Coyota in the Kitchen: A Memoir of New and Old Mexico by Rodríguez Anita

Author:Rodríguez, Anita
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Published: 2016-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

Probably the most useful thing to survive those years of working in construction was a technique that just might pass the test of time; it is one that I have taught to many people and is now written about in books and even on the Internet. It is a mud-floor recipe that has to be one of the cheapest in the world, can be laid on ground grade over subfloor heating, needs no cement pad, is completely waterproof and washable, and, if you want, can be waxed to a high sheen resembling dark brown marble flecked with bits of golden straw. I tried to get the New Mexico Construction Industries Commission to include specs for mud floors in the building code, and when they snubbed me, in revenge I taught as many people (who are not stupid—people know a good thing when they see it) as possible.

It was on the strength of those floors that in 1982 I was invited to Egypt by Hassan Fathy, author of Architecture for the Poor and winner of the Aga Kahn architecture prize for earth building in 1980. He came to Abiquiu to build an Islamic community, and I took my Indian crew to work on the project and learn his techniques. The journey to Egypt gave me the opportunity to trace elements like the adobe horno to their source. There I photographed two-story adobe ovens. The fire was built under the clay floor, and the bread was baked on top of that. This two-story system allowed for continuous baking instead of the fire having to be rebuilt for every batch of bread.

A quarter century after that exploratory journey across three continents, my original New Mexican enjarradora teachers have passed on, and a lot of the buildings they restored and embellished have also vanished. I had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time in order to help perpetuate a body of knowledge that was on the brink of extinction, reintroduce the enjarradoras’ techniques, and contribute toward adapting them to modern adobe building practices and requirements.

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