Tabasco Sauce and Dad

I was almost through my entire childhood before I realized my grandmother was Mexican, hence my Dad was Mexican. Of course, this made me Mexican too. I wasn't lucky enough to get the beautiful, darker complexion that they have. I used to say that my Mom is Scotch/Irish and so my complexion is like Selena. The reason I never realized that my grandmother was part Mexican is because she married an Italian and she always cooked Italian food religiously. I knew her mother was Italian and taught her to cook many of her specialties.

I always knew that my father appreciated spicy foods, but when I discovered our Mexican heritage, it all made sense. I remember as a child, my father always had to have a bottle of Tabasco at the dinner table and he would be quite liberal with the sauce. He would put it on most things on his plate. My brother and I marveled at our Dad's ability to consume large amounts of super spicy foods. We used to coax him into letting us try putting Tabasco onto our food. It usually didn't work because he knew it would be too much for us to handle and the food would then go to waste. Instead, he would let us try something off his plate. Mom would inevitably get up from the table to refill our glasses with water as she easily predicted what would happen. We wondered how our father could handle eating food with that much hot sauce drowning the plate.

As we grew a little older, we realized that we could never compete with Dad's preference for spicy foods. Instead, it became a challenge to find a hot sauce that Dad couldn't stomach. Anywhere I traveled I brought home sauces with names like, "New Orleans' So Hot It Makes You Crazy" sauce or "FIRE!" We would pick up any kind of sauce to see if it would stump Dad. Nothing ever did, though. Not only could Dad not be stumped, but we would be amazed at how his facial expression would not even change when he tasted the samples we set before him. I finally gave up.

Much later in my life, I realize now that I, too, enjoy spicy foods and tend to keep the Tabasco sauce nearby. I'm not afraid to try many of the spicy versions of food that I never could handle as a child. Living in New Mexico, I have found so many foods of the spicy persuasion that are now among my favorites. I think I can finally say that I can probably handle the plates my father used to scarf down for dinner. A lifetime searching for things to stump him has only made my taste buds stronger. Now I am just like my Dad.