Mom's Mole, Fosters Freeze, Chow Mein, and Other Foods of a Southern California Childhood
An interview with Gera Ayala of Santa Barbara
This week’s newsletter is a little late, thanks to the long weekend (and some other California food news I’ll be able to share in a few weeks), but it’s worth the wait! This story comes from an old friend, Gerardo Ayala (or Gera—"Heda"—as I’ve always known him), who shared the story of his parents’ immigration to California, his time growing up in Santa Barbara, and how it influenced his food preferences. Gera is a health advocate with the Santa Barbara County Education Office, and he has worked in social services and the arts for 20 years, working on art installations with Joan Tanner and others and serving on the Santa Barbara Arts Commission. He also does work as an interior designer and garden designer.
When I was growing up in Southern California, in the ‘80s and ‘90s, I heard about illegal immigration a lot, and I knew plenty of people who lived their lives in the grey zone of immigration limbo until the amnesty of 1986. Stories like Gera’s—stories of legal immigrants who had the freedom to travel back and for to Mexico regularly—got lost in that narrative, so I was thrilled to hear more about his childhood. Gera also shared his mom’s fantastic mole recipe, which you’ll find at the end of the letter. Here’s our conversation, edited and condensed for clarity. Buen provecho!
Gera Ayala
My parents are from the state of Michoacán, and they were neighbors. My dad came to this country, because he was the youngest of 12. My grandfather worked for the utility, and many of my uncles started to work there. So the uncles, who had good jobs and had homes and families, asked my dad if he would come here; they could arrange for him to come to this country legally, from day one, if he agreed to build my grandparents a house.
This was early '60s, and at the time, if you worked for a utility, you had some connections. All they needed was a letter saying that my dad also worked for that utility. And so, through this, he was able to go to Mexico City and get his work permit and green card; and he came to this country.
My parents married seven years later. My dad’s plan was to live and work here, send money to Mexico, and then go visit my mom twice a year in the summer and during the holidays. But my mom said, "Oh, no. No, no, no. Where you go, I go." So my brother was born there, in Guanajuato, and then she came to this country legally, with my brother and three months pregnant with me. I was born in Santa Barbara six months after she arrived.
My dad first kind of followed the crops. He picked asparagus, grapes, melons; I forget what else. And then he contacted a friend from his home city, La Piedad, and the friend said, "Come to Santa Barbara. That work is too hard. I know someone who could teach you how to be a mechanic and it's not that hard, you can learn." So he came here. But he didn't initially apprentice as a mechanic. He worked at restaurants. But he loved Santa Barbara. And then he apprenticed with that friend; this was, I think, 1966 or '67.
My dad loved pretty things, and he saw Santa Barbara, and I think maybe different parts of it reminded him a little bit of Mexico. He loved the mountains, he loved the beach. He didn't go to the beach—he just loved driving by the beach.
He had lived briefly in his youth in Mexico City, and he liked certain parts of it, like night life. But he didn't like a big city during the day, when you have to go to work and all the noise. So he liked the smallness here.
He would get stopped by cops, because he would sometimes be driving in a white t-shirt, which you didn't do in those days. Oh no. You had to have your button up or jacket. But what's weird is he didn't mind that. Both my parents saw it as a sort of...like this country had some order; that this country was less corrupt than Mexico. He never had a violent or really upsetting experience with police or anything like that.
I remember when I was a kid, people running because the La Migra, the INS, would be driving around in their green vans. And people would just scatter, basically. My mom would be crossing the street ,and the driver would be like, "Oh, go ahead." They never stopped her. People always thought she looked Asian because she had different features. Or maybe it was because they didn't walk around with fear. They were very relaxed.
That was something my dad always acknowledged and I always acknowledge—how lucky we were. Even though at that time, again, it wasn't that uncommon. A lot of his friends came here legally from day one or arrived here and then were able to go back and file the necessary paperwork and get their green card. That still happens if you have money. Now you just have to prove a certain amount; I have relatives that go back and forth without a problem.
