The “Spicy” Myth

“My culture is a very dominant culture, and it’s imposing and it’s causing problems. If you don’t do something about it, your’re going to have taco trucks on every corner”

Such were the words of Marco Gutierrez, founder of Latinos for Trump. The phrase “taco trucks on every corner” has taken over social media, with many professing their love for tacos and discussing how delicious it would be to actually have tacos in every corner using the hashtag #TacoTrucksOnEveryCorner. The phrase has also motivated the actual spread of taco trucks, under the initiative to “Guac the Vote”, using these trucks to register new voters.

While the last piece of Gutierrez’s quote has been the one catching the most attention, I was more taken aback by the first part. The notion that Latino culture is “dominant”, “imposing” and “causing problems” is in line with common stereotypes of Latin Americans being passionate, loud and belligerent. These stereotypes are also encompassed by the often ascribed adjective: “spicy”.

Cristen Conger, from Stereotypology, explored how our culture was reduced to a jalapeno pepper:

The “Spicy” stereotype is not only the product of racism or a lack of interest regarding the richness in history of the region that comprises most of what is called America. The stereotype is also promulgated by many of us in the community, as seen in Gutierrez’s response to the backlash regarding his statement:

“I really didn’t mean to ridicule my fellow Mexicans and their jobs. I misspoke, I used poor [phrasing]. I wanted to describe something and I didn’t use the proper words to do it. But in my community we are also very sensitive, we Hispanics are very emotional, so I guess I hit a nerve.” (From interview with GW.com)

The homogenization Latin American cultures as “spicy” is also expanded to our food, as noted by Puerto Rican cookbook author, Erisbela Garriga, during a recent exchange:

“I’ve been approached several times to answer the question about the differences between Mexican and Puerto Rican food. Mexicans were among the first Hispanics/natives to have lived in this continent for centuries including parts of Texas and California former territories of Mexico. Puerto Rico was discovered in 1493 and was a Spanish colony until 1898, when it was transferred to the United States under the Treaty of Paris after the Spanish American War. What makes our food different from Mexican and other Latin American countries is the seasoning. The base of our Puerto Rican dishes is sofrito which is a blend of spices and herbs such as garlic, onion, oregano, cilantro, culantro, and sweet and bell peppers. Some cooks add cumin, basil and other aromatic herbs. Also the adobo which is a paste that we prepare with garlic, oregano, vinegar or lemon juice, annatto oil (a combination of olive oil and annatto seeds) to marinade or rub meats. The main staple of Mexican food is the use of corn and chiles as their base ingredient. Their food is spicy hot, at the point that, sometimes, you cry when you eat it.

There is a misconception that all Spanish/Latin food is cooked Mexican style. However, Latin American foods are so diverse and rich in different flavors and spices (not all of them hot spice). When you watch some of the food channel programs, almost all of them treat Spanish/Latin food as Mexican. It seems that there is no difference among the various Latin cuisines such as Peruvian, Colombian, Argentinean, Dominican, Cuban and Puerto Rican. Even when some of the chefs are judging, instead of tasting the food the way it is served in that country, they usually make comments that it needs some “hot pepper”, jalapeños, to kick it a little bit with some hot sauce, etc. Not all Spanish/Latin food use the jalapeños to give food a good taste. It is a matter of regional preferences and judges should be aware of that. The notion that Latin food is expected to be spicy hot keeps adding to the many misconceptions of what a Latin dish should look and taste like.”

Mexican food is popular in the United States. This has been evidenced lately in the responses to Gutierrez’s remarks. The long history of the Mexican community is evident in the merging of foodways at the border, including the creation of the Tex-Mex cuisine as representative of this blend. Still, we need to recognize the heterogeneity of the community, and its growing diversity in the United States.

Mac n’ Cheese: Comfort & convenience in a box

The year was 1937. Kraft Company boxed one of the tastiest and simplest dishes: Macaroni and Cheese. I grew up with the blue Kraft box in the kitchen. As an extremely picky eater, it was one of the few foods I would enjoy, forgoing pork, arroz con gandules, pasteles and other Puerto Rican traditional dishes I have since incorporated into my eating repertoire. Lately, I have been thinking about this early childhood memory, as I engage migration and dietary acculturation in my ongoing research. On days I work from home, I sometimes  find myself going back to this childhood staple. I sit at my computer, eating this dish while writing about dietary transitions and global preferences for processed foods.

