An upcoming gathering in Antonito celebrates a simple food with deep roots in the San Luis Valley.

Some foods do more than fill a plate. They carry memories, traditions and stories from one generation to the next.

In the San Luis Valley, chicos are one of those foods.

Made from corn roasted in a traditional adobe oven known as an horno and then dried for later use, chicos have been part of the food traditions of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico for generations.

On Sunday, Sept. 27, that tradition will take center stage in Antonito during Sunday’s Chicos, a free community event celebrating both the food and the knowledge that goes into making it.

From Cornfield to Horno

Making traditional chicos isn't simply a matter of drying corn.

The process begins with ears of corn placed inside a wood-fired adobe horno. The thick walls of the horno absorb heat from the fire, creating an oven capable of slowly roasting the corn.

Traditionally, the corn can remain inside the sealed horno overnight. Once removed, it is husked and dried, preserving the harvest for use long after fresh corn has disappeared from the fields.

When it is time to cook, the dried kernels are rehydrated and commonly used in hearty dishes such as soups and stews.

The result is a food with a distinctive roasted flavor, but chicos are about much more than taste.

They represent a way families learned to preserve part of the summer harvest for the long winter ahead.

A Tradition Handed Down

Long before refrigerators and supermarkets, drying food was essential to making it through winter in the high country.

Early Hispano families in the San Luis Valley dried fruits, vegetables, meat and chile. Chicos became part of that tradition, combining corn with cooking and preservation techniques whose roots reach deeply into the cultures of the Southwest.

The knowledge involved wasn't usually learned from a cookbook.

It was learned by watching.

Children watched parents and grandparents tend the fire, prepare the horno, roast the corn and determine when it was ready. Those children eventually became the adults teaching another generation.

That's how traditions survive.

Gathering Around the Horno

Sunday's event in Antonito gives today's residents an opportunity to see that process firsthand.

Sunday’s Chicos will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, at the Outdoor Nutrition Center, 515 River St. in Antonito, on the west side of the historic Warshauer Mansion.

According to information shared by CSU Extension, the free gathering will include chico-making demonstrations, chicos and beans, and conversations about the traditions surrounding the food.

For someone who has eaten chicos all their life, it may be an opportunity to reconnect with familiar memories.

For someone who has never tasted them—or perhaps never even heard of them—it offers a chance to discover another piece of San Luis Valley culture.

More Than Something to Eat

Food traditions can disappear surprisingly quickly.

When fewer people know how to build and maintain an horno, grow the right corn, judge the heat of the oven or prepare the finished chicos, generations of knowledge can disappear along with them.

That's why gatherings such as Sunday's Chicos matter.

They create a place where people can do more than talk about history. They can smell the roasting corn, watch the process and taste the finished food.

The San Luis Valley's history isn't found only in old buildings, photographs and books.

Sometimes it's found around an adobe oven, in a pot of chicos and beans, and in the people willing to show the next generation how it was done.

And sometimes, preserving a piece of the Valley's history begins with simply sitting down together for a meal.

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