Piloncillo Molds

 

Today I created a chapter of my own in the history of piloncillo molds

and the early adventures of my parents.


As a cattle inspector working for the USDA in 1949, my young parents

lived in a village called Tecalitlan in Mexico.


For three weeks at a time, my father went up into the mountains of Mexico,

traveling completely by horseback,

with his partner Malaquias and a crew of riders, horses, and mules,

riding on narrow, rocky, treacherous trails.



The only food they had was what they could buy from

ranchers and farmers

when they stopped to vaccinate their cattle for hoof and mouth disease.


What was my mother doing during his absence?

Why learning to play canasta and learning to speak Spanish, wearing her hair in braids, and playing with the baby goat he had given her as a gift.

On one such trip, my father witnessed something that might have looked like this.

(Google)

Sugar cane stalks were being pushed through a press of

wooden gears to crush the cane and release its juice.

The liquid sugar cane juice trickled slowly down a carved wooden trough to a container below.


There it was collected and cooked to be poured into

piloncillo molds to make delicious Mexican candy.

And so I began to weave my own piloncillo story,

for you see, these molds really did have a purpose,

long before they were turned into an item of home décor.


It is after all all about serendipity.


Driving home from Houston earlier this week, I turned

a 6 hour trip into 9 hours by stopping and exploring along the way.



I began in Wharton at an antique mall on the square where I spotted glass

insulators for 50 cents each.

I bought 9, including the dirt that came with them. 


Yes, I bought someone else’s dirt.

And so, these insulators will be used as glass liners

for the piloncillo mold I have,

an idea my daughter learned at a recent Market Days.

This mold sits on the copper countertop of my husband’s outdoor grill.

Those are the very same countertops that I had in my kitchen.
I saved them when we remodeled the kitchen.


Serendipity you see.

The next chapter…?

my father and Malaquias in the cantina, a knife, an angry army sergeant

and the bartender’s 45 pistol.

***

I am linking to:

Rosy Note’s Photo Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Feathered Nest Friday

Show and Tell Friday
 
Inspiration Friday At The Picket Fence