For best friends Esperanza Martinez and Tiffany Vigil-Chavez, the Christmas season means making biscochitos together. Both women have deep roots in Northern New Mexico and grew up making these. Now, they do it together in Albuquerque.
Vigil-Chavez is the more practiced baker and on a recent afternoon, watched carefully as Martinez measured flour and combined ingredients.
Once the dough came together, Vigil-Chavez cut them with a flower-shaped cookie cutter and passed them onto Martinez to give them a sugar coating.
“We’re dipping the now-shaped biscochito on both sides,” Martinez said.
They each know different recipes and said there’s no one way to do it. Some families use anise extract, and some add vanilla. But there’s one thing they say should never be left out.
“If you don't use lard, it's not a biscochito,” Vigil-Chavez said.
For Martinez, her regional identity goes beyond baking biscochitos or speaking in what she called a sing-song tone. She has a genetic disease, a brain malformation, that is most prevalent in Northern New Mexico.
Martinez has had severe migraines since she was 18. She went to the doctor many times over the years, but it only got worse. Then, a couple years ago, at age 36, she had a migraine that took a new turn.
“What started to happen was the right side of my body started to drag,” she said.
That is when doctors identified her symptoms as stroke-like. She learned she would need to have major surgery. She struggled to explain to her young children what was happening at the time.
“I wanted to have the surgery while my kids were small because I didn’t want them to remember,” she said.
Getting your head around an illness, whether it is yours or a loved one’s, can be hard. It is even tougher for kids.
Now, a new children’s book ties the disease Martinez has, which is commonly found in New Mexico, to one of the state’s favorite Christmas traditions: making biscochitos.
The author is Aditi Kantipuly, a physician and a visiting scholar at the University of New Mexico.
“The book is called ‘Biscochito,’ and it was named after the official state cookie of New Mexico as a way to sort of connect with communities,” she said.
The picture book teaches young kids about Cerebral Cavernous Malformation, a brain condition where leaks spring from small blood vessels, and can lead to headaches and seizures.
The disease is actually fairly common, and often goes undetected. About a quarter of people who have it don’t experience symptoms.
It is also a very New Mexican disease. CCM is a Hispanic mutation that traces its roots here.
“Our working hypothesis is that this condition has been brought down by Cristobal Baca in the 16th Century, who came from Spain and migrated to New Mexico and passed this mutation onto his descendants,” Kantipuly said.
UNM is currently working on a state registry to learn more about the disease and help get information out to people who might have it.
“This illness can masquerade as something a little bit more benign,” Kantipuly said.
The book follows a grandmother with CCM, baking biscochitos with her grandson, while explaining how the disease works.
It is part of a growing body of children’s literature that deals with illness and death. Heather Barnum with the New York Public Library said it is important to kids’ development that they see themselves in literature.
“If you have a child who’s suffering from an illness, this gives them the points to find themselves in a normal world,” Barnum said.
She said the most effective books go beyond giving kids information. They encourage them to seek out more and talk about their own feelings.
Colton Arnett, who is 11 and has CCM, is getting that from the book. He also helped it come together by sharing his own story with Kantipuly.
He said his favorite part is when the grandmother gets an MRI in a big machine. “I like to call it a donut because it’s like a donut,” he said.
Colton said he told Kantipuly about what it’s like for him to have seizures and miss out on football because he needs to protect his head.
He said it is much easier for him to share these experiences with family and friends now that they are in a book, which he reads with them.
And Colton’s mom said this might be the year he starts helping with the biscochitos, like the boy in the book.
This coverage is made possible by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and KUNM listeners.
