Las Papas
By ilyssa ye “Las Papas” is the story about a single man with a child. The story starts in the kitchen where the man was going to cook a dinner for his son and himself. He was about to try out a new Italian recipe for “Chicken cacciatore”, when he received a disapproving remark regarding the dish from his son. Having heard this he suddenly recalls similar event that had happened when he was fifteen and disapproved his father’s cooking by calling it “too spicy”. At the same moment peeling and chopping potatoes he realizes that even though he was born and grew up in Peru, the place where a potato-papas originated, he doesn’t know much about the history of this magnificent vegetable which grows underground without seeing a light
Wyoming or Idaho, probably. The potatoes from his country, on the other hand, were grittier, with a heavy flavor of the land. There were dark ones, almost royal purple like fruit, and delicate yellow ones, like the yolk of an egg.” (Pg 311, Ortega) Even though the potato reminds him of Peru and his culture, he can still tell the different between potatoes in America and the potatoes in Peru. So maybe the differents of potatoes in two countries represent the different of culture in two different countries. So the American potatoes are much crisper and cleaner while the Peruvian are grittier and taste of the land. In Las Papas, the main character the father not only teaches the child about history and culture also the father was trying show the child about family. Family is important in every culture and history, and it plays a big role this story “Las Papas” The potatoes that the father cooks remind him not only of his family in Peru but also of the important of building a strong family in his new home. Cooking and planting the potatoes bring him and his son to a closer bond and make him realize that how family were really important. "Unfamiliar anxiety, like a question without a subject, grew in him as he understood that he had never properly acknowledged his father's gesture; he haven't even understood it. Actually, he had rejected his father's cooking one time, saying that is was too spicy" (Pg 312, Ortega) When the father was still a child his