Carla Altesor is one of those kinds of people that I feel fortunate to be able to sorround myself with. She is a ‘whole package’ woman: mother, partner, hard-worker, well-rounded, well-grounded, fisty, talented, food-savvy, and amazing cocinera. The funniest thing is I’ve never met her (at least not in person), our friendship is one of those rare gifts of social media, the pandemic, and a shared passion for food.
Her gift to y’all, in this first contribution for Atole, is an intensly red and glossy tomato salsa —tuco, ragú or whatever you wish to call it (since “it has many faces” as she points out)— that was passed-on to her by Wilson, her father, who in turn recieved it from Abuela Blanca, so that now that she has masterded it enough to pull its edges into new comforting places of her own, she’s ready to let it go.
Carla was born in México City, from an interesting combination of food cultures: a Yucatecan mother and an Uruguayan father: panuchos and homemade pasta. She’s a Visual Arts major from the Universidad de las Américas in Puebla, but has mostly devoted her life to food. She grew up in family of outstanding self-taught cooks (which meant always having beautiful food on the table and interesting characters around it), so it became natural for her to follow through. She’s been an organizer of independent food-projects since she was in college, like hosting cooking clubs and private dinners, distribuiting wine, and writing about food for magazines. She recently edited both the Spanish and English version with Sicomoro Ediciones and Penguin Random House of the cookbook The Food of Oaxaca by Alejandro Ruiz.
*Other collaborations by Carla Altesor: Mukbil Pollo
*All photos are also by Carla.
The story that I am about to tell you has been slow-cooked inside and around all my life. The recipe that comes with it took as long to get “just right”. Let’s begin with an introduction to my father Wilson. By all accounts, a unique name in my native Mexico City, and definitely not a cool one until the film Castaway came out. He was born and raised in Artigas, a small town in Uruguay bordering Brazil. He moved to Mexico in the ’70s to work in the television industry. Soon after, he met my mother, fell in love, and had two girls.
Wilson is a charmer. He had friends from all facets of Mexico city's rich culture, from media moguls to waiters, from artists to lottery vendors. With his movie-star good looks and foreign accent, he easily captivated many, many lovely ladies. The books I could fill with the stories of his life… about how he almost ended up in the Andes when the plane fell, the time he spent pursuing a professional soccer player career, his fleeing and hiding in Chile in the times of Pinochet, his brushes with the mafia, or how he became Federer’s confidant. Drop his name on a certain adventure.
I’ve gotten to an age where you begin to value your parents, your origins, in a much more profound way. I was curious about many things in our past. How he’d first gotten into cooking was top on my list. So, I rang him as I have been trying to do more often now with the pending doom and all. He told me he’d been taught to cook by my great grandmother. “La Abuela Blanca” —as we lovingly called her— was a sturdy, cigar-smoking curandera who had a strong knowledge of folk medicine. In one instance, she saved me from dying of dehydration as a baby. After she applied suction cups on my back, she instructed my mother to throw out the canned, mass-produced baby food she was hauling around, and instead, scrape meat with a spoon and feed it to me. The doors to her home were open to whoever was hungry. There was always something simmering on her burner and an animal, recently field dressed, its carcass propped open waiting for the pot.
Before my father told me La Abuela Blanca had been his mentor, I’d always thought he was a self-taught cook, like myself. What I think happened is he fell in love with cooking because of the many hours spent in her kitchen. And then, I’m sure he also picked up other tips and tricks along the way. Many of the passionate cooks I admire, did not go to cooking school. Some fell in love with cooking because it was a type of nourishment, an assurance they grew-up with. So, they recreate it for themselves but also, mostly, to share with others. While on the opposite end, some were thrust into it as a result of lacking such nurturing and possibly also having to take care of kin at an early age. Either recipe makes for vehement cooks eager to share this trade that can bring such comfort.