The original macaroni and cheese dates back to the late 13^th century. An early recipe was found in the cookbook, Liber de Coquina. The dish, de lasanis, consisted of lasagna sheets, cut into squares, cooked in water and tossed with grated cheese and dried spices (See Latin version and a modern day interpretation here). Centuries later, the dish arrived to the United States thanks to Thomas Jefferson after a trip to Italy. The story goes that Jefferson brought back a pasta machine, serving the pasta with cheese during an 1800s state dinner. Scholars at Monticello documented Jefferson’s recipe here. As noted by this group and others, most likely Jefferson was not the first to make macaroni and cheese in the United States, but he helped disseminate the dish  during his time in office.

Kraft Mac and Cheese was a product of the Great Depression, as a meal that could “serve four for 19 cents”, ready in 9 minutes:

Such wonderful concoction would not have been possible without key innovations. James L. Kraft patented processed cheese technology in 1916. Heated and melted regular cheese is mixed with emulsifying fats, preventing the otherwise perishable food from spoiling. This technology gave us Velveeta, and, later on, the bright orange powder in Kraft Mac n’ Cheese – thanks to “spray-drying” technology. Invented in 1872 by Samuel Percy, the technology allowed for the “prevention of the destructive chemical change [by] bringing fluid into a state of minute division” (Cited here). Liquid, such as melted cheese, is sprayed and blasted with hot air, leaving solid, dry particles. Aside from powdered cheese, the technology gave way to powder eggs and milk, feeding the army and the population at large (See more here).

Nowadays, the simple Mac n’ Cheese have been re-taken by chefs in high-end restaurants. The technologies that allowed for these innovations are viewed in negative light, tied to processed (“fake”) foods, as seen in this blog excerpt below,

Sadly, and far more commonly, processed cheese powder in a box has become a household staple; a replacement in war times, for the authentic comfort of the original. This can be blamed on Kraft Foods, whom first packaged it in 1937, and represents the dissolved culture of food, due to mass homogenization and factory processing that began (and forgot to end), during the 30’s and 40’s. (Source: here)

While it is hard to deny our disconnection from food and cooking, there is a role for these products in today’s society. Food innovations maligned today, such as “TV dinners”, frozen foods, and canned and boxed meals, allowed many women to care for their families, while also being able to enter the workforce. Still today, they are allies for working parents, as well as those of us working from home in need of a quick lunch. These were not everyday foods, but they may serve as a lifeline when hunger and time fail to coincide.

Food companies, like Kraft,  have done well capitalizing on our need and desire for convenience. Food marketing has convinced many of us that we do not have to spend too much time in the kitchen, if any at all. At the same time, attaching a negative moral value to consuming these foods disregard real time and income scarcities families face today. After all, we all have to negotiate  between health, convenience, and taste (among other things), at least three times a day.

Jamonilla

Tulip, Tulip, jamonilla  / Deliciosa, siempre fresca / Tu la comes con el pan
Y la comes con arroz. / Tulip, Tulip, va con todo. / ¡Es el resuelvelo todo!
[Tulip, Tulip, lunchmeat / Delicious, always fresh / You can eat it with bread
And you can eat it with rice. / Tulip, Tulip, goes with everything / It’s the solve it all!]

The lyrics above are my remembered version of an 80s (or 90s) commercial for Tulip’s canned luncheon meat, jamonilla. It came back to mind after attending “The Empire of Spam” kitchen workshop a few months back, at the ASFS/AFHVS/CAFS* Annual Conference hosted by the Culinaria Research Centre at the University of Toronto Scarborough.  The workshop focused on Spam as part of the Pacific culinary imaginary – discussing our perceptions about Spam while tasting it at the same time.

Empire of Spam Kitchen Workshop facilitated by (right to left): Hi’llei Hobart (New York University), Adrian De Leon (University of Toronto) and Josh Levy (Univerity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). 

