My dad made two things when I was growing up: Saturday morning pancakes and salsa. Both were foods of adaptation. He is a Tapatio, a native of Guadalajara, Jalisco, who immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 21. He taught himself how to make the classic American breakfast for his American-born children. We covered our from-scratch pancakes with syrup and downed them like they were our birthright.
As for the salsa, Dad’s has no specific reference to Guadalajara. It’s simply the kind of salsa he could make using the ingredients available in the suburban grocery stores of Denver, Colorado, where we lived. As a kid I didn’t even know there was a name for it: salsa fresca, or fresh salsa, made with fresh ingredients rather than from dried chiles, which are used for most salsas.
