By Rachel Hergett EBS COLUMNIST
We place a certain amount of trust in people every time we eat food we did not prepare ourselves. We may trust in the quality of the ingredients, the cleanliness of the restaurant or the care put into the cookery itself.
It can be beneficial to take that trust further, to allow those who are serving us a meal to take part in our decision-making process. This trust opens our minds and excites our palates. We are fed beyond the literal.
Trust was on my mind as I ate the most incredible and beautiful bowl of pozole, a hominy soup with pork and vegetable. Let’s rewind a bit.
As March came to a close, I heard rumors that La Tinga was closed and it broke my heart a little. Owner Alba Jeffries is a light of a human. She calls me Raquel and pushes me to speak more Spanish. She loves to dance, and loves KGLT including my radio show. When La Tinga had a place on Main Street, she and husband, Curt, hung a wooden “Magic Monday Show” sign in the restaurant.
I felt called to investigate. La Tinga’s building is admittedly out of the way for most, at 3709 Baxter Lane. When I pulled up early on a Friday afternoon, there were a few cars in the lot and an “open” sign glowing in the glass door below the script on the building reading “La Tinga.” Good sign. But then a not-so-good one. There were two sets of hours on the door. One for La Tinga (Tuesdays, 7 a.m.-3 p.m.) and above it, hours for La Perla (Wednesday-Monday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.). La Perla?
I went inside and was more confused as I was greeted by a smiling Alba on a Friday. She was filling in, she told me. La Perla has been in the space for about a month. Alba opens shop once a week on the day La Perla is closed for us La Tinga loyalists. That Friday was her first time working together with the owner of La Perla, graciously filling in during a staff shortage.
La Tinga, though now feeling more like a rare bird than ever, is still intact for those willing to seek it out. For that I am satisfied and will make a point to visit on a Tuesday.
Instead of Alba’s tacos, I perused the handwritten options from the La Perla menu. Before I had more than a glance at the variety of tacos and flautas, Alba was pointing out the last rectangle of cardstock. Pozole.
Here’s where the trust comes in. If someone who works in food sincerely leads you to a dish, just listen. Maybe it’s not something you normally try. Maybe you usually steer clear of pork. Maybe you have an old aversion to hominy. Trust.
Once I consented to the pozole, Alba asked if I would like the soup for here or to go. When I said “to go,” I got a stern look and a shake of the head from Alba. I would sit and eat the soup at one of the long communal tables. My neighbors eyed the soup, and sadly learned it had sold out when they tried to order a bowl.
Trust also involves listening to cues. Squeeze the lime wedges on the plate into the bowl, for example. Also listen when the young woman handing you the bowl tells you how a red salsa in a ketchup bottle is the perfect complement. Add the recommended salsa, limbs moved as if by some occult hand to pour ever more from its bottle—even as your mind screams that the salsa will set your mouth on fire and probably make you weep.
Before I left, I also ordered three of the tacos on the day’s menu to go—a green mole chicken, a beef in a beer sauce and a tamarind pork. Each was more delicious than the last and made me wish I had also tried the marinated and grilled fish, especially after seeing they often draw daily selections from a larger and very seafood-heavy menu. La Perla’s food feels like an abuela cooked it, simmering sauces over the stove for days and infusing all her grandmotherly love into them. I trust that over a large set menu any day.
So many of my best food memories come from this sort of trust. It is why I love a chef’s tasting menu. Or an omakase sushi bowl. Or showing up for family dinner at mom’s house. Or the little restaurant around the corner from my flat on Wandsworth Common in southwest London that was perfect for a broke college student. They made one comfort food meal every day, wrote it on a sandwich board outside, and you ate it or you didn’t. I don’t think I ever walked by hungry and chose not to stop in for spaghetti with garlic bread or bangers and mash. Plus, each meal was less than £3 ($4).
And trust is why I am now a devoted fan of La Perla in addition to La Tinga. I will dream of this pozole.
Rachel Hergett is a foodie and cook from Montana. She is arts editor emeritus at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and has written for publications such as Food Network Magazine and Montana Quarterly. Rachel is also the host of the Magic Monday Show on KGLT-FM and teaches at Montana State University.
