Gathering Fruit in Guadalupe

Good Food and Timeless Customs Spice a Venture to Guadalupe

Have eaten an O. Henry peach? I had no such pleasure till I stumbled on the best little farm stand in Arizona. It happened on one of my quests after freshly prepared homey Mexican food. I feed endlessly on franchise Mex and tired old cheesy Tex-Mex. Southwest cuisine, filled with surprises I often love, can sometimes be too highfalutin. Even here in Arizona, where you'd most expect it, you have to poke around for reasonably priced, honest Mexican food in a clean establishment.

A fellow "foodie" pointed me to Guadalupe, a jalapeño-shaped town spiked between South Mountain and Tempe. Crossing onto the dusty strip called Avenida del Yaqui, things didn't look too promising. Despite the dust, I could clearly see the road is less well-maintained than those of the community's closest municipal neighbors.

The town's few businesses and administrative buildings string out along its intersecting main streets, Avenida del Yaqui and Guadalupe Road. I'd heard about Guadalupe's Yaqui population and their Easter rituals and thought there might be more to recommend it to visitors than that annual celebration. And, sure enough, despite its lack of modern sheen, I found riches in Guadalupe far beyond the promise of homey Mexican food.

Chatting with town merchants, I found sanctuary from the cookie-cutter malls and supermarkets. And, at Guadalupe Farmer's Market, I found my first O. Henry peach, the truest peach I've tasted this far west of Savannah.

Market, I found my first O. Henry peach, the truest peach I've tasted this far west of Savannah. On our first visit, my husband and I dropped into Filito's, a take-out stand that also has a tiny dining room, where we ordered at a window. The menu, like a chimichanga, mixes some of everything. We tried the napolitano cactus burrito. Its grassy flavor took some getting used to, but at those prices we could afford to experiment. I've gone back for more chimis and machaca burritos. We discovered Guadalupe Farmer's MarKet at Guadalupe Road and Avenida del Yaqui. The market's awning lights spotlight corn, melons, and dried red chiles strung in bunches, called ristras. Farther north ristras are priced as if they were imported from France, so I treated myself to a twofoot strand.

Inside, wooden slats brace in the produce. Threatening to jump ship are seven types of chiles. One is the sunny habañera, reputed to be the hottest little number of all. Must be. It shares its name with the dance that opera's Carmen performs to tempt Jose into crime. An equal amount of fresh herbs nestled beside them. Fennel and dandelion greens found room in my overbrimming salad basket. Some large fuzzy peaches looked good, but I hesitated. Almost all supermarket peaches I'd been buying landed in the garbage. Those I tried turned from hard to rotten without ripening.

The market's able greengrocer, Joe Tello, noticed my inspection. "O. Henrys," he said, "best you'll ever eat." He handed me one. The first bite startled me with brilliant flavor. The market's owner, Curt Cooper, said the O. Henry wouldn't be back in season till next August. These were the last. I asked if he knew how they were named. "They've been around so long... probably named after somebody in the grower's family."

On my next visit, Curt and Joe still couldn't tell me more about the O. Henry. They showed me to some lemony burro bananas and Joe said, "Of course we always have plantains, too, for sore throats." Sore throats?

"Sure," Curt assured me, "everybody in town swears by them." "We sell a lot of every kind of banana," explained Joe, waving his arm over three varieties, "especially during Lent, when our customers make banana nut bread as a meat substitute." With mention of Lent, I asked about the Yaqui Easter celebration. Joe told me I could find out about it from the parish secretary over at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, a pleasant walk away.

Guadalupe

(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 14 AND 15) Delicious O. Henry peaches are just one surprise for visitors to Guadalupe, a Yaqui and Mexican community east of Phoenix that nourishes its rich cultural legacy.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Curt Cooper, owner of Guadalupe Farmer's Market, stocks fresh produce before opening for the day. The market sells a wide variety of produce, including plantains, which Joe Tello, Curt's greengrocer, says are very popular with people who have sore throats.