And on Sundays, that was just what we did at my father’s, we learned of the joys of breaking bread. Artists, intellectuals, boyfriends, girlfriends, and friends, joined our extended dysfunctional family for lunch. To our advantage, my father’s third ex-wife was a patron to the biggest names in the Mexico City art scene, so that kept things pretty interesting. Wilson, who grew up in my grandfather’s militarily authoritarian home, firmly yet affectionately, demanded the collaboration of whoever wanted to sit at the table. Partaking in the meal prep, table setting, or clean-up was the ticket to share an afternoon where his famous pasta always made a presence. Once he made THE most handsome soap opera actor wash dishes after some 15 guests. I must have been 16 at the time and was positively mortified! But see, that was my father, he did not care what role you played in this world, he demanded of you and cared for you equally. He could be really strict about table etiquette and general cleanliness. Yet to this day some of my younger half-siblings (and even their friends) have come up to me to admit how grateful they are for this. They’re positive that without my father’s sturdy hand they would have gone rogue and I think they’re not far off from the truth.
I find that even though my father still lives, I frequently correct myself for speaking of him in past-tense. This could be because he moved to the States, and we seldom get to see each other. In around 98-99 he picked up and moved, starting over once again. A new country, a new culture, and a new family, which includes two kids close in years to my own. But also, I think it’s because of late, his memory is beginning to fail him. So, in a sense, I feel like I’ve begun to lose him before he is really gone.
And that is where the magic of food comes in. You know how when someone dies, people say that they don’t really die, that they’re always with you somehow? Well, to me this sauce is that somehow. It is the sauce I turn to when I am in a hurry and need to feed my kids, it is what I cook when I’m nostalgic and also my go-to on the weekends when I want to eat something delicious but not necessarily so time-consuming.
This sauce is perfect for transitioning from summer to autumn. It can be surprisingly light for hot days, and in winter when nighttime is quick to descend, it will cozy your home with steamed kitchen windows. It’s also forgiving, as it can be made with fresh or canned tomatoes. The way my father taught me when using fresh tomatoes, consider 3 to 4 pieces per person depending on the size. Making it with whole canned tomatoes is a breeze. One 28 ounces can easily serve four. I usually grab the tomatoes straight out of the can, delve my hand into the pot (to avoid juice splatter) and squeeze each one as If I were performing an Aztec rite. It’s so much more satisfying than just chopping them! Though it might sound weird, I’ve noticed my father adding sugar to the sauce when the tomatoes are not sweet enough, and even red wine for acidity and depth of flavor. Both additions give it nuanced layers. To up the vegetable intake, I’ve also been known to integrate cubed celery and carrots, added in with the onions. My father called this a vegetarian tuco. Tuco, which is also referred to as Genoese sauce, is brother to ragú. Although nowadays the name tuco is almost solely used in Argentina and Uruguay by early Genoese citizens. And of course, you could also go the meat route and make a beef ragú.
This brings me to the marveling way in which a recipe transforms over time. Because let’s be honest, how many of you have a family recipe heirloom that no matter how many times you make, you can never arrive at the same result you remember from whoever gave it to you?
Just recently I was talking this over with Renata, how a mole sauce can transform over time, but also how it’s ownership and most primal taste always belongs to where it first started out.
It is a phenomenon I think must have a name and so, for explanations’ sake, I’ll coin it the ‘trans-handling’ of a recipe. Perhaps my father learned to make this sauce from my great grandmother, but along the way, he made his own changes. I know for one, he has a heavy hand for olive oil, which perhaps La Abuela Blanca did not have a budget for. But let’s say for me, the purest sample of the sauce was when my father made it from scratch, blanching, peeling, and seeding the tomatoes, often even serving it over homemade pasta. From that sauce to what it has become in my household, and in my children’s palates, lots of trans-handling has happened.