Spam musibi (grilled Spam over a block of rice wrapped with nori drief seaweed). In our version, we doubled the Spam.

Much has been written about Spam (click here for a brief history). During almost eight decades of existence, the brand has gone from a soldiers’ staple during World War II to a culinary mainstay in the Asian Pacific and Hawaii (including the annual Hawaiian festival celebrating Spam -the Spam Jam festival). While celebrated today, the popularity of Spam in the region in marked by US military occupation. These are the same forces that also brought similar canned meats to Puerto Rico.

The influence of canned meats is seen in dishes like arroz con salchichas (rice with Vienna sausages), corned beef (also known as “carne beef”) and the classic party staple, “sandwichitos de mezcla“:

Sandwiches de Mezcla – Photo by Panaderia Facciola. 

Yet, dishes like these are only a part of the culinary repertoire. More often than not, they are the go-to food in times of scarcity, a “resuelvelo todo”, as Tulip’s jingle states. To my knowledge, among the many festivals celebrated in the island throughout the year, there is no equivalent to the Spam Jam Festival in Puerto Rico. And this is not for a lack of food-related festivals! Just in the next four weeks festivals around the island will celebrate  breadfruit, longaniza, jueyes (land crabs), and molleja (sweetbread), to name a few.

The connections between Hawaii and Puerto Rico have been intriguing me for some time. Our shared, but unequal love for canned meat is another piece of this growing puzzle that started with the Borinkis’ pasteles. We are connected by a shared  insular geography and a history of US military occupation which has altered both archipelagos’ food systems, increasing the reliance on processed food sources like jamonilla. Why one is more salient in one place versus the other is still a question that remains to be answered, potentially involving a comparative look at the histories shaping the different ethnic (and food) identities in these two contexts. In the meantime, I’ll close with some “food for thought” – “Mom’s Puerto Rican Spam Flan”, a dish featured in the 2014 Spam Jam Festival that continues to connect these islands through Spam:

Photo by jknakas1 (tumblr) from the 2014 Spam Jam Festival. 

 

Do you have any Spam or Tulip thoughts, memories or recipes to share? 

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*The acronyms stand for three academic societies: The Association for the Study of Food and Society (ASFS), the Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society (AFHVS) and the Canadian Association for Food Studies (CAFS).

Selling Cuisines: Cuban and Puerto Rican Tables

Cuban and Puerto Rican cuisines are born out of movement, merging Spanish, African and Taino influences. Part of my recent fieldwork has looked into how these communities distinguish each other’s foods. When asked directly, New York City Cuban and Puerto Rican interviewees often have a hard time differentiating. Mostly, they talk about the beans –  in name and color. Simply, while Cubans eat frijoles negros (black beans), Puerto Ricans eat habichuelas rojas (red beans). Since first established in the Caribbean, Cuban and Puerto Rican cuisines have continued to move. These movements have created differences, despite these similarities, in how these cuisines have been perceived and consumed in new homes.

A Yelp search for Cuban and Puerto Rican restaurants in New York City yielded a total of 64 restaurants: forty-eight Cuban and only sixteen Puerto Rican. This disparity contrasts to the proportion of Cubans and Puerto Ricans living in the city, as shown below:

These differences are nothing new. In the 1940s, the Federal Writers Project New York Panorama of 1939 described the Cuban and Puerto Rican communities as follows,

On Saturday nights, the Puerto Rican section of Harlem is alive with music and merry-making. There are only about 8,000 Cubans in New York, but it is Cuban music that accompanies the dancing everywhere among the Spanish-speaking people- and indeed has invaded New York’s nightlife in general. A number of cafés and cabarets with Cuban atmosphere have appeared during the last few years.

Cubans are mentioned for their cultural influence. Their music  (and not Puerto Rican music) is listened to in the Puerto Rican section of Harlem (today’s Barrio). In contrast, the Puerto Rican community (and its food) was described in a less flattering manner,

…except for the addition of a few vegetables, [the diet] remains much the same as in their native land: a roll and black coffee for breakfast; for the other meals canned tomatoes, white rice, dried fish, and meat about twice a month.

