Sunday After Church: East L.A.'s Barbacoa Ritual
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Credit: Penny de los Santos
In East Los Angeles, Mexican families partake in the ritual of barbacoa, pit-smoked to tender sweetness by one amazing cook
Many an immigrant community has brought its own pit-cooking tradition to America. Mexico City's tacos al pastor, stuffed with spit-roast pork and eaten in Columbus, Ohio; sukhaar, Somalia's saucy, slow-roasted chicken, a hit in Charlotte, North Carolina; banh mixa xiu, barbecued pork heaped on baguettes found in Biloxi, Mississippi, and other cities with Vietnamese populations: Though the preparations vary, the effects are universal. Wherever it is found, pit-cooked meat links generations, wins elections, inspires obsession, incites feuds, and can be a near-mystical experience, as is the case for Tia Adelita, the patron saint of East Los Angeles County barbacoa, meat swathed in leaves from the maguey plant (a species of agave) and slow-cooked, in the style of the Mexican countryside, in a hole in the ground.
Tia Adelita is 55 years old and not sure why she, the ninth of ten siblings from Puebla, Mexico, is the only one in her family who absorbed the ritual that begins with lassoing a lamb and ends with lifting moist meat from the earth. She was never tutored in the art.
"My father was a farmer, famous for his barbacoa, but he shooed us away; he didn't want us near his pit. He didn't want us in the kitchen with our mother, either. He said that he wanted better things for his children," she says.
My name is Amanda and I'm in the process of casting a new Food Network show about home cooks with interesting stories. I read your article about the Barbacoa in East LA and was curious if you might be able to put me in touch with some of the people you mentioned. It sounds like a very interesting tradition and I would love to learn more.
Thanks in advance for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
Amanda
Concentric Entertainment
concentriccasting@gmail.com