Sobremesa: A Memoir of Food and Love in Thirteen Courses

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The table is where we find our way. Together.

The communal family table bears witness to our lives. The way we approach each meal speaks volumes about who we are and what we are going through in that very moment. It’s where the spirits of those who left too soon can be conjured back to mind through taste and smell. Still, we underestimate its pull and often miss the soulful nourishment and magic that happens at sobremesa—the time spent talking after a meal—due to our increasingly busy lives.

In her coming-of-age adventure, Caminos Oría travels to her family’s homeland of Argentina in search of belonging—to family, to country, to a love, and ultimately, to oneself. Steeped in the lure of Latin culture, she pieces together her mom and abuela’s pasts, along with the nourishing dishes—delectably and spiritually—that formed their kitchen arsenal. But Caminos Oría’s travels from las pampas to the prairie aren’t easy or conventional. She grapples with mystical encounters with the spirit world that lead her to discover a part of herself that, like sobremesa, had been lost in translation.

Just as she’s ready to give up on love all together, Caminos Oría’s own heart surprises her by surrendering to a forbidden, transcontinental tryst with the Argentine man of her dreams. To stay together, she must make a difficult choice: return to the safe life she knows in the States or follow her heart and set a new table, one where she can be her full self, unapologetically, in full-fledged Spanglish.

Deliciously soulful and chock full of romance, this otherworldly, multigenerational story of a daughter’s love and familial culinary legacy serves up, in 13 courses, a gastronomic meditation on the tables we set for ourselves throughout our lives—knowingly or not. It’s a story that lures us to slow down, to savor meals mindfully and see where the communion of food takes us, beyond the plate. It’s there we find our one true voice, look within, and face the questions we’ve been running from: Is this the table I envisioned for myself before the world told me who I am supposed to be? If not, reset it. Do I belong? Do the people around me lift me up? If not, change tables. Where am I seated? At the head? In the middle? There is no right or wrong answer, but does my chosen seat position me for the role I’m meant to fulfill in this lifetime? If not, change places.

Sobremesa invites us to savor the healing embrace of time-honored food and the wisdom it espouses. It’s a reminder that that home really is anywhere the heart is. And for all looking to find their place, it’s an invitation to claim your seat at sobremesa’s endless table, where everyone is welcome.

From the Publisher

Josephine Caminos Oría

Born in La Plata, Argentina and raised from infancy on in Pittsburgh, PA, I was served stories of where I came from and the people I’d left behind, during family sobremesas—when chatter and laughter, memories of past lives and loves, and secrets that refuse to be buried are served up as a final course. Sobremesa was how I learned to make sense of the world—the good, lo malo, the beautiful, lo feo, the unexpected, lo esperado. Mom and Abuela Dorita helmed our home from the kitchen. Mom as the gatekeeper who excused us from the table. With the exception of a spontaneous dance party breaking out to Blondie’s “The Tide is High,” there was no use in rushing. Dorita as the cook. Ever an abuela of contrasts, Dorita was both cosmopolitan and casera. Equal parts abuela glamorosa and Betty Crocker homebody, she taught us that as women we could go out and take on the world, then strap on apron and be a culinary goddess at home. One didn’t take away from the other.

Josie as a baby with Mom

I was raised straddling two cultures, between America’s city of bridges, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Argentina’s endless, yawning plains. Mom was in her late twenties when Dad and her moved their young family of five children from Argentina to the States. I was six months old. My real name is Josefina. It’s still the one listed on my Argentine and US passports. Once I started school, Mom thought it would be easier for my fellow classmates to say Josephine with a hard “J”. And it stuck. When I was older, she confided in me that she didn’t like the way they pronounced HOE-zefina. She was raising me to be a lady. Mom could tell a story to the grave, making it better and better each time. Especially when it served her purpose. I’ve since carried on the tradition. We simply can’t help ourselves.

Josie with Abuela Dorita, Spring 1998

My grandparents, Alfredo and Dorita Germain, were an integral part of our family. Growing up, they became my Argentina. Dorita and Alfredo visited often, sometimes up to six months at a time. During their extended visits to Pittsburgh, they always stayed in the apartment over the detached garage of our family home. Dorita did everything possible to bring Argentina to our home in Pittsburgh. She made sure that her grandchildren spoke Spanish fluently. “R con r guitarra” was one of the tongue twisters she’d make us recite over and over to get us in the habit of rolling our double r’s properly. But trilling never came to me naturally—a dead giveaway that, like sobremesa, part of my bicultural heritage simply didn’t translate. I was fully neither, nor fully both.

Empanadas

There are several things you need to know about empanadas before diving in chin first. First, empanadas are to be eaten with your hands. And only your hands. Doña Petrona, Argentina’s very own Julia Child, once announced on her show, Buenas Tardes, Mucho Gusto— in her characteristic singsong cadence—that any guest who dared eat an empanada with fork and knife at her table would be sentenced to never, ever again be invited back. Instead, empanadas are to be kissed, long and hard to keep the juices from going all over the place. As for flavors and gustos, there are as many variations of empanadas as there are cooks in Argentina. I grew up watching my Abuela Dorita hand make them. She preferred her empanadas baked, not fried. Lastly and perhaps most important—the great raisin debate. Not everyone likes them. I spent most of my childhood avoiding Dorita’s evil stare as I picked them out, one by one, from each empanada that crossed my path. She had no patience for it. That made two of us.

I wrote Sobremesa for three reasons

First, if I’ve learned anything about love, it’s that you can’t give up on it. It will find you—on its own terms. Second, because I believe there are signs everywhere. We just have to stay open to receiving them, and trust ourselves enough to know their meaning. The final reason is that even though this is my story, I hope some part of it is yours too—maybe you have your own abuela Dorita whose spirit comes alive in these pages, or, like me, you are bicultural, Argentine, possibly even from the ‘Burgh; perhaps you’re in the midst of taking a chance on a second act (whether it be in love or professionally), or quite possibly you’re simply looking to take your seat at sobremesa’s endless table, where there’s always room for one more. Because, as they say in Argentina, donde comen dos, comen tres.

From my kitchen to yours, ¡Buen Provecho! —Josie

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribe Publishing Company (May 4, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1735305189
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1735305189
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.32 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.5 inches