(ABOVE) Esther Cota stands in the doorway of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, which offers Mass in English and Spanish. A Yaqui temple, used only at Easter and for funerals, sits next to the church.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Jose Luis Pereida proudly shows off a tray of Mexican egg bread, a specialty of the Flores Bakery, where glass cases are filled with fruity empanadas, fragrant gingerbread, and other temptations.

Guadalupe

Esther Cota unlocked the door to the adobe church and showed me the towers that were added some years after the orig-inal nave was built in 1910. I noted the Stations of the Cross, intricately handcrafted in metal. Mrs. Cota suggested a morning visit to Guadalupe could begin with Mass in English or Spanish.

As we chatted under the church's massive ceiling beams, I asked the warm and helpful matriarch about the Yaqui. “They are all Catholic,” she asserted, adding that they perform the Deer Dances at Easter in addition to the Catholic rites. In answer to my surprise that the Yaqui temple, a smaller version of the church it sits beside, is used only for Easter, Mrs. Cota explained that they sometimes use the temple for funerals. Only about 40 percent of the estimated 5,500 people who now live in this one square mile area are Yaqui.

The director of the town's Learning Center, Dr. Amalia Villegas, said that due to intermarriage, perhaps only the old midwives know who is Yaqui and who is Mexican. “A lot of our people don't keep documents high school kids find it easier just to claim they are Mexican,” she said. Villegas' expressive hands gestured in hope as she added that some of the young people do take an interest in their heritage.

As we left her, she urged us to try Flores Bakery just next door to Filito's. Inside, the glass cases bulged with empanadas, turnovers filled with lemon, pumpkin, and pineapple, and piglet-shaped gingerbread cochitos, delicious cookies. During November's Day of the Dead celebrations, Pan Muerto, “bread of the dead,” is sold in the shape of skulls. At Easter the baker cuts the ever-present egg breads into conches, traditional Mexican pastries.

With Flores' down-to-earth prices we picked out some of everything. And with cups of earthy coffee we sat down at one of Filito's outdoor tables, and, well, there's nothing else to call it: we “gustated,” trading half-eaten pastries between us.

A short walk away at the import shop, Mercado Mexico, we bought luminarias and a floppy-eared elephant pottery planter, about the only kind of elephant you'd find from Mexico.

Back at Guadalupe Road, El Tianguis Market bristled with customers. This bright blue unmarked plaza has yet to bring rampant prosperity to Guadalupe. Still its hardworking merchants enthuse over the community and fill their shops with quirky merchandise.

DeLeon Western Wear's fine collection of hats, boots, saddlery, and riding gear invited browsing. As Rodrigo, the owner's son, ex plained the uses of gear unfamiliar to us, we began to hear live music. “That's the band.

They play here every Saturday afternoon,” he said.

Across the square at El Taquito, we enjoyed a lunch of taquitos small beef-filled corn tortillas and beer. The mariachis played on as we crossed the street for our last stop, the Farmer's Market.

Curt, arranging a pyramid of pumpkins, stopped to wave. “Curt,” I announced, “I think I know how the O. Henry peach got its name.” “Shoot,” he invited.

So I told him how, in an O. Henry collection of tales, I found a story called “Little Speck in Garnered Fruit.” It tells of a bridegroom who ventures into a stormy Manhattan night to fill his bride's yen for a peach. Scorning the greengrocer's offer of a tissuewrapped orange, he searches until he is able to return with a perfect peach. “Did I say a peach?” asks she. “I would much rather have had an orange.” Guadalupe makes a fine morning or afternoon's visit for questers who scorn the “papered orange” within easy reach and choose, instead, a speckled peach.

WHEN YOU GO

If you are interested in exploring the cultural, cultural, and shopping delights of Guadalupe, take Interstate 10 south from Phoenix to the Baseline Road Exit. Go east to Priest Drive, which becomes Avenida del Yaqui, and turn south and go to the intersection with Guadalupe Road. For current information on activities and places to go in Guadalupe, call the Guadalupe Town Hall at (602) 730-3080.