Source text
Rosario Castellanos
Lección de cocina
Lección de cocina
Translation starts
Cooking lesson
The kitchen gleams white. It is a shame having to sully it with use. One would have to sit to
contemplate and describe it, close your eyes to evoke it.
Having noted the immaculateness, this neatness lacks the excessive glare
that creates chills in hospitals. Or is it the disinfectant´s halo, the cleaner´s
rubber steps, the hidden presence of sickness and death?
What do I care? My place is here. I have been here since the beginning
of time. In the German proverb, a woman is synonymous with Kuche, Kinder, Kirche. I was lost – in classrooms, on the streets,
in offices, in cafes – throwing away skills, which I must now forget, to
acquire new ones.
For example, deciding on a menu. How could I take on such an enormous
task without the collaboration of society and history? On a special shelf,
suitable for my height, my protective spirits align, those celebrated acrobats
that harmonise the most uncompromising contradictions found in recipe books:
slenderness and gluttony, attractive and cost-effective, quick and succulent.
With their endless combinations: slenderness and cost-effective, quick and
attractive, succulent and…
What do you, as the experienced housekeeper, inspiration for absent and
present mothers, voice of tradition and open secret of the supermarkets,
recommend for today´s meal?
Translation ends
Where's the rest of it?
ReplyDelete