't truly appreciate the importance of the process until recently. For the record, I find chipa to be a food I only choose to eat when no other options exist, or when it is given to me by someone who asks if I’m hungry. With time, I have grown to appreciate the taste and the subtle nuances that exist between different kinds, but to date, I cannot say I will be craving it once I am not longer in position to purchase it back in America. I think my personal taste preferences initially limited my ability to appreciate chipa for what it is to Paraguayans. I cannot honestly say I have never met a Paraguayan who doesn't like chipa or doesn't know how to make it. You would have to blind not to know what it is especially because it can be purchased on any long distance bus going anywhere in the country.

      Bus companies have unspoken agreements with chipa individual chipa vendors for the right to sell their chipa on their buses  Women, normally heavier set women for reasons that become obvious upon a brief glace at the ingredients that go into chipa, board the buses with an enormous basket containing hundreds of chipas that sell for roughly $0.50 each. You can always tell when the chipa lady, most often it is a woman, by how everyone on the bus starts digging around their wallets and purses, and how everyone seems to come to life as the lady bumps back and forward in between the aisle with basket that appears almost as big as the woman carrying it on her shoulder. Remarkably the women usually sell most of her stock on one bus, particularly if it is early in the morning. Her enormous basket with the intricately folded white cloth that contains and maintains the chipas temperature gradually shrinks from mountain to a small mound in a matter of minutes. The ladies selling the chipas somehow are able to maintain balance in spite the ridiculous speeds the lunatic bus drivers seem to maintain no matter how much traffic there is on the road. They are also simultaneously able to break change and put each chipa in a small plastic bag with the logo of the chipa company on the front. Aside from the comically large basket these women hoist on their shoulders, the uniform of the chipa vendor is usually a shirt polo shirt with a certain color fringe and the logo of the company over the heart. Usually the woman wears shorts skirts and hose the former of which matches the tinge of the polo. I don’t know exactly how many runs the average vendor does in a day, but I do know that they are apart of an elite group of contributors to the economy that work rain or shine and on weekends and holidays. They will board a bus whether it has 10 people sitting rows away from each other, or whether it has 100 passengers crammed in every seat and stuffed in every square foot of the aisle. Nevertheless, if you by some horrible stroke of bad luck are on a bus where a chipa lady doesn't get on, lets just say because one couldn't hop aboard the bus with a 30 pound basket on her shoulder with a bus driver that refuses to go slower that 10 mph when passing, there is no need to fret because at every bus terminal in the country one will be accosted by 5-15 people each selling one of six things one of which will always be chipa. In fact, on the four-and-a-half hour bus ride from Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay, to Juan E. O’Leary, where I live, the average patron will have no less than four opportunities to buy chipa from someone and often times more than that.

       The culture of bus chipa, in many ways, is its own unique subculture from the traditional heritage that developed over hundreds of years. Sure the ingredients are the same, but they are mass produced for the populace and only half the times are backed in the traditional tatakua. For me that commercialization is sort of the equivalent of eating grandmas home made biscuits versus Pillsbury ready to bake. Sure the commercialized version that claims to taste like grandmas are good, but it’s just not the same. That feeling is very analogous to the chipa industry here. Despite commercialization efforts to push grandma so-and-so’s chipa or patron saint of whatever’s chipa nothing tastes quite the same as the stuff made at home.

       Making chipa is a simple enough process, but like all true homemade delicacies there is a procedure that has been mastered only after the knowledge has been passed down for generations and with years of practice under one’s belt. So to say that my abilities are novice-like is spectacular understatement. Sure I can get the method down easily enough, but the making of the chipa doesn't have roots in my genetic heritage, so I have to willingly accepted that I will always, in spite of my best efforts, be a goofy outsider when it comes to making the Paraguayan snack of the Gods. This past Wednesday I was invited over by a neighbor who let me help her make her chipa for the week. The following is her process that is pretty much universally accepted throughout all corners of Paraguay. Describing chipa and its production method in a way that truly hits home for most Americans I will once again emphasize the analogy of mom or grandma’s homemade rolls or biscuits. Sure the frozen ones are good, but they aren't the same. A reason for that might be because somehow grandmas knows better than to settle for whatever the grocery store has to offer as a substitute to an important component. But in America today, a lot of the ingredients are things that we no longer have ready access to because we didn't grow up on a farm or close to an area where we could get fresh milk or eggs. Paraguayans, for the most part, still have access to those fresh ingredients that seem to have disappeared from the American household, and therefore the rustic identity of homemade chipa is still very much a part of the cultural identity.

