“Mother’s day was the one day of the year when my grandmother stepped out of the kitchen and allowed her daughters to cook for her,” Rolando remembers with a smile. “My grandmother was the matriarch of the family. She ran the household and that meant running the kitchen, possibly the most important place in a Mexican home.”
Rolando remembers seeking out cuddles from his aunts and his mother whilst his grandma, like many women of her generation, was more formal and distant, showing her love instead through the meals that she tirelessly prepared for the family every Sunday. Her love emanated from the delicious flavours of her freshly cooked food.
Rolando would pass many days in the kitchen, with the women of his family, learning the secrets to the flavours that still to this day can transport him to his grandmother’s house and the Sunday’s spent with his whole family, enveloped by laughter and joy and the smells of roasted chillies, cinnamon, coriander and corn.
Grandma Margarita Cardenas was born in the 1920s at the end of the Mexican Revolution. She dedicated her life to her family. In the age when there was no junk food or convenience meals, she made all of her dishes from scratch. Moles(a salsa with as many as 30 ingredients), pozoles, tacos, mocajetes and soups were all prepared by her with the freshest ingredients and it is thanks to Margarita and her daughter’s that Rolando learnt the tricks to make a perfect Mexican salsa.
This mother’s day we will be honouring Rolando’s Grandmother by making a wonderful meal accompanied by our Kankun salsa that holds the memory of her, in every drop. Check our KanKun recipes.