We went back and forth between Santa Barbara and Mexico a lot. Usually twice a year. It was rare that we would come more than a year without going. For two months, at least, in the summer, and in winter, they would pull us out of school early, and we'd spend the whole month of December in Mexico. Sometimes we would drive, which was crazy but kind of an incredible experience. We rarely flew. Sometimes we would take the bus from Tijuana all the way down to Michoacán.
We stayed in La Piedad, or we'd go visit family in a little town called El Capulin, where my mom grew up until she was 12. It was so much fun. I looked forward to every single trip. I couldn't wait to go. I loved it because it was such a contrast to Santa Barbara. But I also loved coming back.
It wasn't until I was 19 that I took my first trip there without my parents. A friend and I went to Mexico, and we spent a month, and I went all the way down to Palenque, near the Guatemala border. Then I discovered a whole Mexico that I didn't know existed, which was also absolutely amazing.
When I was a kid, my mom cooked enchiladas, and lots of pork with different tomatillo sauces. She made tamales. A lot of zucchini with pork, catfish stew, shrimp stew, which in Mexico you eat with a piece of bread. And nopales. For Lent, they make these little shrimp patties (a little too salty for me), and then they put those in this dish that has nopales with a red sauce. It is actually slightly bitter, but it's really good. That was something I remember that she would always make.
But my favorite thing was her mole, which is spicier because, you know, there's so many different types of moles. My mom's was spicy and thicker than most, and it was just loaded with chicken and red rice. And to this day, it's one of my favorite foods.
My mom never enjoyed cooking, but when she was younger and had more energy, she would cook it at least once a month. And then, as we got older, it became a special occasion kind of thing because it has too many ingredients; there's too much work and she just didn't want to do it anymore.
When she tried to make something that was an American dish, she failed miserably. She started making spaghettis and pasta dishes. What else? I don't remember. I probably tried to block it out, because it was really bad. But everything she made that was Mexican was delicious. Really.
I ate other things at friends' houses, and for school lunches. And pizza of course. Oh, pizza was so good. I got introduced to Thanksgiving meals early on, because we had a neighbor who would invite my brother and me over. She was Mexican, but she cooked a great Thanksgiving dinner. Because my parents didn't really celebrate it, all my life I've gone to other people's house for Thanksgiving. I loved it.
Do you remember Fosters Freeze? They had a fried bean burrito—oh my god, we loved it. On Sundays, after church sometimes, we'd get Fosters Freeze. And Nanking Gardens was the only sit-down restaurant that our family would go to. We loved it. The egg foo young and the chow mein was with the fried noodles. Sweet and sour pork.
There was a waitress there named Betty, and Betty had worked, I think, at the Harbor Restaurant when my dad had been a busboy there. So I don't know if that was connection to that restaurant. But she was almost always our waitress, and we had the exact same order every time. And we loved Chinese food. I miss that type of Chinese food.
What I realized, when I sometimes went to other friends’ houses and ate their moms’ cooking, was that it was never as good as my mom's. My mom made everything from scratch. So it was fresh. Even though mole has a lot of dried chilis and sesame seeds and stuff like that, still, it was amazing. So I was spoiled at home. My aunts in Mexico were really, really good cooks. So we'd go to Mexico and eat pozole. My mom would make pozole, too, and menudo and stuff that I don't eat now. And tamales and everything was so... and buñuelos, which I used to love making, and I would sit with the women and stretch out the dough and they would fry it. So I was eating really good Mexican homemade food, and then in high school, I ran cross country on an almost all-white team, so a lot of our end of the season parties were in homes here in Montecito, and I started tasting really good deviled eggs. I was like, "Oh, this is really good."
The first time I moved out of the house, I would eat at the Sojourner [a health-focused, organic restaurant in Santa Barbara.] It was a few blocks away, and I could afford it. So I spent a lot of money on food. I loved their tostada and the Indian dal with chutney.
I'm impatient in the kitchen, and I don't have any skills, in terms of, like, chopping food; it just it doesn't come naturally to me. And my mom, unfortunately, never taught my brother and me how to cook. My brother, actually, is good in the kitchen. He makes great tacos and all that kind of stuff. I don't know how he learned, and I didn't—maybe because I was kind of a mama's boy.
