Rafael Marcos arises every morning at 4:00. He’s been doing so for 40 years. Rafael Marcos is a baker — un panadero y un repostero — a baker of both bread and pastries. Rafael owns la panaderia — the bakery — in El Quelite.
Carlos Osuna says, “Why would you want to be anywhere else? You have whatever you need in El Quelite.” Then he begins listing the town’s assets, and he always starts with la Panaderia.
La panaderia is on the small hill, near the back of the cemetery and the rooster and goat ranch. It looks like any other small house along the rutted dirt street, but it’s distinguished by the large sign painted above the door: “Panaderia.”
When you enter la panaderia, you step into the sales area, which is also the mixing room and the cooling room. You’re surrounded by racks of pastries and bread. Large buns and small loaves of white bread are to your right. Next to them are racks of empanadas and some of the assorted varieties of pan dulce. Along the back wall are more racks of empanadas and pan dulce.
The center of the room is dominated by the large table that serves as both sales counter and staging area for unbaked pastries being arrayed on trays to go into the oven. Rafael’s oven is outside. It’s through the back door of the sales room and to the left.
The oven is a large adobe hemisphere. It sits on a large platform of adobe bricks, about three feet above the ground. The oven, itself, is about three feet high at its center and eight feet in diameter. When I first saw it, I thought it looked like one of those giant African ant hills that you see in National Geographic photos.
The oven is covered by a roof to protect it from the weather, but the oven area is open on the front. The oven is fired by butane from a large pressure tank. It’s similar to all other cooking arrangements in Mexico. I’ve never looked inside the oven to see how the burners are arranged, but I assure you that all the varieties of pan, empanadas, and pan dulce that come out of the oven are uniformly cooked to the perfect stage of “doneness.”
The best time to visit la panaderia is around noon. That’s when most of the day’s baking is done, and most of the items on the racks are still warm. Pick up a round aluminum tray and a pair of tongs. Then start selecting items from the racks: bread, buns, empanadas of course, and a couple pan dulce. For simplicity’s sake, everything is three pesos each. That’s 30 cents, US.
Rafael’s bread and buns are perfect examples of their kind. He sticks to small loaves of white bread. They’re about eight inches long, three inches around the middle and tapered at both ends: sort of short, stubby baguettes.
The white buns, on the other hand, are always oversize. Some days, they’re large enough, I think, to hold a full pound of hamburger to build a super whopper grande. What would you do with it when assembled, though? Cut it in quarters for the kids,
maybe.
Rafael’s pan dulce are as good as any from any panaderia in Mexico, Watsonville, or Pajaro. Light and fluffy, they will float off the racks and onto your tray if you’re not careful.
Every day, you have a choice of empanadas stuffed with pineapple, strawberry, or apple fillings. You would call empanadas turnovers in a US bakery. I doubt that you could find any as light, sweet, and tasty as Rafael’s, though.
Rafael’s specialty is an empanada stuffed with squash — yes, squash. Rafael grows some of the squash and gets more from neighbors and the local frutas y verduras lady. They are big, colored, variegated calabazas.
Rafael mashes the squash meat into a uniform pulp, into which he mixes honey and cinnamon. He cooks this empanada stuffing in a small oven before placing it into the empanada dough and baking the empanadas. When I first heard about these specialties, I thought, “squash turnovers? I don’t think so.” Then I tried one. Now, I’ll take a dozen, please.
I’m told that on special order, Rafael will make a batch of squash empanadas that also contain a slice of ham and a slice of cheese. I’ve yet to try these, but I’m going to try to split an order of a dozen with George.
Besides selling to El Quelite residents who walk into la panaderia, Rafael also sends a daily load of baked goods down the road to El Quemada, the smaller village on the road from the highway to El Quelite. He also supplies Dr. Osuna’s restaurant and several of the nearby restaurants on the highway. Now that two or three new restaurants have opened in El Quelite, Rafael may have to take on some helpers to increase the daily output. I assure you that everything baked on any day is sold out and gone before midafternoon.
Things you have to watch out for at la panaderia are the tourist buses. Since Dr. Osuna has been promoting El Quelite as a mecca of rural tourism, small busloads of tourists visit town on most days. They all get fed lunch at Dr. Osuna’s restaurant, Las Laureanos, of course; then some of the buses will chug a load of passengers up the hill to la panaderia. When the tourists hit, stand back. They’ll clean the place out. Rafael sometimes has to politely impose quotas to save enough baked goods for his regular customers.
Come to think of it, it’s almost noon. This is the time to get to la panaderia before las touristas arrive.
©2006, Ken Layne