The excerpts from the 1940s guide shows differences in status perceptions between these communities. These differences can be linked to the contrasting situations of these communities back in the Caribbean. While the 1940s found Puerto Rico as one of the poorest islands in the region, Cuba was striving and marketed as an exotic travel destination.

More than half a century later, the situation is not the same. Puerto Rico’s economic situation improved, while Cuba’s deteriorated. Puerto Rican cuisine strove in the island, while Cuba’s continues to be affected by food supply instabilities. Yet, Cuba’s mysticism and allure remains. Cuban restaurants offer much more than rice, beans and meat. They offer a ticket to the “Cuban experience”: the Copacabana, Hemingway’s mojitos, as well as the excitement of Che’s and Fidel’s revolution. In short, the difference in cuisine popularity go beyond just the food – it can serve as a lens to view the different relationships these islands have with the United States as well as each other, and the resulting contrasting symbolic values attached to these cuisines.

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Based on the conference presentation, “Food in Movement: Cuban and Puerto Rican migrations through cuisine representation” part of the panel “Piruetas Transnacionales: Preserving Identity through Eating, Learning and Music Making” at the Latin American Studies Association 2016 Annual Meeting. 

 

Cookbooks in transitioning societies – a new publication

Close to three years ago I discovered the parallel stories of Carmen Aboy Valldejuli and Nitza Villapol, the Julia Child caribeñas. These women and their cookbooks left  a lasting impression in the culinary histories of Puerto Rico and Cuba, respectively. This serendipitous discovery led me to many hours interacting with their work, both in the library and the kitchen. Their books provide a different way to analyze the important political and economic transitions happening in the two islands, spanning  across the later half of the twentieth century,

It is my pleasure to share one of the final products of this journey – the article, Writing Cuisine in the Spanish Caribbean: A Comparative Analysis of Iconic Puerto Rican and Cuban cookbooks,  published in the latest edition of Food, Culture and Society, summarized as follows:

Puerto Rico and Cuba, linked by a common colonial history, culture, and tropical environments, have similar cuisines. The islands’ shared historical trajectories have been increasingly divergent in the last century, especially since the 1959 Cuban Revolution. This paper analyzes the concurrent social changes since the 1950s in these two contexts, through the work of two iconic cookbook writers, Carmen Valldejuli (Puerto Rico) and Nitza Villapol (Cuba). Writing and publishing during the second half of the twentieth century, these women’s books became an important part of the culinary imagination in their respective islands and diaspora communities. This article analyzes how their work reflects their personal stories and changing social contexts by comparing the earliest and latest editions of their books. Differences between Puerto Rican and Cuban cuisines, as portrayed in the cookbooks, are assessed and contextualized in their respective sociopolitical contexts. This analysis of the production and transmission of culinary traditions offers a novel insight on local and transnational manifestations of these islands’ sociopolitical transformations during these decades.

Interested in reading more? Access to the article is available through this link.

The Borinkis and the Pastel

It’s Christmas time, 115 years ago, in 1900. Close to sixty Puerto Ricans arrived to the shores of Honolulu, Hawai’i. The journey lasted for a month, originally consisting of  about 100 travelers. The numbers dwindled as many abandoned ship, faced with food and water shortages [1]. After the US occupation of Puerto Rico in 1898, the sugar industry was on the decline, leaving many unemployed. Puerto Rican agrarian labor was being recruited around the world, including sugar plantations on the other side of the globe, in Hawai’i.

Puerto Rican Family in Hawai’i, 1900 (Photo: Blase Camacho Souza) [1]

Sanchez Korrol describes this migration as follows:

“Between 1900 and 1901 eleven expeditions consisting of over 5,000 men, women and children were recruited by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association to work alongside Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Portuguese and Italians in the pineapple and sugar fields of those Pacific islands […] As early as 1903, 539 Puerto Rican children were enrolled in Hawaiian schools. Within three years this figure rose to 650, and there are indications that Puerto Rican women were already employed as teachers as early as 1924. Puerto Ricans constituted 2.2 percent of the Hawaiian population in 1923, just over 5,000 individuals. Despite increased outmarriage, dispersal and isolation of Puerto Rican workers throughout the islands and limited involvement with the homeland, 9,551 individuals claimed a Puerto Rican identity in the 1950 census.” [2]