      To make about 100 chipas one must have the following ingredients: 2 dozen eggs (preferably laid from your own chickens), 1.5 kilos of pig fat aka lard (Crisco or another fat substitute has yet to make headwind in the Paraguayan marketplace), 2-3 kilos of finely ground corn flower (again preferably your own corn that you ground yourself), 4 kilos of manioc flower (naturally grown and ground yourself), 100-200 gram packet of anis seed (smells and tastes like black liquorish), 1.5-2.5 kilos of Paraguayan cheese (really difficult to describe this, but imagine taking fresh milk from your cow and being able to make a solid block of slightly smelly, soft, white cheese that is ready to use in a variety of foods the next day), and lastly a pitcher full of salty milk that one adds to taste. Once all your ingredients are gathered the process of mixing takes on its own unique process. First, you mix the lard, the eggs, and a portion of the corn flower together until you create a yellowish paste that masks the smell of the eggs. You add corn flower accordingly until you achieve the desired result. Next you start kneading in the rest of the corn flour and the entire 4 kilos manioc flour along with the anis seed and salt milk until you get lumpy looking dough. Then add the cheese, depending on how cheesy you want it, and fold that into the mixture. The cheese is typically soft, and blends in well if it is fresh. However, that is not a requirement and the older the cheese the worse it tastes when one is unexpectedly given a piece. After the entire tub is in a dough form each chunk is kneaded again until smooth, and it typically shaped in a circle, a think log, or a bun, but it can really be molded into whatever you want because the texture is a lot like Play dough.

                                                     Once the arduous task of forming all the chipas is completed one must cut down 2-3 banana tree leaves that serve as the base for the chipa as it is put in the tatakua. A tatakua is a small brick oven that is made from cheap adobe bricks formed around iron rebar, and covered with adobe paste. One heats the tatakua exclusively by burning wood. Needless to say that Paraguay utilizes the tatakua for many other cooking purposes, and is therefore South America’s number one per capita consumer of firewood as a result. Once oven is hot enough you throw in the chipas much like you would for a pizza in a brick oven, wait 15-20 minutes and before you know it you are chewing on a delicious piece of golden brown chipa. Unfortunately, right out of the oven and hot is really the only time that it is chewable without having the fear of breaking ones teeth. You can reheat it the next day, but it’s not the same, and after 2 days of sitting out it is close to inedible. In reality, chipa can be eaten at all times of day regardless of the weather and temperature. Most commonly it is eaten for breakfast with a steaming cup of cocido, which is burnt yerba mate and burnt sugar brought to a boil with water or milk then drank scalding hot with copious amounts of sugar that makes feel like you are contracting diabetes and cancer at the same time. Families all over Paraguay make chipa the week leading up to Easter, and eat it throughout. It is an important food, but a more important component of a happy family that lives and shares together. It kind of reminds me of making Christmas cookies with my Mom and Grandma during the holiday season.

      As for my personal opinion concerning chipa, all I’ll say is that it is an acquired taste. I’ll eat it, especially when its fresh, but I am not sure that I would be able to eat it frequently without wanting to kill myself as it sits in my stomach like a brick. Since arriving I have seen chipa made in many places, particularly close to where I live, and just like anything everyone has their specific methods and details that go into making their own family’s chipa. I guess what it was about the whole culture of the flaky, rock hard, Paraguayan indulgence that inspired me to write about it again has to do with the fact that it is Easter again, and I am not home with my family, again. Although everything about the taste and the process of making it is totally unique, the values transcend culture, and make me a bit homesick. With that I’d like to say Happy Easter to my family at home particularly to my Mom and Grandma who I am sure made something special, that I cannot wait to have again soon, for everyone at home.

Tatakua

The final product

My Home Landscape

       At various points of my service I have discussed gardening in a variety of different contexts. One of the big objectives of Environmental Conservation Volunteers as well as the Paraguayan Ministry of Education are school garden projects. In the past, I have written about my experience in creating a school garden that turned into a rather impressive cornucopia of vegetables. However, I also mentioned that said school garden was counter intuitively planted and managed by patents of the students rather than the students themselves for a variety of reasons that I will not dive into in this entry. Nevertheless, I would strongly encourage you to check out previous postings if you are interesting in hearing my grips about it. Gardening, specifically horticulture, was something that I had been exposed to at different points in my up bringing, but it was never a cornerstone of my family’s efforts in maintaining the landscape of our home. The reason I felt particularly inspired to write about this topic stems my recent acquisition of Michael Pollan’s Second Nature in which he discusses at length his personal trials and tribulations to sow an organic garden in his home in Connecticut throughout the year. The book touches on a broad assortment of topics ranging from his exposure to gardens and landscapes from his childhood, pests, weather, and the backdrop of American homes throughout the country. To date, I have yet to finish the book, but nevertheless felt compelled to relay my experiences in my Paraguayan landscape, aka my home here, to that of what my previous relationship had been in America.

