Among the many incarnations of pork, chorizo is one of the most inspired. Very few people will disagree with me on that point, and my mother just has to be one of them.
Oh how she rails against the stuff — she who has never bought (much less eaten) chorizo in her life, or passed up an opportunity to drill into my head why “that filth” is not fit for human consumption. God I love her, but she just doesn’t get it.
“Is that…?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“What is that filth doing in my house? Haven’t I told you not to eat that crap?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Am I correct to assume you know why?”
“Yes, Mama. It’s double-dead meat of dubious dietary value.”
“And?”
“And it’s laced with cancer-causing chemicals.”
“Goddamn right it is! And you still want to eat it?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Hee-sos!”
So God help me; I can’t help myself. I see chorizo and my salivary glands go into overdrive. Not that I don’t have my reservations. If you’ve ever been to a wet market, you can’t miss the chorizos. They’re the fat-mottled loops of red sausages garlanding the meat stalls. The color comes from the preservative, sodium nitrite. Those moving black specks? They’re just flies. Does that stop me from enjoying chorizo? Uh, will Mar Roxas be the next vice-president?
My family (save for my youngest sister, who is vegetarian) loves pork. That love extends to all things porcine: meat, fat, bones, offal, even blood. Who would have thought that we’d find ourselves polarized by chorizo? When my mother talks about carcinogenic dye, well, what’s she doing eating nuclear-pink shrimp paste? And is there really enough hot meat out there to satisfy the demand for chorizo? You tell me. Better yet, you tell her. Tell her chorizo can now be bought at reputable meat shops where they are made under sanitary conditions (and displayed in same). That very little nitrite is actually used in cured meat products these days. I doubt if that would make her change her mind.
In a way, it’s her antipathy that drives me into the arms of “dirty” chorizo in the first place. It’s not like I actively seek it out, but whenever I find myself at a barbecue stand my eyes automatically home in on those plump red sausages. How could I resist? Grilled to bursting and dipped in soy-vinegar sauce, you bite into one — making sure you’ve leaned far enough to avoid getting the fatty juices all over yourself — and seriously wonder: How could anyone find fault with something that tastes so heavenly? (There’s also the question of where that particular chorizo was sourced from, but do you really want to know? Not me.)
Like I said, there is no telling my mother when it comes to chorizo. Or, if you ask her, me. I’m supposedly killing myself, but she is the one working up an unhealthy snit over it. She calls me pigheaded — a case of the pot calling the kettle black (not to mention the pun). You could say we’re at a stalemate, although the way I understand the term, it involves a situation where there are no clear winners. It certainly does not take into account the smile chorizo brings to my face. How often can you say that about something that breaks your mother’s heart?
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