Canto: CDLXX: Tampico No Lindo

Gentle cabrones:

The most famous passage in food writing is Proust’s Madeleine.

End of the first volume of his magisterial Remembrance of Things Past. The protagonist’s mother gives her son some tea and a madeleine, those French shell-shaped sponge cakes that I’ve always loved for some reason even though they’re not too sweet.

Here’s Proust:

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine.

Food writers teach it as a master class of how something so small can evoke memory, of showing and not telling, of how powerful memory is in informing the present. Food does this in a way no other sensation can.

It happened to me a few weeks ago.

Grítale a Guti, the Tuesday night IG free-for-all that I’ve been doing for an incredible six years. An hour and 15 minutes where I’ll take your questions about WHATEVER. Part of the tradition is I drink something — usually alcoholic, but not always. In the latter category, I love to try drinks from across the world, which I pick up from markets or restaurants that I visit.

Lot of good drinks out there! Turks make some of the best fruit punches in the world. My favorite soda has become Tropical banana soda from Honduras. The best coconut water comes from Thailand. And so forth.

A few months ago, my honey and I went to Costa Mexico for ramen. My drink then was Ramune, that bubbly drink where you crack open the top to get to what’s inside via a twist top and a marble stays in the neck of the bottle for some reason. Always loved the bottle more than the drink, but it was refreshing and complemented my super-fatty ramen.

My drink to take home was an orange Calpico.

Had long seen them, had never had one — I’m a sucker for orange-flavored anything since I’m a descendant of naranjeros. When I finally tasted my orange Calpico on GAG, I smiled. Sweet and milky, it was almost like a creamier orange sherbet.

A split-second later, I stopped.

“This is not going to happen,” I paraphrased to GAG viewers. Took one micro-sip. Not going to happen.

I promised my viewers I would write about it here, and here it is:

Proust’s madeleine was in effect.

First time reading this newsletter? Subscribe here for more merriment! Feedback, thoughts, commentary, rants? Send them to [email protected]

Senior year, Anaheim High. Spring semester, a few weeks before graduation. Lunchtime assembly.

I can’t remember what it was for. I do remember there was a lot of food. I do remember there were leftover bottles of Tampico, the poor man’s version of Sunny Delight, which Wikipedia tells me has been known as SunnyD since 2000, which shows how with-it I am.

I’ve never liked to see leftover food — First World guilt. So I grabbed a bottle of Tampico. Found a cup and poured myself a full one. Sweet, milky and with a bit of citrus zest — loved it.

Poured myself another cup…eh, why am I lying. I was drinking straight from the gallon. Again and again. All of it. Between lunchtime and sixth period.

My mami was always very judicious with junk food. She’d buy us tortilla chips and we could go crazy with them and El Pato salsa, which we called Salsa de Pato and eventually shortened to S de P. We always had peanut butter and jelly for sandwiches (Canto CLVII, kinda). But cookies basically didn’t exist in our household, nor did sugary cereals — and she rarely bought us chocolates.

My mami was a good mami — but that meant that whenever I had a chance to eat or drink sugary anything, I’d splurge.

Have you drank a gallon of Tampico within half an hour?

It’s delicious at first. Still delicious after second and third gulp. All the way to the end, really.

Spring semester of senior year, I was ditching what was Mr. Swanson’s sixth-period yearbook class to crash Miss Sinatra’s class or just wander around the campus (Canto CXCIII). The day I drank a gallon of Tampico, I was fine until I was not.

I remember a sensation hitting my sternum. Asco. It translates into “revulsion,” “disgust” and “nausea” but really combines all of those related-but-distinct sentiments and goes even deeper. You feel asco in your very soul. You never want to feel asco.

I felt asco with all that Tampico.

I ran to the restroom. BARF.

It was definitely one of the worst vomits I had experienced in my 18 years then and remains one of the worst vomits of my life. My skin was left clammy, my undershirt was drenched in sweat and I wandered around campus for a while in a daze. I think someone asked me why I looked so weird then scoffed when I told them what happened.

Drinking all that Tampico was an important lesson, because it taught me the dangers of indulgence and the importance of discipline. I’m not going to pretend I stick to that lesson all the time — but willPOWER (Canto XLVI) wins out more often than not.

If you overdo something, you usually rebound back. If you overdo a food, you can usually get back to it. But that Tampico defeated me forever.

Me empachó — another Mexican Spanish word you can’t exactly translate. Google Translate offers “stuffed, overfull, indigestion” but in my world, it means you indulge in something so much that you will never do it again lest asco sweep in. To this day, the smell of Tampico — just looking at its friendly font in the logo! — brings me queasiness and takes me to my memory.

Proust couldn’t have written it better.

O, young Guti — que pendejo eras, but don’t worry:

You’ll get better. A bit.

