Forget politics; meat matters

The president of Mexico is coming to downtown Seattle today, but Guadalajara native Jose Silva won't be there to greet him.

It has been 29 years since Silva, owner of White Center's Carniceria El Paisano, left his native Mexico, and the politics there are now a faraway concept.

And the politics here? Well, Silva did close up shop on May 1, the day a million-plus Latino immigrants and their supporters marched nationwide to make their presence known. Otherwise, what's on his mind is keeping his business alive.

"I thought I was gonna go back [to Mexico] in about six months or one year," he says. "I never imagined I would still be here."

The corner butcher shop may be a fading icon, but for many local Latino immigrants, Carniceria El Paisano — "The Peasant" meat market — offers freshness and familiarity, a little slice of home. For others, it's a dash of authenticity, a taste of the area's changing mosaic.

Recently, three people wedged through the shop's glass door and carefully eyed the counter selection before ordering 130 pounds of chamorro (beef shank). A big order, yes — but "they're having First Communions this week at Holy Family [Catholic Church]," guessed daughter Laura Ornelas after they'd gone. "When that happens, we get a lot of orders."

More than an estimated half-million Latinos now live in Washington, a fifth of them in urban King County. Some have been here for decades, like Jose and Patricia Silva, who opened El Paisano five years ago. Their family operation — one of more than 10,000 Latino-owned businesses statewide — includes daughter Ornelas and several other relatives.

There are just a handful of carnicerias, or butcher shops, in the Seattle area, mostly south, in places such as Renton and Burien. About 75 percent of El Paisano's customers are Latino, such as Veracruz-born Rosa Ochoa, who lives nearby and stops by almost daily. Why here and not Safeway, or Albertsons? "It's fresher," says the bubbly Spanish-speaker, who cleans houses two days a week. "The quality is good. And the employees are friendly."

You won't find typical American-style cuts here — T-bone, porterhouse or brisket, for instance — or anything with lemon-herb rub. El Paisano's mostly Mexican customers are used to spicy marinades and thin cuts, even when it comes to smoked pork chops. Why so thin? "It cooks faster," sister-in-law Seville Henderson says.

"Yes," Ornelas says, "they have big families, and they want to eat now."

The place itself is thin-cut and narrow, half butcher shop, half market. Across from the meat counter is a densely packed array of Mexican groceries and goods, from canned sauces and bottled salsas to dried chilies and goat's milk dessert topping.

Regulars come in almost daily to pick up dinner for the night, awaiting orders for milanesa (breaded beef tip steak), beef or pork adobada-style (shredded and marinated in a spicy mix), beef "al pastor" (rotisserie style), or prepared game hen — all priced between $3 and $4 a pound.

Others, from Everett and Tacoma, stop by on weekends; El Paisano has satisfied appetites from as far as Shelton, and the family says its freshly made chicharrones (fried pork rinds) and tamales have fans from California to Oklahoma.

Vietnamese cooks like the store's thin cuts of meat for pho; an African-American man pops in to get chitterlings for a friend; white customers such as SeaTac's Johnny Dilts tout the tamales. "I drive quite a ways to come get 'em," he says.

The Silvas knew little about meat cutting when they took over the space vacated by a decades-old American-style butcher operation. The old shop had been a White Center fixture, complete with rotating rooftop cow. "It was turning around, all the time," Jose Silva says.

But the family has done OK for themselves, even without the cow. "We had to learn really fast," Silva says.

The key was quickly landing butcher Carlos Perez, fresh from meat-cutting work in California, and then Herminio Mora, who with Perez's tutelage now operates the implements of sawing and slicing behind the counter.

The easygoing Perez, with his broad shoulders and impish face, is a customer favorite and the essence of a good butcher: He banters, asks about the kids and knows what he's doing. He makes El Paisano's chorizo from scratch.

Between the tamales — which by themselves are a weekly, Pentagon-caliber operation — and the occasional order for 300 pounds of fried pork for a birthday or quinceañera celebrations, "it's getting out of hand," Silva says.

"We don't have enough space. We never imagined it was going to be like this. We used to cook every weekend. Now it seems like we cook every day."

Marc Ramirez: 206-464-8102 or mramirez@seattletimes.com