Giggles, Gambas, and Goosebumps

Giggles, Gambas, and Goosebumps

JV - Hi, I’m John Vergara

PV - And I’m Paula Vergara

JV - So let’s get right to it! Today, we’re super excited to dive into the 2nd episode of the Probably Eh-Speaking podcast. For those who joined us last month for our first episode, welcome back! Thank you. In this episode, we’ll start the podcast with another sibling Q&A. This one is about traditional Spanish Christmas Eve food (or “Noche Buena”), followed by a classic Vergara story that is sure to give you some goosebumps. We will talk about our father’s early years and his father’s tragic death. As always, the Vergara kids learned early on that you never forget where you came from.  

PV- But, really quickly, before we get into these juicy stories, we want to share the background of our podcast cover art. The caricature of the man standing next to a fig tree is actually our Dad! A close friend of his painted this caricature of him back in the 1960s as a funny gift, and it was framed and hanging on a wall in my parent’s home office for decades. We thought it would be the perfect image to represent our podcast. 

PV- So, holiday season, right? 

JV - YEAAHH…

PV - Hey, when we were little, did you eat chocolate first on Christmas morning, or breakfast first? I went for the chocolate first. Actually, I don’t think I ate breakfast on Christmas morning until I was older. It was chocolate and eggnog until lunch. 

JV - Please…you had it so easy. 

• We dressed up before breakfast! (When it was just David and I), before the two younger sisters came into the picture). 
• We were jacked on eggnog
• Going to church before gifts !!!!torture
• Sometimes it was 11am or noon before we could open gifts
• Dad was downstairs, getting the film camera ready with blinding floodlights. 
• -3AM sneak down to the basement/santa search
• -Grammy (our mother’s mother) would stay over - decked out in her fancy clothes

PV - What was your best Christmas gift?

JV - Most memorable…my  electric typewriter - age 16 (elaborate…)

PV - did you take that typewriter with you to college?

JV - Heck, yeah. 

JV - So, Paula - do you want to talk about the traditional Spanish Christmas food that we had for “Noche Buena”?  

PV - Sure - - we had the tortilla de patatas (JV - interject) (so basically, omelette), gambas a la plancha (your favorite, from what I recall), which is pan-fried shrimp, covered in olive oil, lemon juice, and parsley. And then there were those disgusting Spanish cookies, called Sequillos. I mean, our house had to be completely devoid of any sugar for me to start sniffing around for those things. Our mother made those cookies for our Dad, because those were his favorite Spanish treat. Basically it is a mixture of flour, anisette, grated orange rinds, sugar, and olive oil, then deep fried. And just to make them even more healthy, the cookies are rolled in sugar.

JV - There was no shortage of sugar in our house…

PV - Right? The congo bars were usually the first things to disappear. 

PV - We also had some white trash food for Christmas Eve, just to make things interesting. My Mom had a recipe called “cheese things”....basically velveeta cheese (a staple of the 1970s), crab meat, butter, and paprika.

JV - WAIT… WHAAT?

PV - That’s right. Paprika is the secret ingredient. Not too many people know about it. The cheese mixture is scooped into a piece of flat white bread (flattened with a rolling pin, with the crusts removed, and held together with a toothpick.

JV - And how many toothpicks did I accidentally bite into? OMG.

PV - Mom warned you.

JV- It wasn’t just any white bread. It had to be WONDER BREAD. 

PV- The cheese things were covered in melted butter, then oven-broiled for 5 minutes, and served piping hot. 

JV - oozy and burnt on the edges. The best!

PV - This appetizer is STILL served at most, if not all of the Vergara households on Christmas Eve. This tradition actually dates back to the 1960s. 

PV - we also had chicken wings made with soy sauce and pineapple juice. You have to dip the cheese things into the chicken wings sauce for an optimal eating experience.

JV - Hey, Paula…Do you remember that ginger bread house that was given to our family as a Christmas gift back in the 1970s?

PV - OMG, yes! I was about 6 years old at the time. I had never seen one before, so I nearly jumped out of my skin when I realized you could eat it! 

JV - So what was your all-time favorite Christmas gift?

PV - It would  have to be my barbie camper, given to me by Grammy (our mother’s mother). My barbie dolls were riding in style. I also had one of those easy bake ovens. I remember our Dad was the only one who would personally ask me to bake him a cake, so I happily obliged. 

JV - And what about that BELLS Christmas tree-topper (??) Who else had this? 

