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Mrs.
María
Castro's mother María Catalina Lopez
de Ramirez at her 1928 wedding to Anastacio
Ramirez Ramos in Cardenas, San Luis Potosí,
México. María Catalina,
among many other things, learned the
art of cheesemaking
from her mother Isabel Torres de Lopez.
Isabel, a Mexican Indian, was married
to Carlos Lopez, a Spanish cattle and
sheep
rancher who as a boy immigrated to
Mexico from Spain with his parents
and brother
in the late 1800s.
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La Vaquita’s founder and cheesemaker, María Castro, at her brother’s
house in San Luis Potosí in the mid-1960s. The youngest of 11 children,
she was her mother’s frequent helper in the family’s kitchen. That
kitchen included a large stone stove and oven built by María’s father,
Anastacio. Cheeses that were not consumed fresh would be wrapped and hung above
the stove to be smoked as they were aging.
María also had the responsibility of assisting her parents at the town’s
farmers’ market where the family would sell the products produced on their
farm as well as candy, gorditas, and other items made by the family.
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