Rebecca - September 2016

In the 16th century, when the Jesuits arrived to the New World, some settled in what is now Paraguay. They noticed that the Indigenous peoples worked all day without stopping. They were amazed so they investigated. It seems they were imbibing a tea made from a local bush. Convinced that this was a good thing the Society of Jesus promoted the drink elsewhere. Today mate is enjoyed in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil. My Portland friend, stand-up bassist Curtis Daily, abandoned coffee at least three years ago and drinks mate for breakfast. It does have lots of caffeine. 

Mate can be had in two ways. One is the very social one of using the gourd (called a mate and pronounced mah-teh) with its metal straw (a bombilla). Covid almost killed the habit as the mate circulates around a group of people and nobody “cleans or wipes” the bombilla when it gets to them. The other way is to boil it in water and serve it in mugs. I use a French press and I heat milk and I mix it so that the concoction looks like swamp water without crocodiles. For two years while I was a conscript in the Argentine Navy the “mate cocido” was my breakfast which I had with hard tack bread.

The mate in this scan belonged to my father. He had it I believe since 1938. The silver is a an Argentine alloy called alpaca. I scanned the mate and the bombilla with my father’s Argentine flag (made of heavy wool) which he flew every year during the Argentine independence holidays of 25 May and 9 July.

Because the mate and bombilla are social I have only one person who until a few years ago would demand a mate when she visited me. This was my granddaughter Rebecca who is now 28. She is now a product of this century and I am no longer a grandfather but an old man. My mate is on the mantle. I look at it with sadness.

There are two kinds of mate that I can fondly remember. One is the “el mate de la bienvenida” the welcome mate and the other is “la del estribo” or the one before you put your foot on the stirrup to leave.

For anybody who may have read up to here, the botanical name of mate is Ilex paraguayensis. This means that the tea is related to the more familiar Christmas ilex, holly.

Because I am a fan of all the books of Julio Cortázar I drink his favourite brand Cruz de Malta which I can find at Fresh is Best on Broadway not far from my house.