La cosecha más reflexiva de mi vida
Desde muy pequeño hay quienes me han catalogado como ‘’mal venezolano’’ por no tener el afamado gusto culinario de amar las cachapas y las arepas, son algunos de los primeros alimentos que recuerdo de mi madre, abuelas, tías e incluso las vecinas que me cuidaban de vez en cuando. Tal vez sonará pedante, pero llegó un momento en el que fue tanto que me aburrí de ellas y terminé aborreciéndolas, a tal punto de que las evito la máxima cantidad de veces que puedo. Hace poco, por circunstancias familiares, terminé en una pequeña Granja en Cambural, estado Lara. En ella me acompañaban varios integrantes de la familia de mi esposa, entre ellos el hombre más noble que he conocido en mi vida, ‘’Chato’’. Hablaba del llano y de los paisajes de Venezuela con la misma ilusión y pasión que habla cualquier persona de sus sueños, desde los frutos que dan los sembradíos hasta cómo prepararlos y comértelos. Jamás en mi vida había cosechado maíz, sí había estado muchas veces en plantaciones con abundancia del mismo, pero nunca me había visto involucrado en el proceso que lleva a tener sus granos en una molienda. Mientras caía el Sol y uno de los hermosos crepúsculos larenses pintaban nuestro ambiente, la familia decidió hacer en ese momento la recolecta del maíz antes de que llegaran las mujeres. Chato me explicaba con lujo de detalles cómo arrancar cada mazorca, desde la delicadeza con la que debía tratar el tallo hasta el movimiento exacto para sacar sus frutos para luego deshojar y poder, finalmente, extraer los granos de maíz. Mientras alistaban la leña y el budare se calentaba, nosotros estábamos moliendo los granos en un ingenioso molino (Era un motor de lavadora unido a un Rin de Bicicleta que a su vez accionaba el movimiento del molino y era todo muy ‘’automatizado’’) que miraba maravillado –¡Era un rudimentario molino de manivela convertido en una maravilla que trabajaba prácticamente sola!- y ¡Voilá! estaban montadas las cachapas y arepas (Que internamente tanto odiaba, hahaha). Pero luego fue toda una sorpresa al probarlas… ¡ERAN LAS MEJORES CACHAPAS CON QUESO QUE ME HABÍA COMIDO EN MI VIDA!
Critiqué por muchos años a muchas personas por aferrarse a platicos, mantelitos e incluso relaciones y lugares y vaya que… Lo que realmente tiene valor para cada uno de nosotros es aquello en lo que nos vemos involucrados desde el comienzo y nuestra mayor recompensa no es el trabajo terminado en sí mismo, sino es ver terminado el fruto del esfuerzo que pusimos en ello. Y tal vez sea el porqué de que hoy día ame tanto cosas aparentemente sencillas y estas me hagan inmensamente feliz.
The most reflexive harvest of my life
Untill my childhood there are those who have labeled me as ''bad Venezuelan'' for not having the famous culinary taste of love cachapas and arepas, these are some of the first foods I remember that my mother, grandmothers, aunts and even the neighbors that took care of me from time to time gave me. Maybe it will sound pedantic, but there came a time when it was so much that I got bored with them and ended up abhorring them, to the point that I avoid them as many times as I can. Recently, due to family circumstances, I ended up in a small farm in Cambural, Yaracuy. In it I was accompanied by several members of my wife's family, including the noblest man I have ever met in my life, '' Chato ''.
He spoke of the plain and the landscapes of Venezuela with the same enthusiasm and passion that anyone speaks of his dreams, from the fruits that the crops give to how to prepare and eat them. I had never in my life harvested corn, I had been many times in plantations with plenty of it, but I had never been involved in the process that leads to having their grains in a mill. While the sun was falling and one of the beautiful twilights painted our environment, the family decided to make the corn harvest before the women arrived.
Chato explained to me in great detail how to pull each corn, from the delicacy with which he had to treat the stem to the exact movement to get its fruits and then defoliate and finally be able to extract the grains of corn. While they were preparing the firewood and the budare was heating up, we were grinding the grains in an ingenious mill (It was a washing machine motor attached to a bicycle rim which in turn triggered the movement of the mill and it was all very ''automated'') I watched in amazement -it was a rudimentary crank mill turned into a wonder that worked practically alone!- and Voila! cachapas and arepas (which internally hated so much, hahaha) were mounted. But then it was a surprise to try them... WERE THE BEST CACHAPAS WITH CHEESE THAT I HAD EATEN IN MY LIFE!
And meanwhile I did not understand what was happening (By the way, they were sweeter than usual, I got married with a gocha, the touch of the Tachira’s family was not going to be lacking and less in the food), it was as if all those memories of me childhood came again; Me in the improvised plantations of the yard of my uncle's house picking up vegetables for the soups and dressing the meats of the grills that I loved so much to eat in the Araira river (Guatire), the indications of my aunt while cutting the ingredients of the December’s hen salad in Caracas, the boleros that my grandmother sang while she taught me how to make the potatoes and eggs broth that she had breakfast every morning in the ‘'El Tamarindo'' neighborhood (Guarenas). It was a very strange catharsis – c’mon, everyone eats, and if it is tasty, it enjoys it and if it is not, criticizes- for realizing that the value we give to anything is completely linked to how closely we are linked. to the process of this. Maybe that attachment that we criticize so much does not come from the material cost or the attachment for necessity, but that which it represents in the life of each person.
I criticized many people for many years for clinging to dishes, objects and even relationships and places and go... What really has value for each of us is what we are involved from the beginning and our greatest reward is not the work finished in itself, but it is to see finished the fruit of the effort that we put in it. And maybe that's why I love so much seemingly simple things these days and they make me immensely happy.