       Pollan writes extensively about his Russian immigrant grandfather whose greatest passion was the pursuit of a perfect garden and home landscape. Pollan reflects on visiting his grandfather’s well kept lawn, flowering fruit trees, and immaculate garden as sort of Eden as a youth growing up in New York. His father, on the other hand, was conversely put off by the incessant maintenance of the garden/landscape of his home to the point where he would boycott cutting his own front lawn. That refusal to adhere to the unspoken agreement Americans seem to have about maintaining their home landscapes in many made ways made Pollan’s family renegades in the eyes of their neighbors. That particular section of Second Nature had me laughing reflecting on the at times titanic struggle my father had with me growing up in maintaining our lawn.

       Every week my Dad would subtlety attempt to mentioning that the lawn was looking a bit shaggy. I would always protest that I had just cut it the week before whether or not that was true or not. I would argue that beleaguered point until my allowance was threatened to be withheld if I did acquiesce and do it. I would bitch and moan unremittingly as I pulled out the red push mower, the gas can, and the garbage bin that we used to dump the grass clippings in. Inevitably my father was always right when he said the lawn needed a cut. I always thought this to be true because I would constantly get our little red mower clogged with grass that I had let grow too long. I was the main caretaker of our lawn from about 12-19 after which point I headed off to college and much to my relief, my responsibilities were forever relinquished to landscaping company. I still remember very clearly my father teaching me how to prime the lawnmower, check the oil, and pull the rip cord. The feeling of getting overly frustrated if I flooded the engine, cut too close to the turf, or was unable to get those tricky hedges that lied on the edge of brick walls or tree trunks are still unpleasant memories to this day. My father in teaching me how to mow the lawn was his genius way of pawning responsibility of lawn maintenance to his ignorant son who initially was so thrilled that he was allowed to operate a cool looking machine like a lawn mower that he had no idea that my weekends every spring, summer, and fall would inevitably be partially occupied with cutting the grass. I will always remember him meandering down the small path inlaid with rocks to step on underneath the huge maple tree in our front lawn, hands behind his back with a smug grin on his face admiring my work, but not shying away from mentioning a spot I missed or whether or not there was too much excess clippings on the ground. Easily some of the fiercest arguments that I ever got into with my Pop were over that stupid lawn. I never cared what other people in the neighborhood thought about it. All I knew was somehow every weekend throughout the summer I was sweating buckets cutting a lawn that I progressively grew to hate with passing summer. I never understood why it was important to maintain that lawn I as meticulously as my parents wanted. Even today, to a large extent, I still don’t quite get it especially after living in Paraguay.                       
     Most Paraguayans, if they have grass, cut it with there electric plug in motors with long extension cord or giant weed whackers no more than 3-4 times a year. Granted grass here isn’t treated with chemicals to maintain a pristine green throughout the summer months, but all the same the work that is done around the house is more focused on sweeping up leaves from trees and the various manures from farm animals that roam around. Keeping my lawn in a presentable state is further limited by the fact that the only lawn care maintenance object that I can afford is a long machete, which in turn leaves me incessantly toiling with a huge array of weeds that grow back faster than I can cut them down. The frustrating thing is that my lawn had been well maintained by a series of cows that my neighbors would tie up in my yard. This was a good deal for me because not only did not have go through the arduous process of cutting my whole lawn with a machete, but the cows would also provide manure that I could use in my compost for my garden. However, starting in November I noticed that the cows were no longer pulling their weight with lawn maintenance. I believe was the result of higher amounts of rain that have sustained a semi-continuous frequency since. That as a result has led to my lawn to appear more as an abandoned lot than one in which a person lives. The problem is that so often are land plots, houses, or fields up and abandoned from people moving, selling their land, or whatever the reason, the areas in my immediate vicinity are equally unattractive or worse. With that lack of a higher standard to aspire to I am content with a much less acceptable looking lawn. Paraguayans, also, demonstrate displeasure in things in much less direct methods than I feel people would back home. I don’t have neighbors insulting my lawn to my face, writing me a note signed by some home owners association, nor are there real estate agents trying sell land in the area that’s costs is driven down by my unsightly lawn. That being said it still think I have gotten to a point where I have flirted with the edge acceptable appearance for too long, and likely will give into my own self-perpetuated guilt and just cut it.