Puerto Ricans in Hawai’i came to be known as the Borinkis – a name derived from Boriken, the Taino name for Puerto Rico. More than a century since their arrival, the Borinkis are part of the interesting ethnic mixture found in Hawaii. According to recent estimates, Puerto Ricans make up the largest proportion of the growing Latino population in the state, followed by Mexicans [3]. Culinary heritage is maintained and reinvented. This includes the ganduri rice (arroz con gandules, rice with pigeon peas), bacalao salad, and the pasteles – although Borinkis refer to these as pastele. Puerto Rican food seems to be popular in Hawai’i, especially the pastele, including a variety of “Pastele Shops”, as the one below:

The Pateles Shop (Honolulu, HI) (Photo: Yelp)

These shops denote the shift in the traditional significance of pasteles. In Puerto Rico, more than an everyday food, pasteles, along with its inseparable accompaniment, the arroz con gandules, is typically eaten in Christmas. Granted, we do save pasteles in the freezer, spreading them out on ocassion throughout the year. Yet, it is still strongly associated with the Navidades.

Furthermore, the Borinkis have reinvented the pastel into new interesting dishes.

First, the pastele sausage. I stumbled upon a version made by Kukui Sausage Company, in Hawai’i.  The sausage contains pork, bananas, salt, black pepper, tomato paste, and achiote oil, along with sodium phosphate and sodium nitrate:

Photo: Tasty Island Hawaii [4]

Photo: Tasty Island Hawaii

Tasty Island blogger describes the sausage as follows: “My favorite, and certainly the one shining with the most character and most true to it’s labeled name is the Pastele Sausage. While I won’t say you can taste the bananas in it, there’s something about that ingredient that gives this sausage its signature flavor. It’s really hard for me to describe this, but it’s really good and taste, well, like Pastele Sausage! Shouldn’t it?” [4]

Aside from the sausage, there is also a stew. The “pastele stew” is a less labor intensive concoction, served alongside white rice. Instead of creating the rectangular dumpling filled with meat and wrapped in a plantain leaf, the stew cooks everything in a single pot – and is also served at the pastele shops:

Pastele Stew from The Pastele Shop (Photo: Yelp)

Interested in trying this at home? Follow the recipe of Auntie Bea Rodrigues, directly from Hawai’i:

And if you have tried the pastele sausage or stew, please share your stories with us!

Buen Provecho and Feliz Navidad!

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1. Chapin, HG. “Puerto Ricans Arrive in Hawaii”, https://www.hawaiianhistory.org/time-capsules/firsts/puerto-ricans-arrive-in-hawaii/
2. Sanchez Korrol, V. “The Story of US Puerto Ricans, Part 2”, http://centropr.hunter.cuny.edu/education/puerto-rican-studies/story-us-puerto-ricans-part-two

3. Hawaii’s Fastest Growing Population? Latinos, http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2013/05/08/hawaiis-fastest-growing-population-is-latinos/

4. “Kim Chee, Pastele and Chorizo Sausages”

   http://tastyislandhawaii.com/2007/07/28/kim-chee-pastele-and-chorizo-sausages/

Meals without meat?

I met Erisbela Garriga almost three years ago. She was participating in a book festival at La Marqueta, a historical marketplace in El Barrio. I was just starting my research on Spanish Caribbean diets, at the time focused on cookbooks. We started talking, and, as I browsed through her cookbooks, the title, De la Tierra con Sabor (From the Earth with Flavor) struck my attention. The book presented Puerto Rican dishes without one (traditionally) important ingredient – meat.

In Puerto Rico, I grew up with the idea that, “a meal without meat is not a meal”. Meat – chicken, pork, beef or fish – is the central piece of the plate. The rest are the “acompañantes”, the side dishes accessorizing the main star of the meal. Eating meat three times a day is commonplace: bacon or ham for breakfast, and other meats for lunch and dinner. Lately, I have been reconsidering this seemingly “traditional” eating pattern and the role of meat in my daily meals.

