Hot Soup, Warm Memories: Caldo's Cultural Role for Latin Americans

When Patty Rodriguez hears the word caldo now, she thinks fondly of home. But as a child growing up in southern California, she despised eating the piping-hot soup-like meal during the summers. Rodriguez would swirl around the chunks of fish with her spoon and imagine that she was performing a magic trick where the dish disappeared. She would roll her eyes as she asked her family why they served the dish more often when it was hot outside. “This is not a hotel,” Rodriguez recalled her mother and aunts saying. “You don’t choose what you want to eat. You’re going to eat what we make.”

As an adult, Rodriguez realizes that caldo, which translates to broth in Spanish, was an inexpensive meal that could feed her Mexican American household for several days. It provided the nourishment and hydration needed during the hot summer months.

A common dish served throughout Latin America, caldo boasts regional variations in places including Mexico, Puerto Rico and El Salvador. The broth often features whole pieces of meat and chunks of vegetables such as carrots, potatoes and corn on the cob. While the hot meal is served year round, in some cultures it is paradoxically more popular during the summer months. For first- and second-generation Latin Americans, caldo is more than just a meal; it’s a cultural touchstone that connects them to their heritage and helps them honor their families.

“Now it’s love,” Rodriguez said as she choked back tears. She’s now the co-founder of Lil’ Libros, a children’s bilingual media company. While working as a radio producer for 20 years, Rodriguez was often the only Latina in her workplace; she yearned to share her culture with her teammates and the audience. Her relationship with caldo evolved as she learned to accept her Mexican American culture. “I was rejecting not just the food,” said Rodriguez, “but I was rejecting my identity.”

In recent years, Rodriguez is elated whenever her mother calls to share that she’s made caldo de pollo, which includes pieces of chicken. “I get the kids in the car and I drive to my mom’s house,” Rodriguez said. “I want my children to experience this with her.”

Ramon Guzman, a 33-year-old creative director at the Crazy Gorilla and Vezcos Media, still has ambivalent feelings towards caldo. He makes comedy skits on YouTube about Mexican American culture and has poked fun at the dish in several videos over the past decade. In a 2021 video, Guzman imitated a Mexican mother who refused to let her son turn on the air conditioning and forced him to eat caldo as he profusely sweated through his shirt.

The skit reflected his childhood growing up as a first-generation Mexican American in San Bernardino, California. “The main emotions were confusion and suffering,” Guzman said, recalling eating caldo as a child. “I did not enjoy eating caldo in the summer. I’m already sweating, and then eating the caldo makes me sweat even more.”

Guzman now realizes that the dish provided comfort to his mother, whose family made it for her as a child growing up in Mexico. The dish has followed Guzman into his adulthood; his girlfriend, who is also Mexican American, serves it to him more often during the summer, when she says that she craves it the most. Caldo’s salt and nutrients make it tantamount to “a Mexican Gatorade”, he said.

Guzman sees the dish as a tool to teach pain tolerance that has been passed down through generations. He described eating the meal during the summer as “layers and layers of a little pain” that helps people learn to weather the vicissitudes of life. “I will try to dabble in it and make my own version of it whenever I have kids,” Guzman said. “It makes you a bit stronger and more resilient … I’m sure I’m going to be thinking of my mom when I feed it to my future kids.”

Caldo is also popular in Puerto Rico. At the San Juan restaurant Cocina al Fondo, chef Natalia Vallejo said that caldo de gallina – a stew that features hen meat, plantains and herbs – is requested by diners more often during the summer. “This dish is deeply connected to my childhood,” she said. “The recipe is inspired by a caldo my paternal grandfather used to make. He cooked it over a wood fire. It’s a dish that evokes memories for Puerto Ricans and brings out many emotions.”

Vallejo, who won the James Beard Best Chef: South award in 2023, views caldo as a portal into her past. Her family would use caldo for other recipes. “My favorite memory is that we used the broth to make wood-fired chicken and rice, which was wrapped in banana leaves,” Vallejo said. “It was delicious.”

In Aelen Trujillo’s family, caldo served a practical purpose on the hottest days when they wanted to minimize active cooking time. As the dish simmered on the stove, her Mexican grandmother would step away from the warm kitchen so that she wouldn’t overheat. Trujillo, a 24-year-old content creator and stay-at-home mom, now cooks caldo for her family during the summer because it reminds her of her grandmother.

She ensures that her young children eat recipes from each of their Mexican and Central American heritages so that they remember their origins. “My grandparents once they came here they had to assimilate and they didn’t have a lot of things. A lot of the culture or the tradition that they had growing up you never really celebrated,” said Trujillo, who is a first-generation Mexican and Honduran American. “Food was the only way that I was able to connect with my culture and feel more Mexican or to touch those roots.”