The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 113

May 17, 1931 Wo LOS ANGELES I MES SUNDAY MAG A I Page I hat. now A TOUR OF MEXICO IN LOS ANGELES a 1 Rodr i You 1 LOZA DE GUADALAJARA is Mexican pottery, the commonest of which is the olla used to keep water cool. TORTILLAS are the bread of the peon, serviceable as a napkin or the wrapping for an enchilada. MENUDO is soup made from chicken giblets, a rare delicacy in Mexican. CORRIDOS are to the Mexican what sagas were to the Norseman and epics to the Roman.

CIELITO LINDO. in reality, is nothing like the English version of the popular song. SERAPES are a universal drape and their designs have interesting histories. SOMBREROS are not only used for hats, but for knapsacks and for protection in case of a fall. THE CHARRO'S OUTFIT is made for utility and not for looks.

I HAVE many friends who scoff at the Paseo de Los Angeles. They laugh me to scorn when I timidly confess that I spend delightful afternoons rubbering there, fingering the pots and blankets of the "paisanitos" and eating "menudo" and "champurrado" under the striped awnings. "The place Is nothing but a boob-trap," say my friends. "You of all people should disdain to step into it. It has absolutely nothing of the spirit of Mexico In Wrong.

It Is true that on the Paseo you miss some of the essentials of the "mercados." You miss the bustle, the deafening babel of voices bargaining furiously in Spanish, the dust, the scurrying children. You miss alas! the sonorous chant of the barley-water vender "De cebada con hielo-o-o!" But I see Mexico in every "botellon" and "serape" on the Paseo. I taste it, in "tacos." I smell it lu cooking I feel ifon the rough "clay of the ppttery.i I hear it in the "sing-song voices of the, "paisanos" whom I Inveigle into conversa-; tions. There is nothing so Mexican as Mexican -pottery especially the "loza de Guadala w'umif rnwffSn. but a flat flange around the mouth at the narrow end of the jug if you should ever happen on a vessel like that, pity it, for it is sure to be homesick.

It was made to hold "aguardiente," that fiery liquor that is joy to the "pelado" but taboo to the law-abiding "yanqul." I suppose the paisano seeks aguardiente as a respite from the monotony of his for the food of the peon is almost entirely confined to corn, beans, tomatoes and chill. But he has found multitudinous and marvelous ways of treating, this material. The Bread of the Peon The "tortilla" Is the bread of the peon and of many who are not "peones," too. It is a flabby, soft corn cake, circular and very thin. The proper way to eat tortillas is to lay them out flat, salt them, roll them up and hold them in one hand while you manipulate your fork with the other.

The tortilla thus serves you as a pusher, as well as for bread. And since you are probably trying to eat tomato sauce with your fork, the tortilla serves also for gathering up morsels of sauce which can be bitten right off with a morsel of tortilla and it makes a divine combination. Some people butter their tortillas all over before rolling them up, but butter seems to me a refinement that is out of keeping with the humble character of the peon's national bread. Certainly butter never was a part of our tortilla ritual at home. The making of tortillas is a peculiar art.

The corn is ground to a fine meal and mixed with water and salt to form a very thick "masa," the "tortillera" site on the ground with a huge lump of masa on one side of her and the "comal," or oven, on the other. With her fingers she plucks off a little gob of masa, pats it out into tortilla shape by clapping her hands on it, and when it is of the proper size and thinness, she cooks it in the comal. It's a very strange thing, but unless the masa is ground in a stone metate, and unless the tortilla Is patted out by hand, It won't taste right. Tortillas can be made by machine, but they are never any good. Some people say it's because the masa is not made in stone, others aver that they Just don't have the "sabor de mano," the flavor of the hand.

Whatever the reason, anybody who has ever eaten a tortilla can tell without even biting into one whether it's made right or by machine. The tortilla is principally bread, but it is the foundation for many dishes. An enchilada is nothing but a tortilla with chopped meat and other things rolled up in it. A taco is a tortilla folded over meat and vegetables and toasted a little. One of my fondest recollections is of the days when we kids used to improvise tacos at the table at home.

We would lay a tortilla on the tablecloth, spread a couple of spoonfuls of fried rice on It, garnish it with frljoles, roll it up and go to it. As wo squeezed the top of the taco in biting it, rice and beans would drop out the bottom. Then mother's knuckles would descend on the crown of the offender, and we would receive a general lecture on table manners. jara," which fills the Paseo. Although they call it Guadalajara pottery, most of these delicately vigorous bits of decoration come from Tonala, near Guadalajara.

Tonala is a miserable collection of adobe houses, and almost every man, woman and child in the place is a potter. They are Incredibly poor, these artists. Sitting in the dust of their "patios" they mold their vases without the use of a potter's wheel, cook them In mud ovens and decorate them with color clays and Iron salts that they themselves mine near the town. They live, like all Mexican laborers, mainly on "frljoles" and "tortillas," with maybe a drink of "pulque" or "vino de Tequila" now and then to lighten their labors. They wear simple cotton drawers and shirts, and sleep on straw "petates" spread out on the ground.