The idea to limit or decrease meat consumption has been increasingly grabbing headlines. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been recommending decreases or moderation in meat consumption since the 2002 Report, Diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases.  Recently, these recommendations were bolstered by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) report, reviewing the science on the link between cancer and eating meat. These results were summarized widely by various media outlets, including the BBC (as seen below), and contextualized by nutrition experts, such as Marion Nestle.

Concerns about the health, environmental and ethical consequences of meat consumption have led many to turn to vegetarian and vegan diets. Unfortunately, taste is usually left out of motivations to eat a plant-based diet. Yet, a dish without meat can be enjoyable and satisfying. Nowadays, there are more meat substitutes available, as well as a multitude of cookbooks showing us how to reinvent and invent new meals without animal parts. Some of those attempt at changing “Latino” diets with meatless tacos, vegetarian quesadillas, rice and beans, salads…but what about my traditional sanchocho? My pastel? This brings me back to Erisbela Garriga and her cookbooks, De la Tierra con Sabor, and the just published book, Eris’ Green Kitchen.

Eris’ Green Kitchen is the English adaptation and re-vamping of De la Tierra con Sabor. It is a hardcover book, full of color pictures of all the dishes and selected how-to steps. The book motivates a reassessment of the role of meat in traditional Puerto Rican diets. Looking through the book, one realizes that there are is a variety of plant-based dishes in this cuisine. Plus, the book brings the possibility of more. For example, albóndigas de setas, one of the first recipes I tried from the book (with delicious results):

Aside from the recipes, the book includes valuable introductory materials, such as a section on kitchen equipment, highlighting traditional tools from the past, including the old time stove, the anafre. The book also contains general cooking information: practical cooking tips for essential ingredients (sofrito, annatto oil, adobo), how to cook dehydrated soy protein, and even an illustrated guide to peel green plantains.

I was honored to write the Preface for this book and to be part of a wonderful celebration of its publication at the author’s home,

Among the dishes enjoyed: tortilla española, a green banana ceviche, a spinach dip, marinated mushrooms, and my favorite: the Bizcocho de Gandules (Pigeon Pea Sweet Bread), which I promptly recreated back home:

For more information about the book and upcoming author events, see the books’ facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Homestyle-Puerto-Rican-Cooking-Cookbook-86745451323/

Habichuelas Colora’s: Red beans through time and space

Next to white rice / it looks like coral / sitting next to snow
Hills of starch / border / The burnt sienna / of irony
Azusenas being chased by / the terra cotta feathers /of a rooster
There is a lava flow / through the smoking / white mounds
India red / spills on ivory
Ochre cannon balls / falling / next to blanc pebbles
Red beans and milk / make burgundy wine
Violet pouring / from the eggshell / tinge of the plate.

“Red Beans”, by Victor Hernández Cruz, from Maraca: New and Selected Poems 1966-2000

Red beans – habichuelas colora’s – are a staple, important dish in Puerto Rican cuisine. The dish, the name, differentiates our beans (our habichuelas) from most of the other Latin American beans (their frijoles). These beans are part of our culinary memory, making a strong connection between our palates and home, the moment the “terra cotta feathers”, the “ochre cannon balls” are savored alongside rice. In short, red beans are part of Puerto Rican traditional cuisine.

Now, while we often think of tradition as a concept fixed in time and space, traditions are constantly changing, moving with people across borders and generations. Does the moving nature of tradition translates in our plates? How is a simple dish like red beans written and recorded across time and space?

There are close to 100 books published on Puerto Rican cuisine. The first one, El Cocinero Puerto-Riqueño, was published anonymously in 1859. This book shows us that in these early days, the habichuelas were frijoles. It is in Cocina Criolla, the still iconic book of Puerto Rican cuisine, that the classic habichuelas rojas are presented. The non-specified spices in El Cocinero are expanded in Cocina Criolla, with the sofrito. The recipe becomes meatier, complementing lard with other animal fats coming from tocino and ham.

