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A Day in the
Life of a Gordita Street Vendor |
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This is the story of Jesús and Olivia who operate a street stand selling gorditas six days a week, with the help of their three children on Saturdays and school holidays. Karla, the older daughter, is one of my English students. The day begins at 4:30 AM when they arise to begin preparations for the day's business. My camera and I arrived at 5:00 -- almost awake. |
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Today they will be making seven fillings for the gorditas: Two kinds of potatoes, one each with red and green chiles, Frijoles (refried beans), Scrambled eggs, Requesón (cottage cheese) |
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Jesús does most of the cooking with backup by Olivia. |
Karla cracked eggs while her mother made red and green table salsas. | ||
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Some of the prep work was done last night -- dicing potatoes, chopping chicharrones, roasting chiles, etc. So the cooking could began a few minutes before 5:00AM. The cooking was almost all done when the masa man arrived with 18 kilos (40 pounds) of masa -- enough to make 300 gorditas. They make 400 on Saturdays.
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| A heavy steel plate is laid over the stove top to form a comal. |
Olivia prepares the dough by kneading and adding water to the masa to make it a little softer. |
She uses a metal tortilla press to prepare the gordita shells. |
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When the shells begin the puff up, Jesús opens them with a knife and lays them on a clean cloth to cool before Karla begins filling them. As each gordita is filled, it is stacked in a plastic box, sorted by kind. |
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| Mom helps to speed up the filling. |
300 gorditas fill six boxes which Olivia loads atop their SUV for transport to the stand. Two jugs of salsa and a variety of supplies are loaded inside. |
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The story continues in Part Two -- The Street |
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