PV - yes the red bells!

PV  - I still have it. It’s in rough shape, but if we ever have a Vergara museum, I might put it in a glass case, and put it front and center (LOL).

JV - So what are some of your childhood memories of Christmas Eve?

PV  - I was about 6 years old when I was busted by our Dad sneaking down to the family room after midnight on Christmas Eve (with our brother, David). Dad’s booming voice sent me flying back to my room, and under the covers. 

JV - That was a risky move, Paula. 

PV - Right? That was the last time I did anything like that. I stayed under the covers for the next 20 years during Christmas.

PV - I also remember taking my role as “chocolate inspector” seriously.  We always had a box of assorted chocolates on the table during Christmas. There are certain types of assorted chocolate boxes have a “map” so you can see what’s in each of them, but what do you do with a box of chocolates with no map?? You have to resort to pushing your thumb through the bottom of each chocolate piece to see which ones had the good caramel, and which ones had the yucky strawberry filling. That was usually a last resort after the congo bars were gone.

JV - interject (we do come from a long line of choco-holics. 

PV  - Ok, enough about Christmas food. We need to PIVOT to something else before I start reaching for another glass of eggnog. 

JV - Is there kahlua in that?

PV - Shh…maybe, maybe not. I’ll  never tell. 

PV - So what else do we have in the Vergara history book that you want to talk about?  

JV - I’ve been thinking a lot about our Spanish grandfather lately (our Dad’s father). Usually around the holidays, a lot of people think about those family members who are no longer with them. I’ve been thinking about how our grandfather’s shocking death affected our Dad (who was only 9 years old at the time). So even though it could be perceived as a bit of a downer story for our audience, it’s something that changed our family, and gives us a sense of pride for our heritage, and also gave us a good history lesson as kids.

PV - Hey, weren’t you a history major at Middlebury?

JV - Ahem…I was a DOUBLE major. History AND Spanish.  

PV - Whoops! I forgot. 

JV - So, here’s how the story goes about our grandfather.

-His name was Julio 

-He was born in 1894 (his mother died in childbirth (there’s a whole story around that), then his father went on to re-marry, and had 8 more kids)

-Our grandfather Julio was a veterinarian by trade

-A the time of the Spanish Civil War, he was the mayor of the town of Villamalea.

PV - he had a  lot of political power in the town.

JV - Our Dad, pepe, his first born, had a chronic ear infection as a kid, that had spread to the bone in his cranium (or orbital socket)

--The year was 1936 (during the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939)

–his parents, Julio and Consuelo, took him to Valencia (rented an apartment) for about a week, to have an operation to remove his eardrum, which ultimately saved his life. It was during this trip that a pre-planned abduction took place. 

JV - A group of communists broke into their apartment, and dragged our grandfather out. They took him to a side alley, and shot him in the head. Our father, at age 9, witnessed his own father being abducted, never to be seen again. 

PV - I remember asking Dad about this when he was about 70 years old, and he still had a hard time talking about it. He grew up without a father-figure.

There was no sense of closure for him. And I’m sure, lots of guilt. 

JV - He DID have his grandfather to lean on, but he died just a few years later.

And his mother had to run the family businesses on her own, and raise three boys.

JV - Our grandfather’s abductors even had the nerve to send our grandmother a picture of her deceased husband’s head, with the bullet wound, just to prove he was dead, or to try to intimidate her in some way. We still don’t know where our grandfather was buried. He was just 42 years old at the time.

PV - Didn’t Dad think that his father was probably thrown into a mass grave with those who had fought and died in the Spanish Civil War?

JV - Yes, he did.

JV - Soon after this tragedy, our Dad was sent off to boarding school with the monks. 

JV - So what did we learn from this?  

PV- I think from our Dad’s perspective, when you experience a traumatic experience like that as a kid, when you feel like you’ve lost everything, you probably go through life feeling like you have nothing left to lose. He had to grow up VERY fast. It probably explains the choices that he made in his adult life.

JV - I think we learned how lucky we are, and how strong our Dad was. Even with his father being kidnapped, and ultimately killed, getting kicked out of his home as it was taken over for the headquarters of the “communistas”, our father persevered.  We are strong stock and can handle anything.

As kids, that story alone seemed so enthralling and distant since we never knew our grandfather.  

JV - So that’s it! We’d like to thank everyone for listening, and hope our family history has inspired you to reminisce about your own family stories, or Christmas traditions. If you have some time, please give us a review, to let us know what you think!