Solito & brown butter curried cornbread
A memoir about crossing the US border, and the most special cornbread around
If you’ve been subscribing to Good Book/Good Bread for a while, you may have noticed I love memoirs. I’ve had Solito on my list to read for a while, and I’m so glad I did. It was beautiful, made me cry, and I can’t wait to read more of Javier Zamora’s writing. The cornbread I included below was ridiculously good, and I’d highly recommend getting your hands on Ixta Belfrage’s Mezcla cookbook if you can. Enjoy!
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Good Book
Solito by Javier Zamora (2022)
In a nutshell
Solito is Javier Zamora’s memoir about travelling 3,000 miles from his small town in El Salvador to the US illegally as an unaccompanied nine-year-old. When we meet Javier, it is 1999 and his parents have already made the trip to the US. His dad left when Javier was 1, and his mom when he was five. He lives with his grandparents and talks to his parents on the phone every week. His mom and dad have been saving money in the US, and they finally have enough to pay a coyote to make the trip with Javier. He leaves everything he knows to join the coyote and a group of strangers all hoping to reach the US, for what he is told with be a two-week trip but stretches into a harrowing two months.
Structure
Solito is told in first person by Javier from his nine-year-old perspective.
Three things I liked about Solito
1. The child’s perspective
I thought it was effective how Javier narrated his memoir through the eyes of his nine-year-old self. He includes details about his anxieties, like that he can’t tie his own shoelaces and is frightened of going to the bathroom. These kinds of anecdotes really emphasize what a vulnerable position this little boy is in, on a journey that is incredibly trying even for the adults in his group. Adult Javier is a poet, and he writes these child-like observations of difficult circumstances beautifully.
2. The details about his hometown
Solito begins with a lot of detail and context about where Javier has spent his childhood in El Salvador. He introduces his various relatives, their quirks, the neighbours he encounters on a daily basis, and the complicated dynamic between his grandparents. By learning about the home and his strong attachments to the people there, I found reading about his ordeal trying to get to the US very emotional.
3. The relationships he forms on the journey
I loved the bond Javier formed with a mother and daughter travelling with him. It was a beautiful aspect of the memoir to see how people can care for and help one another even in the worst circumstances. In the book’s afterward, Javier writes that one of his hopes in publishing Solito was that it might help him reconnect with these people who helped him stay alive. “I don't believe I ever thanked them,” he writes. “I want to thank them now, as an adult, for risking their lives for a nine-year-old they did not know.”
If you like Solito, read this:
The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantú,
Quote I liked
“I love looking for the big white moon. Seeing it change. It's better than looking at my watch. The moon has been up there watching me since the dawn I said goodbye to Abuelita, Mali, Lupe, Julia, the dog, the cat, and my parakeet. It was there with Grandpa, when Marcelo left us, when Chele and Mario ran. It reminds me of all of them. Polleros said there wouldn't be a moon, but they're wrong. Like a slice of watermelon bitten to the rind, it showed up over the mountains to our right. I like its gray light before the sun paints the dawn, our clothing changing from black to gray to blue like we're chameleons.”
Good Bread
Brown butter curried cornbread
Why this bread for this book?
Zamora vividly describes the dryness he experiences during many days walking in the desert. He conveys the relentless conditions he and others in his group faced trying to reach the US, their lips flaking and their mouths dry as the sand they walked on. I thought cornbread would be a good fit for this book because cornbread is often intentionally dry, to act as an welcome accompaniment to soak up sauce-heavy dishes like chilli and stews.
Recipe
I joined a cookbook club in Revelstoke, where we all cook different recipes from the same cookbook and then have a potluck with our creations. Our first book was Mezcla: Recipes to Excite by Ixta Belfrage, an Ottolenghi protege who draws on Italian, Mexican and Columbian flavours and ingredients. It is an AMAZING cookbook with some really unique recipes, including this delightful cornbread one. I especially liked the addition of a whopping 6 tablespoons of maple syrup. I couldn’t find scotch bonnet chilis, so I used a jalapeno. I also couldn’t track down polenta in Revelstoke, so used cornmeal. The flavour is amazing from the brown butter, and this recipe is going to be a keeper.
Looking forward
Book I’m looking forward to reading: Wintering: The power of rest & retreat in difficult times by
New music I’m looking forward to listening to: Back to Moon Beach by Kurt Vile
What I’m looking forward to baking: pancakes with fresh milled flour
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I read Solito a few months ago too! It also made me cry (a lot) and I really loved reading the perspective of migration from a child too! Great bread pairing - agree with your reasonings a lot!