Flavors of Latin America and Africa merge at Villa Victoria
The wooden, ladder-back chair caught my eye first. A creamy, rich yellow delicately hand-painted with a cathedral scene across the top slat. It called out Mexico by its mere presence.
"Do you like that chair? I painted it myself," Naomi Andrade Smith stated while gesturing for me to sit down.
Smith's small and efficient office is the heart of Villa Victoria, her successful catering and take-out food business now located in Columbia City. The place's peach-colored walls lend warmth against the cold, wet weather on Rainier Avenue South at this time of year, the location of Villa Victoria's spotless and modern commercial kitchen.
Mounted like a guardian inside the front door is a postcard-size painting of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, patron saint of Mexico. A handsome photo of Smith's late father, James Garfield Smith, graces another wall inside her office.
Decked out in bright colors and her trademark brimmed hat, Smith is a bundle of energy, ideas and determination, driven by a desire to make the most of her return to health after surviving cancer three years ago.
"I've been given another chance! I'm going for it; I no longer second-guess myself," Smith said with eyes sparkling, her soft voice warm and fervent.
A bright-yellow coffee roaster standing in the next room roasts imported beans for Smith's own brand called Cafe Mocambo. Dipping into a large, fiber sack, Smith drew forth a scoop of delicate, pale green coffee beans.
"This is Mexican coffee from the hills west of Tampico," she said before drawing another scoop of roasted beans from a second sack. The aroma was arresting. "Roasting my own brand of coffee is a way to combine the heritage I received from both of my parents because the coffee tree originated in Africa, in Ethiopia."
The brand name is an African word meaning "free black settlement."
"This is my life's work," Smith asserted. "This is my 'oeuvre.' I want to teach people about Afro-Mexico and about being African American."
It's a tall order, but Smith has the tools, the background and the passion. While some explore their heritage through music, dance or art, Smith is delving into hers via her talent for cooking.
"I was so blessed to have a Mexican mother," said Smith, who realized, at middle age, that the gift of family recipes and stories left by her Latina parent are now her life's work.
Healing and heritage
Convalescing after the cancer, Smith began a genealogy project. Like many American families, hers is a result of people from different countries, languages, races and cultures coming together. Smith began with her parents and worked backward. Her mother, Eva Maria Andrade Ramos, was a native of the state of Michoacan. Seeking work, Eva's mother took her young family east to Mexico's Gulf Coast when her husband died. Eva thus grew to adulthood in the port city of Tampico.
Meanwhile, Smith's father's family had relocated from Oklahoma to the Tampico area when her father was 18. Driven by a distrust of the United States government when racial tensions flared after World War I, Smith's paternal great-grandfather - descended from slaves - feared the reinstatement of slavery. Her paternal great-grandmother was of Scott, Chickasaw and African ancestry.
The Smiths prospered in Tampico, and in the early 1940s, her parents married there. However, her father's health took them to the United States after World War II.
Rather than take his Mexican wife and her two children from an earlier marriage back to Oklahoma, James Garfield Smith took them to Los Angeles. There, Smith and her elder sister were born. Smith's father died when she was only 8 years old, plunging the young family into poverty.
"Though our dad had died and life was more difficult, my sister and I never felt that we were poor. We were loved and well-fed. Mother was a wonderful cook; we never went without. Mother was very particular; we weren't allowed to play with other kids in the neighborhood," Smith remembered with a chuckle. "I think Mom thought that they weren't good enough for us." As a result, the little girls plunged themselves into books and reading.
Exploring her roots
Growing up Seventh Day Adventist, Smith had not tasted pork until she'd reached adulthood.
"Tampico has a substantial Seventh-Day Adventist community," Smith said. "Both of my parents belonged to that church. I have the idea, however, that my mother's family were crypto-Jews, but I can't be absolutely certain."
Crypto refers to the "secret Jews," or the Sephardim of Spain, who, in the late 1400s, were forced to go underground in their faith and to outwardly become Roman Catholics. Thus, their Jewish practices had to be conducted in secret. Even some culinary dishes were suspect.
