When in 2016, Eloísa Ramírez Martínez emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts, along with With her husband and her daughter, she wanted to feel productive and independent, so she didn’t think much of it before going into the kitchen and preparing what she likes best: traditional Mexican bread.
Five years later, from Boston they send their stuffed shells anywhere in the United States or Canada, and they have gone as far as Japan; and so they reach wherever there is a nostalgic Mexican for the delicious shells or handmade flour tortillas.
“Where I have more clients is in California and Texas, but my shells have traveled to Alaska, Quebec, Toronto, Japan, Hawaii and Puerto Rico”.
Although Eloísa Ramírez Martínez was born in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, she feels Monterrey, because she grew up and lived for a long time in Monterrey, Nuevo León in Mexico.
In Monterrey, he dedicated himself to make decorations for cakes, but when she and her family immigrated to Boston, she wanted to do the same, but could not find an answer.
“A friend suggested that I make flour tortillas to sell. There the story was different. In one weekend I sold 150 tortillas. And the thing is that word began to spread among friends and the group of Mexicans in Boston”.
Encouraged by the success of the flour tortillas, she also decided to try if the tamales she made for her house, they would be liked among the Mexicans. And of course they sold like hot cakes, and to this day they sell pork tamales, red chili, rajas with cheese, pork in green sauce, and beans with cheese.
One of the happiest moments was lived when his tamales arrived at the prestigious Harvard University.
“They contacted me from the community of Mexican students at Harvard, and they asked me 266 tamales for your posada. I was dying of nerves, but it came out very well”, she remembers still emotional.
Between 1536 Y 2019, Eloísa focused on the sale of tamales and flour tortillas.
But in January 2019, decided to diversify and try the king’s threads.
“When the sale of December tamales ended, I said and now what do I do. A friend gave me the recipe for the donuts, but the first two I made didn’t fluff up, and a client returned it to me, and told me it looked like a cookie.”
The Mexican woman did not give up and tried the threads with another recipe. That one did work and they came out the way she wanted.
“They turned out very nice and I did so well that I ended up selling threads until April 2019″.
The kings’ threads were followed by shells, one of the most popular sweet breads by Mexicans, only Eloísa wanted to give them a touch more gourmet and innovative to improve the experience of its clients.
“My husband was not attracted to them. He told me, I can’t imagine eating a stuffed shell, but now every so often, he asks me, don’t you have a shell left over?”.
The chocolate, vanilla and marzipan shells that he prepares Eloísa are filled with cream cheese, nutella, peanut butter and cinnamon cream.
The idea of mailing the shells to clients came when a client from Massachusetts who lives far away asked her the proposal to send them by parcel.
“She tells me that she heats them in the microwave oven, and they taste delicious”.
This experience motivated her to start shipping their shells to other states.
“Some people told me that they didn’t think my shells would be sold in Texas because everything you want is found there, but curiously Texas is one of the two states where I have more clients.”
To her repertoire of Mexican delicacies, Eloísa has added cajeta empanadas with walnuts, the shortbread biscuits in three colors, the Macha sauce and the sugar skulls.
“The Cambridge Museum has just asked me to 350 sugar skulls”.
It also sells a kit with skulls so that children, children of Mexicans, can paint their own skulls; and thus teach them the Mexican traditions.
Five years after launching into the business of preparing, selling and shipping snacks from confectionery and Mexican candy store, Eloísa says that she is very proud to bring Mexican flavors to the United States.
“It is what we miss the most living far away. So it is a great satisfaction that the word has spread about my kitchen and that people recommend me “.
To her business, she baptized it with the name “With flavor of Mexico ”. And that is the name of her website and her YouTube channel where she shares cooking recipes. On Instagram, you find it as “With a flavor of Mexico ”. In any of them, you can order stuffed shells or flour tortillas so that they arrive by mail.
Eloísa says that for When your shells arrive fresh at their destination, they are vacuum packed.
“They do not have preservatives, and they are freshly made”
The dream of this Mexican entrepreneur is to have her own physical business where she can offer her delicious traditional bread Mexican.
“The rents are very expensive, but hopefully in 2 years I can have it”.
And she says that her husband supports her in everything, and sometimes, she tells him that more than for money, she works for passion in the kitchen.
“The truth is, yes. Money comes when you do things with love”, says this energetic and resourceful Mexican migrant.
Eloísa received this year the plaque Taco de Oro awarded by Cooks magazine Mexicans around the World by Soledad Ornelas.
One of the things that makes Eloísa most happy during Hispanic Heritage Month is that her clients write to thank her that their children born in the United States, and who do not know Mexico, enjoy the Mexican flavors and traditions through their stuffed shells or their candy skulls.
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