Mexican X Part XIX: La Pixca Endures
It’s been a formative experience for my wife and many of my friends and cousins. Trabajar en la pisca. Working in the fields. Not “pizca.” PISCA. Or maybe “pishca”? Let’s take a look, shall we? ‘Amos a ver.
For most of my life, the Río Grande Valley of South Texas (it’s not actually a valley, btw, just a flood plain dotted with oxbow lakes and thorn forest) was dedicated to agriculture. On the farm-to-market road where I live, there are still many fields and orchards.
During harvesting time, you’ll see cars perched at an angle between the shoulder and the ditch, near a cluster of porta potties. Entire families, who’ve begun since dawn the work of picking onion, cucumber, etc. La pisca. When it’s off-season here, many travel north.
For a long time, I thought the verb for picking fruit, vegetables, etc. was “pizcar,” a related synonym of “pellizcar,” to pinch (etymologically connected to French pincer and Italian pizzicare). We say a “pizca de sal” (pinch of salt), so do we pinch fruit from the vine?
But it’s “piscar,” completely unrelated to its homophone. In fact, it’s not an Indo-European word at all. It’s Nahuatl. The original verb is “pixca” (PEESH-kah), and it means “to harvest.”
It can be intransitive (no object) —
- nipixca, I harvest