I’ll give you an example, the last time I made this sauce, my family and I had fled to my mother’s beachside home to ride out a couple of months of the Pandemic. I began sweating the onions, adding the dried herbs (heavy on the rosemary), then the tomatoes (some roma, some wild organic cherry variety). The acidity in the tomatoes filled the room as they began to cook. Sensing the acidity in my palate made me want to accentuate it, so I took a Eureka lemon out of the fridge, along with my microplane. Then as I went to and fro in the kitchen, I caught a whiff of the ocean and that reminded me of the slightly briny, but sweet creamy prawns I had at hand. Those would go magnificently in there too, I thought. Finally, when the pasta was served, I remembered I wanted to make a salad with peppery arugula I’d just bought. I did not however want to add more dishes to the hubbies washing list, so I topped the pasta with it, and dressed it right then and there, lemon zest included. It ticked all the boxes I needed at the time, and if you’re interested, I’ll be posting it soon on my Instagram account. But for now, I will gift you my father’s recipe as best I can, the simple version. Once you’ve mastered it, you’ll see it has many faces, it is the gift that keeps on giving. So please, enjoy, and go trans-handle the hell out of it!
SALSA DE TOMATES ALTESOR
Serves 4 to 6 people
Ingredients:
12 Roma tomatoes, peeled, deseeded, and roughly chopped
½ an onion, chopped (about 1 ½ to 2 cups)
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil (if you have the heart to go over to just before half the cup, do so)
1 teaspoon each dried rosemary, thyme, and oregano
8 basil leaves, chiffonade
1 tablespoon maldon or sea salt (or more to taste)
Parmesan cheese, to grate at the table
Fresh baguette (A good chunk for tasting the sauce, plus what’s left to sop up whatever is left in your bowl)
Preparation:
When I was younger, I remember my father blanching the tomatoes for peeling. Later on, he’d remove the skin with a knife, a method I don't quite like, as it wastes a good part of the fruit.
To blanch the tomatoes, first, bring a pot of water to a boil, and fill a bowl with ice water. With a sharp knife, make an X at the bottom of each tomato. Drop the tomatoes into boiling water and cook for a few seconds. My sister always said that it should be no more and no less than three seconds. And I’m sure this is the case in the perfect scenario with just-ripe tomatoes and water in a rolling boil. But in my experience, it depends on the tomatoes at hand. If they are somewhat green (which is not ideal, if possible, you should use them when they’re bright red, with skin that seems to burst from just looking at it), you have to boil them for at least 10 -15 seconds. If you leave them on for too long, you also risk losing a good part of the meat.
Remove with a slotted spoon and plunge into the ice water to immediately stop the cooking. The skin should slide right off, if not give it a nudge with a knife or your fingers. If the skin is still not coming off, then do throw them in the boiling water for a few more seconds.
Once peeled, remove the upper stem end by introducing your knife on an angle and cutting around it forming a cone, remove and discard. Cut in half and remove the seeds, either with your fingers or a spoon and discard. Chop the tomatoes and set aside.
Set a pot over medium heat. Add olive oil, onions, and garlic. As they begin to sweat and get translucent, add 1 teaspoon salt along with the dried herbs. Cook for a couple of minutes, giving a chance for the oil to get infused with the herbs, before adding the tomatoes and another teaspoon salt.
Keep cooking and stirring from time to time. You’ll see the tomatoes begin to turn orange and you’ll notice more juice around them. Turn the heat to a simmer and place a lid on the pot. Cook for about 30 min, stirring from time to time to avoid the sauce burning at the bottom, and add one more teaspoon salt along the way. The sauce will turn from a fresh orange to a bright red, and little crimson oil puddles like jewels will appear on the surface. A few minutes before serving, add the fresh basil and give it one last stir. Then, do as my father did, grab that chunk of baguette and dip it in the sauce, no other way to taste. Add a pinch of salt if needed.
We usually serve this sauce over pasta, fresh or store-bought. It is also amazing with polenta, and leftovers (if you’re lucky to have ‘em). It makes a kick-ass Shakshuka of sorts, just add some heat and you’re good to go.