       Pollan goes to great lengths to describe the American fascination with lawns as a defining characteristic of the American home. In Paraguay the lawn, while important to maintain if you have it, is not the first thing people will associate with a nice looking house. From my summation I would have to say that flowering fruit, shading, and ornamental trees exemplify how “hermosa”, beautiful, a home is. Additionally, how well maintained ones garden or field is seems to provide the fodder for criticisms of ones status within the community. In a similar way Americans value the lawn and flowery landscape that it surrounds, Paraguayans value something similar in how nice their rows of corn or manioc look. If your crops aren’t in a straight line, well protected from animals, or contains too many weeds in-between the plants it is likely you might get a snide remark from your neighbor. The same applies with gardens. One must dig their seed bed in perfect rectangle, plant the seeds in perfectly spaced distances, and perfectly layer compost such that everything appears uniform. Regardless of whether or not that manner will yield the best looking vegetables a term volunteer’s coin as the “lindo factor”, pretty factor, and trumps most alternative methods of increasing yields. If it cannot be incorporated in a nice organized manner I am not interested in the unspoken reality many people face when working with plants. Going to the extreme of planting tomatoes and parsley all helter skelter in the same seed bed, while mutually beneficial to the plants, does not appear lindo and therefore makes it difficult to justify when working in a school or family garden. This was the case when I attempted to plant lettuce, Swiss chard, and onions at the school garden. While the kids didn’t do the best job planting properly, it was obvious that things would grow, but the three seeds beds we planted quickly got reorganized by the parents to make things look slightly nicer. This cultural appreciation for plant organization shouldn’t of surprised me because we do that sort of stuff with own homes in America.  

       My mother had always spent a great amount of time tending to the many flower beds we had throughout our front and back yards. I remember every spring being called out to the car to unload gargantuan bags of mulch and fertilizer to yet again begin with the planting of a wide cadre of impatiences, tulips, and marigolds for some reason stand out, but there were also perennials that despite my best efforts to destroy with a plastic sword managed to come up every year. Similarly to my experience with the lawn, at first I thought planting flowers and plants was fun. I liked making a brown patch of dirt transform into a array of brilliant colors that flowed tougher to create a totally unique landscape that was only limited by what could you could imagine, or what plants you happened to have. My family has always dabbled in vegetables, but aside from the occasional tomato plant or two that would often succumb to deer’s or other pests, the mark of yards were the somewhat well manicured lawn, enormous hundreds of years old trees, and the flowers my mother planted.

       So needless to say when I learned about the importance of promoting gardening in Paraguay I was very excited to try my own hands at growing things from seeds, but as most novice horticulturalists are bound to find out things are not as easy as they seem. I always that the dichotomy of what I am supposed to be able to help teach Paraguayans, particularly gardening, are often times things they themselves know how to do a lot better from years of experience. The American wondering up to the 40-year-old farmer trying to ask them in broken language about their garden doesn’t exactly instill confidence in your ability to improve their current method of growing things. In most cases, that skepticism is not unfounded. In my case, I spent the first 4 months from the time I moved into my house trying to build and plant a garden. In order to do so I had to build some kind of rudimentary fence out of bamboo that ended up taking several months due to the fact that my only free source of bamboo was about a kilometer from where I lived. As I would walk past numerous households with an arm full of bamboo often times in toe with a friend, people would stop and stare. It wasn’t so much that I was carrying the bamboo I think it was more curiosity as to what I was going to with it. Again people more often than not are surprised when I try to make suggestions about gardening. Me not having a garden was further evidence that I did not in fact know what I was talking about. By the time I had finally constructed the fence and installed a door using old flip flops as hinges was I able to begin my meager attempts to plant stuff.

       In my mind, I envisioned not ever needing to go to the store to get vegetables, and therefore bought seeds for carrots, onions, lettuce, Swiss chard, tomatoes, peppers, and parsley. I was also lucky enough to get broccoli to transplant from the excess plants the school had. At the end of 4 months of toiling around I ended up with meager looking lettuce, broccoli, Swiss chard, and few pathetic looking tomatoes. I could point to numerous reasons for my failures, but at the end of the day the blame stops at me alone. I didn’t do a good enough job limiting sun exposure, consistently watering when I had to leave for whatever reason, or preventing animals from breaking down my fence to much on my paltry results. My timing was also off, and by the time I actually got tomatoes to grow someone entered my garden in the middle of the night to steal the 11 measly looking fruits that I had worked so hard to obtain. I knew that it wasn’t going to be easy, but what I didn’t know was how uneasy it was going to be. So for this year I am determined to improve upon last years learning experience and achieve better results. Will those results be adequate to prove my value in the community I live in? My answer to that is probably not, but even if it was I am resigned to the fact that by the time I get my garden up to snuff it will be close to the end of my service that will lead me back to another landscapes in another pocket of the world to start all over again.