By Marisella Veiga –

More than 20 years ago I shrieked after lifting a metal lid off a trash can outside my kitchen door. A cow’s skull rested on top of the garbage, as if it had been carefully placed there.

This is Portage, Ohio, not Santeria or voodoo country, I thought, envisioning the religious practices that involved animal sacrifices among some of my Caribbean people.

I called my boyfriend to the scene. He was reluctant to leave his studies to look in the can.
“I took out the garbage before we left on the trip,” he said, explaining nothing.

Then he took a look.

“I guess Ramón made barbacoa. Too bad we missed it, it’s delicious.”
He explained how his people, the Mexicans, prepared the head and cooked it. Should we travel a few towns south for some tacos de barbacoa? he asked.

“No thanks,” I said. “Never.” I’d once made a similar promise when I saw a raw cow tongue for sale at a Little Havana butcher shop.
Ramón called later that day to ask about our trip to New York City. I asked about the barbeque.

“Delicious.”  Then he shared a story that his father had told him:

In hard times long ago, the people of Texas’s Río Grande Valley had nothing to eat but the discarded head of a cow. So they took the head, looked into the cow’s eyes and said, “We’re starving and have no choice but to eat you.” They would ask the cow for forgiveness before preparing their feast.

That was the last barbacoa story I’d heard. Through the years, I’ve remained alert when reading menus, especially at authentic ethnic restaurants or when buying tacos or skewered beef from street vendors.

Never.

Twenty years later, the cow head came to my attention again, during a trip to Montpelier, Vermont.  Braised beef cheeks were on the menu at the Chef’s Table, one of the fanciest restaurants in town, run by the New England Culinary Institute. My eyebrows lifted.

Could it be? Barbacoa, by descendants of people who salted little and boiled everything they ate? It was as culturally surprising to me as, well, as finding a cow head in my trash can.
I found the restaurant and sure enough, there it was, posted on a menu under glass: skirt steak and braised beef cheeks – $19.

I went inside to find Chef Tim Stephenson, big white hat and all.  He kindly stepped through the kitchen doors to discuss this entrée. French chefs trained him, he said; they often cook underutilized cuts of meat. Braised for five hours, beef cheeks are known as “Pot of Fire,” which he said in French, and then translated.

He’d learned about barbacoa when he lived in Arizona and watched people prepare it and bury it and allow it to cook for several hours. He recalled its fantastic aroma.

It may be good and it may be trendy and it may even be French, I thought, leaving the restaurant. My guard was dropping down.

I cook because I love to eat. Some foods will not touch my palate. Not even if they’re all the rage in Tokyo, New York, Australia, Ghana, Mexico or New Mexico. No.  Not Chinese sliced pig ears or scrambled brains. I’d have to be tricked into eating them (It happened with the liver pate, which I now love).

I like beef, especially thick steaks, medium rare. I like hamburger. Even for snacks I like it. If there’s a choice to be made between a Slim Jim and peanuts, it’s beef protein every time. I’ll even make a special trip to the local convenience store to buy it.

I may even continue to eat Slim Jims, although I recently learned they begin as 60-pound blocks of frozen meat labeled “Beef head meat” which includes foreheads and cheeks.

When I learned this, I figured I owed the cow head an apology.

I’m off to the butcher shop to find one to ask for its forgiveness. Then I’m off to find me a taco.

Marisella Veiga was born in Havana and currently resides in Florida.

You can purchase a CD recording of her columns titled “Square Watermelons” from the Eclipse Recording Company.