**

Enough rambling. This was the semana that was:

IMAGE OF THE WEEK: Terrible photo of INCREDIBLE birria de res at Outside the Masa in Indio, prepared so deliciously that it redeems the modern-day culinary cliche known as birria de res. Takes me back to weddings in the late 1990s at either the UFCW hall in Buena Park or Chava’s Cafe in downtown L.A. haha — it’s THAT legit.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “We put people on the moon, so we can probably put lifts on buses” — Atlantis Community

LISTENING: “Soul Sauce,” Cal Tjader. Absolutely true story: when my honey first let me into her home, she played a CD of this hep cat, and this was the first song — groovy, proto-funky, perfect. Any wonder I immediately fell for her besides her looks, drive, those light eyes and that puppy corazón? Hence included in Gustavo Arellano’s Weekly Radiola of Randomness YouTube songlist, where I’ve included every song I’ve ever featured in a canto — give it a spin!

READING: “Our Amish Language”: Always a sucker for etymology, for personal essays that land — so to find both? Wonderful. Side note: One of my glories as a headline writer was reading a feature that the Barbarians from Phoenix wanted its papers to run about the gap year that Amish teens on the cusp of adulthood can take, and immediately coming up with “Rumspringa Break” as its topper. Pretty obvious, but they took it.

Gustavo Events  

July 18, 1 p.m.: I’ll be in conversation with legendary reporter Sam Quinones about his new tone poem/photo essay about L.A. murals featuring the Virgen of Guadalupe, for which I wrote the forward! At the Edendale branch of the L.A. Public Library, 2011 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles. Event is FREE; books, BARATO!

Gustavo in the News

“REVIEW | In Hillman City, a Menu that Spotlights Northern Mexico Includes a Surprise: Hot Dogs”: A Seattle-area paper refers to a New Yorker story of mine.

“Letters to the Editor: Mexicans have achieved elite status in plenty of fields beyond soccer”: Los Angeles Times readers let me have it.

“After a year of ICE raids, Southern California finds joy in Mexico's World Cup run”: A BBC reporter hangs out with my friends and I in SanTana.

“Mexican-American Fans Celebrate Dual Identity Amid World Cup Excitement“: Not sure the provenance of this article, but I’m cited in it!

“Mexico Foreign Press Chatter”: From a publication called Miranda Intelligence, which I don’t think I’m related to…

“Marc Falsetto is reshaping the restaurant scene in Fort Lauderdale”: I’m quoted in this, even though I didn’t talk to anyone for this.

“USMNT World Cup exit reignites debate over soccer’s future in U.S”: A columna of mine is quoted.

“Believe”: My recent use of “accepted” gets a nod from Merrian-Webster!

Gustavo Stories 

“Grítale a Guti”: A special edition dedicated to Legendary Cosumo.

“Officials crack down on "living room" style beach tents”: My latest KCRW “Orange County Line” commentary focuses on moves in Newport Beach and Laguna Beach.

“The People’s Game”: I appear on the KPFK quadrennial program to talk about the World Cup while channeling my inner George Carlin.

“Column: Mexico LOST in the World Cup - but MEXICAN AMERICANS Won”: I appear on KTLA to talk about a columna of mine that’s below.

“Mexico lost in the World Cup — but Mexican Americans won”: My latest L.A. Times columna talks about what happened in SanTana after El Tri faced off against the Three Lions. KEY QUOTE: “It was yet another early exit for a team that has never even made it to the World Cup semifinals — but no one wanted to dwell on defeat, because no one felt defeated.”

“Mexico lost the World Cup — but Mexican Americans won”: My latest L.A. Times video is a take on the aforementioned columna.

“The Trump ‘curse’ at the World Cup is his latest red card against Americans”: My next latest L.A. Times columna talks about how the president tried to influence el Mundial. KEY QUOTE: “Everything the man is touching nowadays turns into gold for him and rot for the rest of us, a curse any smart person would avoid.”

“The history of Italian American food runs through L.A., stunning new exhibit shows”: My latest L.A. Times Essential California newsletter takes readers to the Italian American Museum of Los Angeles on Olvera Street. KEY QUOTE: “It’s the best type of exhibit: one that’s familiar yet surprising and where you not only leave smarter but also hungrier.”

“The Eastside is fed up. And the politicians aren’t listening”: My still next latest L.A. Times columna tries to capture what happened at a town hall dedicated to the warehouse fire in Boyle Heights. KEY QUOTE: “The Eastside never seems to win at City Hall or the county Hall of Administration.”

You made it this far down? Gracias! Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while you’re down here by clicking on their logos down below. Don’t forget to forward this newsletter to your compadres y comadres! You can’t get me tacos anymore, but you sure as hell can give them — and more — to the O.C. Catholic Worker!