Something happens to the food when it crosses the Rio Grande River.
Tortillas change from corn to flour, beef substitutes for pork and chicken, cumin levels rise and just about everything is con queso. The biggest difference though, for Mexicans like Houston Dynamo forward Erick Torres, is that the one in front of the stove making the food is no longer their mother.
“I know they try. But honestly, nothing is like the food from home,” the 22-year-old told HoustonDynamo.com through a translator. “Don’t get me wrong: the food is delicious here and in LA, but the food from Guadalajara—my mom’s food—has a special taste that’s one that I remember and miss a lot.
“[I miss] the chilaquiles. The red ones with cheese, onions, cream. I miss my mom’s food. The albóndigas. The pozole she makes. Everything she makes, homemade food. I miss that the most.”
Torres is as proud of his native country as he is of its cuisine, and is keenly aware that as one of just a handful of players in MLS born in Mexico that he also shoulders responsibility as an ambassador of sorts.
“It’s something magnificent to be able to say I’m Mexican,” Torres said. “I’m in the U.S. representing my country. It makes me so proud; it fills my heart with happiness. I know that us Mexicans are hard-working, fighters—we are workers. It motivates me to keep working every day.
“I need to represent the people from Mexico, the Latinos in the best way. What better thing to say other than I am here to represent Mexico, my country, my flag, the green, white and red?”
In MLS, Torres has represented Mexico very well. In just a season and a half on loan with Chivas USA, the Guadalajara native set the league record for goals scored by a Mexican-born player with 22—surpassing Mexican legends like Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Carlos Hermosillo and Claudio Suarez. After Chivas USA folded at the close of the 2014 season, the Dynamo signed Torres as a Designated Player.
Torres’ stellar loan with Chivas USA earned him call-ups to Mexico’s youth national teams and four caps with the senior side, scoring an 89th minute game-winning goal against Panama in just his third appearance with the full national team. For a kid from the barrios of Guadalajara, wearing the colors of El Tri is “the best feeling any Mexican soccer player can have.”
Torres has made eight MLS appearances for the Dynamo since returning from a six-month loan to Chivas Guadalajara, where he scored five times in 14 appearances across league and cup play. He has started each of the past two matches but is yet to score for Houston, and admits that the transition to Texas hasn’t been easy for him: “It’s been a little hard to adapt to Houston, but I feel like it’s coming along little by little and I’m assimilating more every day.”
Making that assimilation a little bit easier is the support from the large Hispanic community in Houston. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 44% of the Bayou City’s population is Hispanic, with Mexicans making up nearly three quarters of that total.
“It helps me a lot,” Torres said. “I see [Mexicans] in the stadium, how they support me, at training when people from Mexico come. You can tell, in the stadiums, at training, on the street. The way people greet me and help me, it makes me very happy.”
Even though he’s a country away from home and family, Torres’ appetite for goals and tortas ahogadas remain constant. While the latter may be hard to find outside of Jalisco, the Dynamo are betting that the former will be on their way soon.
