Sopa de Caracol, also known as conch soup, is a popular Honduran dish known for its sea snails and delicious coconut flavor. My mom, being a Honduran immigrant, longed for this soup, but nothing she found in America tasted the same as the rich, flavorful soup that she only got to eat on special occasions. In Honduras, sopa de caracol is special, it’s a soup you can get sitting on the beaches of Ceiba or Tela, where the seafood is freshly caught. The snails go directly from the ocean to the big boiling pots in the kitchen and straight into your soup. My mom describes it as the most tender, and freshest snails you can find. When we land in Honduras it's the first thing she wants to eat. She wants to sit at the beach relaxing to the sound of the waves, and while it's counter-intuitive with the blazing sun and the 90-degree weather, it feels like home. I watched as she ate her soup with a smile on her, savoring every slurp and sip, I can only imagine that this was a sign she felt at home again, at peace. Whenever I eat Sopa de Caracol all I can think about is my mom, and how on sunny days in America, and maybe even cold nights she must’ve missed the soup that made her feel right at home.  

– Francis Gutierrez

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant