A ranching family I was working with in Patagonia introduced me to yerba mate. Every day before work we would drink mate ("ma-tay," for English speakers) together. After that, I often met people over shared mate: elders on the bus would offer me it if they saw me sitting alone, teenagers in the park would invite me into their circle, everybody, from all walks of life drank it, and had been drinking it their whole lives.
The following short story selection is from a collection I'm doing called "Backcountry Gourmet," about cooking in the wild, and the social functions of cooking and sharing food. This one's a bit experimental, so please let me know what you think, and if it works. All feedback welcome :)
Yerba Mate: Social Ritual
The house was empty when Javier realized for the first time in his 11 years that he could drink mate alone. As the water was -
don’t let it boil Javi - heating, the epiphany made itself conscious as such. He began to prepare his own gourd. Was he a man now?
No, of course not. Thank goodness. But something was different. Something important.
Seventeenish years later he told me his story. "The first solo mate," he said, pausing for a sip of mate, "is a coming of age experience that marks every Cordobés child’s life. In my case it left more of a lasting impression than, he took another sip, first communion."
"Drinking mate solo is by no means taboo," he said, "but its place in the cultural imagination," a pause and a sip, "is positioned relative to the act of drinking with others." The daily ritual of communal mate begins with family, in the sweet dependence of childhood. Poblador toddlers sup from the parental gourd as young as 3 and in Paraguay, it is said, babies are weaned on mate. It’s not long before the mate sharing rotation expands beyond the family and kids are sharing with friends, friends of friends, or, like Javi, with themselves.
Samuelito, from the ranch, age 3
The cultural significance of mate cannot be overstated, or, unfortunately for those who don’t enjoy it, ignored. Yerba mate has inspired it’s own idiomatic expressions, ceremonial customs, coded gestures, and even its own material infrastructure. The Spanish verb cebar is unique to serving mate. One would sirve anything else that is served. It is mate – and only mate – that one can ceba.
The cebador prepares the herb and pours a full gourd for each drinker in turn. Do not move the bombilla. Slurping is fine, if not encouraged. In some places the gourd is exchanged with the right hand while making eye contact. If circumstances prevent a proper exchange, say perdona la mano, “pardon the hand.” Hay palos en el rio means “there are sticks in the river.” In other words, anyone can see that the palos are floating to the top of the mate. This round is cached; make a new one already.
A cebador might intentionally skip you or pass you the gourd with the left hand while refusing eye contact. In some places this is insignificant. In others, it means you’re not welcome, and you'd better leave quickly and politely. If a woman offers a man a mate while she is alone at home, Jose Luis told me, she wants ‘something more’ than to share mate. This is not true.
Back to young Javi. What happened that unforgettable day? Was it an individuation? A first taste of adolescent independence Maybe he overcame his unconscious fear of solitude with a spiritual leapfrog, landing in an exquisitely heated bath of self love.
I don’t know. I didn’t grow up with mate. Latecomers like me may never fully appreciate the significance of mate for native drinkers. It was months of study and countless mates meticulously prepared before my efforts would be validated with a buen mate spoken by a lifetime aficionado.
What I do know is that if you go to Argentina, you will meet a man in a park with a hairdo that English haircabulary cannot adequately describe.
He will offer you a mate. You’ll end up talking for hours despite your nagging feeling that there was somewhere you were supposed to be going to. He will invite you to dinner with his family, and their generosity and camaraderie will slowly push your previous commitment further into the recesses of your mind until it fades into the evening mist.
For now, though, the thermos is empty and you both need a refill. The gas station down the street has preheated mate water on tap.
Once you have accepted mate from a stranger, anything is possible. When you are ready, make your pilgrimage to the Rio de la Plata with your bombilla. Find the sacred swamp and drink directly of the earth.
That's me, serving mate and some of its infinite variants at a tea party in the US.
If you're interested in more Backcountry Gourmet, check out my first story, about cooking bread on a campstove