Yet they seem perfectly happy In their work. There was once an American, they say, who brought a troupe of Tonala potters to the United States, gave them the best tools, clay and work benches, good food and plenty of time, hoping to improve quantity and quality of their output! He failed miserably. The Tonal-tecos languished In luxury, got homesick, and finally had to be sent back to the dust and mud of Tonala, where they started turning out masterpieces again. Every piece of pottery that you see on the Paseo has a purpose and a use In the Mexican household. The tall carafe-shaped 'botellones" are for holding and cooling water.

They are made of a certain clay called "loza de oler," odor-clay, on account of Its peculiar earthy, clean smell, nils smell gets Into the taste of the water, and there Is a tang of Tonala In every cool drink out of "botellon de flu a4 nl a lata Mexican folk music, you see, is a very lively art. The poets of the people don't bother with lowing herds and spring blossoms. They sing of revolutionary campaigns, airplanes, constitutional reforms and such. And almost always the moral is "We are tired of fiSHtlng let's go back to our farms." I have heard few corridos on El Paseo. But you do hear incessantly the beautifully poetic lyrics of the people, like "Cielito Lindo," "La Casita," "Cuatro Milpas," "Rancho Grande" and a host of others.

It is a pity that Angelenos don't understand the words to these lyrics. If they did, the translations wouldn't be so absurd. For example, there is a "translation" of "Cielito Lindo" which makes the song out to be a harvest hymn, all about fruits and reaping and so forth. As a matter of fact, "Cielito Lindo" (which means Pretty Little Heaven) is the song of a maiden who warns a courting swain that she is engaged to another and that she is sorry but If he doesn't move on, he'll get shot. He persists, nevertheless, and sings a few verses of very frank and decidedly non-platonic love-making.

In one verse he tells the lady, in allegory, that if her fiance neglects her, it serves him right to have somebody else take his place. In another, he says, in effect, "From your bed to mine, love, It's no more than one pace. And now we're alone, love, give me just one embrace." Like every other popular lyric, "Cielito Lindo" has innumerable verses, and every time you hear it sung, a new verse comes out. "La Casita" is undoubtedly the most poetic folksong I have ever heard, in any language. It Is a lover telling his lady about the little house that he has ready for her down below the wheat field.

He, describes in the most touching terms the cricket singing in the garden, the golden dust of sunlight descending through the trees, the snail that lives in the fountain. He hints that after she has shared the little house with him for a year, God's benediction will come to them and she can divide her affections between the youngster, the dog and him. Then the Cabaret Songs These corridos and lyrics are the real 6ongs "del pals" of the country. There is another type of "Mexican" song, the nauseating, sweet tango-ballads that have crept in from the Argentine and Cuba, beginning with "La Paloma" and including such musical trash as "Jurame." These are mere cabaret songs, fit only for haired gigolos to sing to middle-aged tourist ladles who understand neither Spanish nor music? The really popular ballads are sung by the vaqueros as they ride herd or mend reatas in the evening; and by the cooks of El Paseo as they bend over their pots and (Continue on Paft Eighteen) Fried tortillas fried in lard, not butter are crisp, delicious brown morsels. They taste just like big cakes of pop corn and make the ideal companion for a good "tamal" or a plate of "frijoles refritos." I am glad that so many little awning-stands have sprung up on the Paseo.

Somehow a taco or an enchilada eaten out in the open tastes a little better than the same dish served on a tablecloth for all that the "senorita's" eyes remind me of summer evenings In Mazatlan. Then besides, there is the "menudo," which should never be eaten under any roof but a canvas one. Menudo Con Corridos Menudo Is a particularly delicious type of soup made out of chicken giblets, which are called in Spanish "menudos." Other things go into the broth, not the least of which is a dash of chill. I recall that in that quarter of Nogales known as El Ranchito, a great many menudo stands flourish. This is because El Ranchito is atumdant in "cantinas" and cabarets, and menudo Is the world's best restorative after the kind of an evening one spends In El Ranchito.

I don't know how they operate on El Paseo, but In Mexico the menudo shops stay open till all hours. You sit down shivering on the benches before the stand, begin to take your menudo, and anon come a couple of guitar players who start singing for you. If you pay no attention, they go away. If you ask them for another song, they will stay and wail out "corridos" until sun-up. But they demand pay, and their rates are pretty high sometimes two pesos for an hour's singing.

The "corridos" are a curious form of song. What the saga is to the Nordic, what the epic was to the Roman, what the ballade was to the French, so is the corrido to the Mexican. They are stories set to music. And what stories 1 I give you the names of some popular corridos and let you Judge for yourself. "Las Esperanzas de la Patrla por la Rendlcion de Villa" (The Nation's Hopes for the Surrender of Villa;) "La Toma de Zacatecas" (The Fall of Zacatecas.) which tells about how Zacatecas was taken from the federals by Pancho Villa I "El Tren Dcscarrllado" (The Train that Jumped the Track;) "Triste Dcspedida de Emlliano Zapata" (Sad Farewell of Emlliano The large, plain, wide-mouthed ollas are used for cooking.

The Paseo is well stocked with sugar bowls and sauce Jars, and vnn can ace wide-mouthed cylindrical jars for making chocolate. The hlghly-, decorated plates shaped like deep soup plates are called "Jlcaras." In old times they were used for drinking water, but now they are Just ornaments, and water is drunk from tumbler-shaped "vasos." Smaller vasos with handles are for choco late and other hot drinks. If you should ever happen on a rude, plain Jug about a gallon capacity, shaped like a huge drop of water, with no neck.