Poor Man's Dinner

Or "poor Mexicans dinner," that is what my mom called the meal she served to us when money was tight. During the time they closed Cudahy Packing Plant and my dad was finally hired two years later at Beech Aircraft. The time my mom had to learn to drive and find a job.

Poor Mexicans dinner was an egg fried with onions and a little chile sauce, the yolk busted and the egg flipped like a pancake, and served with refried beans. My parents used to smother the egg and beans in more chile, while my little brother and I liked ketchup. I know, not real Mexican. The hot eggs and beans were scooped or rolled in homemade tortillas and shoveled in.

I can smell the crisco and fried egg, the garlic and beans in the cast iron skillet, the toasted skins of the tortillas. You would think that a meal served often during those times would bring nothing but bad memories, bad smells. But it doesn't. I miss those poor man's meals. I crave them.

So, I brought this up to Brad. I told him that I was going to make the "poor Mexicans dinner" this week. He was all for it. Then he asked me, "what kind of egg did you say?"

A pompo egg. A what? Pompo. What's a pompo? (long pause) I don't know. I never thought about it. That's just what my mother always called it, a pompo egg.

I called her. What's a pompo egg? You're asking me now? Then she was quiet. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, almost sad. Pompo is what we called my Daddy and these were the eggs he made for us kids. Pompo eggs. Daddy's eggs.

She proceeded to tell me how good they were, how the beans were not too salty, not too mushy. The eggs were fried and flipped to perfection with just a touch of onion. The chile not too hot, but not too mild. Grandpa Vasquez knew his kids loved his pompo eggs so much that sometimes he would wake them up in the morning before he walked to Cudahy and bring them pompo eggs rolled in tortillas. While the kids sat in bed and ate their tortillas and eggs, he sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. Then he would leave for work. My mother remembered the grease from the tortilla hot and slippery on her small fingers, but she didn't care. She loved those pompo eggs.

No one could make beans and eggs like my Daddy. I told her that I thought hers were the best, that hers were probably just as good as Grandpa Vasquez. No, she answered almost in a whisper, never as good as my Daddy's. Never.

And now I know why this "poor man's dinner" stays in my memory, why I crave this simple meal. It isn't the eggs or the beans or the tortillas, but the memory and the love it evokes. I know that when I make the eggs and beans for Brad the flavor will seem richer, stronger yet the same.  But never as good as my mom's Pompo eggs.