Smith surmises that since her parents' church holds the Sabbath sacred, consumes a vegetarian diet, or at least avoids pork, that perhaps her mother's family had at one time been Jewish.
"The names Andrade and Ramos are actually Sephardic-Jewish names," she stated, according to her research.
A few years ago Smith traveled to Tampico in an attempt to find her Oklahoma-born paternal grandmother's grave, as well as to seek any distant Smith relations. She was disappointed on one hand, but did locate a family in Tampico Alto, just south of Tampico named Smith's. They believe that they were descended from a Henry Smith from Oklahoma. Henry Smith was her great, great grandfather's name.
Comparing historic family photos she and the Tampico Smiths are certain that they are somehow related. She plans to return to Tampico and to trace her dad's family tree back to Alabama and Mississippi. Family origins in the Deep South antedated the forced exodus of Native Americans to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.
"I feel like I can't separate myself from this band of characters. I'm like a fiction writer whose life is overtaken by the characters in her stories," she emphasized.
This viewpoint relates to her concern for young African Americans.
"Every family has a story," Smith said. "Every child is surrounded by people, from the past as well as the present to whom they can relate."
Her passion is to empower each person in the community to see his or her own worth and draw strength from their heritage. For Smith, she does this through her exquisite food.
Villa Victoria is at 3829 S. Edmunds St., Suite A, one block east of Rainier Avenue South in the bustling heart of Columbia City. Hours are 11:30am to 7:00 pm Tuesday-Saturday and can be reached at 329-1717 or www.villa-victoria.net.
One will find an array of delectable burritos, handmade tamales, house-roasted coffee beans and brewed coffee, Mexican Coca Cola (sweetened with cane sugar) and a rich a la carta menu, including whole roast chicken adobo, lightly pickled collard greens and a refreshing jicama-orange salad. Other items include delicately seasoned turkey albondigas (meatballs) spiked with cooked rice and a hint of ground masa and oregano.
Beacon Hill writer Georgia Lord Watanabe may be reached via editor@sdistrictjournal.com.
From the Villa Victoria kitchen: Sopa de Lima (Quick Lime Soup)
By Naomi Andrade Smith
4 servings
1 whole chicken breast (2 lobes)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1/2 medium onion, sliced
1 to2 cloves garlic, smashed
4 to 5 peppercorns
2 to 3 fronds cilantro
1 tablespoon corn oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper
1 can (28 ounce) ready-cut tomatoes
2-3 limes, halved, juice squeezed and reserved
1 bunch cilantro,chopped
corn oil
1 dozen corn tortillas, cut into strips
6 to 8 cups chicken stock
Place chicken into a microwaveable bowl; add sliced onion, garlic cloves, peppercorns and cilantro fronds. Add 1 1/2 cups chicken stock and cover loosely. Poach chicken on high setting for 3 minutes; turn chicken and repeat.
When poached, uncover, allow to cool and refrigerate. When chicken is cool, strain and reserve broth. Cut each breast into thirds, and then shred each piece by hand until chicken resembles short, thick threads. Soup can be refrigerated.
While chicken cools heat 1-inch of oil in a deep, cast iron skillet. When oil surface shimmers test fry a tortilla strip. It should float to surface and be crisp. Working in batches, gently immerse a handful of tortilla strips; remove from oil using tongs or a slotted spoon when strips are crisp and lightly browned. Drain excess oil on paper.
Heat 1 tablespoon corn oil in another deep, heavy pot. Sauté chopped onion and bell pepper until tender (3 to 4 minutes); add tomatoes and juice and cook for 5 minutes. Add remaining stock (6 to 8 cups) and reserved stock, plus lime juice. Stir in chopped cilantro. Simmer gently for 20 minutes. Add shredded chicken and simmer for 10 minutes.
To serve place tortilla strips at bottom of each bowl, ladle soup over this and garnish with a few cilantro leaves.
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