In 2016 and 2017 I lost a lot of weight, and I did it by making salads. I mean, how hard is it to make something that doesn't require any heat or anything? That year I discovered the mandoline. You need a mandoline, because with that you can do the pear or apples or persimmon. That was a big discovery. So I started making salads with fruit and things like that. And I make a lot of stir-fries.
I’m living with my mom again now, but she doesn’t cook much. Her sister—who lives a few blocks away—she's a very good cook. She makes flor de calabaza, slightly fried and battered zucchini flowers, in a stew. And green mole, which is really good. So she sends a lot of food over; she’s done this for the last year and a half. I think my mom may start cooking again. Everything she makes is really, really good.
Eloisa’s Mole with Chicken
Gera shared his mom’s mole recipe with me, and it’s a stunner. While it might seem like a lot of work—there are a lot of ingredients, and lots of blending—it doesn’t actually take that much time; I made easily made it in an evening and served it the following day. The recipe below is a combination of Gera’s original notes to me and a few cues I added after cooking it; I made this in a large cast iron skillet, but a Dutch oven would work well. According to Gera, you should serve this with red rice and some tortillas.
For the Chicken:
1 chicken, cut into parts (I separated the legs, thighs, breasts, and wings)
1 small onion
1 clove garlic, peeled
For the Mole:
¾ cup roasted peanuts
4 cups chicken broth
½ cup sesame seeds
3 ½ tablespoons vegetable oil or pork lard
1 ½ cups dried ancho, mulato, and pasilla chiles (about 2 of each), seeded and destemmed
1 small white onion, quartered
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 Roma tomato
4-inch piece of day-old baguette
¼ cinnamon stick, lightly crushed (optional)
4 whole cloves
4 large black peppercorns
¼ disk of Mexican chocolate (Ibarra or Abuelita)
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 tablespoons salt
Cook the Chicken:
1. Put the chicken, onion, and garlic in a large pot, and cover with water.
2. Bring the water to a boil, then lower the heat and cook at a simmer or very low boil until cooked through, about 10 to 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the chicken sit.
Cook the Mole:
1. In a small bowl, soak the peanuts in some of the chicken broth; set aside until ready to use.
2. Heat a large pan without oil, and toast the sesame seeds, stirring constantly, until lightly browned and fragrant, being careful not to burn them. Transfer to a small bowl.
3. Add the oil to the skillet, and heat over medium. Lightly fry the chiles, for about a minute, until they’re softened and fragrant, but be careful not to burn them (this will make the mole bitter); set aside.
4. In the same skillet, lightly fry the onion, then the garlic, then the tomato, until each is browned, setting each aside as your finished. Lightly brown the bread; set aside. Turn off the heat, but leave the pan.
5. Put the peanuts and sesame seeds in a blender with the soaking liquid, and blend to a smooth paste, adding more stock if necessary. Slowly add the onion, garlic, tomato, bread, cinnamon, cloves, pepper, chocolate, bouillon, and salt to the blender, along with small amounts of the stock, blending between each addition so that you have a smooth paste at all times. Pour the paste into the pan with the leftover oil in it, scraping well and using a bit of stock to rinse out the blender.
6. Put the chiles in the blender with a little more of the stock, and blend to a smooth paste.
7. Heat the nut and spices paste in the pan, stirring, until warm, then stir in the pepper paste. Use the remaining stock to rinse out the blender, and add it to the pan. Slowly bring the mole to a boil; it shouldn’t cook for more than 15 to 20 minutes.
8. Add the chicken to the mole and cook together for a few minutes before serving.
More California Stories to Read, Watch, and Listen To
If you want to dig into more of the history of non-white foods in California and the US, check out Mayukh Sen’s recent book, Taste Makers—Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America, which features some of the cookbook authors who first introduced Americans to Mexican, Chinese, Iranian, and other foodways (including two who lived in the Bay Area). The LA Times has a great piece about a new tamale cart design that has actually been approved by the county’s department of health (which is a huge deal for many vendors!) And Evan Kleiman talked about the increasing number of California cities banning gas stoves on the Good Food podcast.
Photos courtesy of Gera Ayala; food photo Georgia Freedman