EATS & DRINKS
A
Fresh flavors of La Frontera by BARBARA BRANNON
La India Laredo’s
ABOVE A modest tiled roof along Laredo’s Marcella Avenue — a colorful street in a largely residential quarter east of I-35 and the city’s landmark Zacate Creek — stands a brightly hued shingle on a red iron post. It’s hung there since 1924.
When Don Antonio
Rodriguez and his wife, Antonia Villarreal Rodriguez, established La India Packing Company at 1520 Marcella nearly 100 years ago, they trans- formed this warm, inviting
house into a neighbor- hood grocery, where Doña Antonia made her famous Mexican chocolate drink and from which Don Antonio made deliveries via bicycle. Today, grand-
daughter Elsa Rodriguez Arguindegui has expanded La India to include a lunch- hour Tasting Room Café and a slate of Frontera Fusion cooking classes. Residents and tourists alike have come to La India for decades to purchase hand-packaged Mexican
herbs, spices and season- ings and flavorful blends for chorizo, chili, menudo and chocolate. Today, a visitor opening La India’s door will be greeted by brightly hued displays and the mouthwatering aromas of cumin and cayenne, anise and cinna- mon, oregano and ground chiles. What better way to take home a true sampling of this border city’s culture? Arrive at mealtime,
and you’ll be tempted to •
pull up a chair in the cozy dining room displaying Rodriguez family memen- tos that mirror Laredo’s history. Back in Lampazos de Naranjo, in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, Don Antonio peddled
food spices, piruli (a Mexican confec-
tion) and herbal remedies to soldiers embroiled in the Revolution — relying on wisdom he’d gleaned from the local indigenous woman, “La India.”
LA FAMILIA: Current La India general manager and co-owner Elsa Rodriguez Arguindegui carries on the family tradi- tions of cooking with an array of fresh ingredients and savory, sweet and salty spices.
La India Packing Company 1520 Marcella Ave., Laredo TX 70840
9 am–5 pm Mon.–Fri. 9 am – Noon Sat. (956) 723-3772
laindiaherbsandspices.com sales@laindiaherbsandspices.com
Frontera Fusion is an immersive culi- nary experience hosted at two dif-
ferent locations in Laredo, Texas: La India Tasting Room Café and Vega’s Interiores Mexicanos.
Vega’s holds classes every first
Saturday of the month for a fee at 3:00 p.m.; reservations may be made at (956) 645-2512. La India
hosts classes every first Friday of the month for a fee at 3:00 p.m.; reserva- tions may be made at (956) 723-3772.
VISIT LAREDO
visitlaredo.com
54 AUTHENTIC TEXAS
BARBARA BRANNON/TEXAS PLAINS TRAIL
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