A few years later, and miles from Puerto Rico, the habichuelas rojas are transformed into Basic Beans in the Nuyorican kitchen, as written by Oswald Rivera in Puerto Rican Cuisine in America: Nuyorican and Bodega Recipes. Contrary to other Puerto Rican cookbooks written in the US (mainland), Puerto Rican Cuisine in America seems to establish a Nuyorican cuisine, separate from the island. As part of this, the Nuyorican identity is described, in opposition to the insular Puerto Rican identity:

“A Nuyorican most likely attends a public school or parochial school, plays stickball in schoolyards throughout the city, listens to Salsa music at home or in social clubs located anywhere from the Upper West Side to Brooklyn, enjoys baseball, probably speaks English first, Spanish second, and the Spanish he or she does know is usually an amalgam of Americanisms combined with the traditional Spanish verbs, the Spanglish of East Harlem” (p. ix).

Moreover, it also distinguishes a Nuyorican cuisine as one that “combines elements of traditional Puerto Rican cooking with infusions of new ideas and new ways of doing things inspired by the new urban environment of New York.”

How are the habichuelas colora’s translated in this new home? They become simply beans. They lost their distinguishing red color. The pumpkin is replaced with potato (although this recipe is followed by one for white beans with pumpkin). Tocino and ham are replaced by a bouillon cube. Olive oil replaced lard.

Beans are an important healthy component of Puerto Rican diets. The journey of the Puerto Rican habichuelas colora’s demonstrate how this traditional dish has moved across time AND space. Some changes seen from Cocina Criolla to Puerto Rican Cuisine in America fit recommendations by dietitians, including the use of olive oil and diminishing the use of animal products. Yet, beans are just one piece of a larger, traditional foodway that needs to be understood in its moving and changing nature. These changes and how they are perceived and interpreted are part of the bigger understanding of food systems, eating behavior and its nutritional outcomes.

Related post: Convenience, Modernity and Beans

The meanings of fast food consumption

The golden arches, Colonel Sanders…The meaning of these fast food icons has been changing since they first appeared about five decades ago. In the beginning, fast foods (or quick-service restaurants) were linked with modernization – as these establishments are tied, through their convenient drive-through windows, to the popularization of the car. Nowadays, eating from these restaurants increasingly carry a stigma tied to obesity and low-income communities. Still, globally, this is not always the case. “Fast food” companies are now transnational, gaining the hearts, palates and increasing waistlines worldwide.

 

 

A main road in San Salvador.

In Latin America, fast foods chains have spread quickly, even making adjustments to the local palate and food customs. A visit to any Latin American city will reveal that fast foods are now part of the local foodscapes, not only in main cities, but increasingly in peri-urban areas, making these establishments accessible for all.

While the foodscapes are becoming more and more homogeneous, the meanings attached to the consumption of these foods have yet to change. Eating a burger underneath the golden arches or a fried chicken from the Colonel has a special meaning. For many in these developing economies, being able to afford these foods is a sign of status. Foods that in the US are regarded as time-saving, convenience foods are transformed into “special occasion meals”. I have encountered working in Central America. Anecdotes recounted stories of people selling their hens (the free roaming, happy chickens we pay so much money to eat in the US) to buy a fried chicken meal at a popular Guatemalan transnational chain.

As noted by a Mexico-based chef and slow-food enthusiast, “Fast food is regarded in Mexico as a sign of status, not as much with the wealthy as with the middle class” (see more here). Moreover, the fast food experience in different in these contexts, as seen in the excerpt below:

“In Guatemala, one may find “fancy” or higher-end restaurants in typically touristic areas such as Antigua or Lake Atitlán, but for the average Guatemalan, a high-end restaurant worth visiting would be one like Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, or even Taco Bell. There is a certain prestige that these restaurants possess for being American and, moreover, their treatment of customers is much the same as that of formal, higher-end restaurants in the United States. One waits in line to be seated, and then has a server come and take their order and cater to their needs throughout their stay. They also deliver. The meals’ presentation is still very much the same, however: pizza in a box, or the typical McDonald’s or Taco Bell food tray. It is the customer experience and treatment that is different.” – William Ramirez, “Segregated Communities, Segregated Litter“, CLACS Blog, 07/15/15.

Stories like this point to the prevailing view of fast foods as “aspirational”. This translates, at times inevitably, to the high consumption of these foods when increasing income or changing geographies allow. The accounts from my fieldwork in El Salvador attests to this, as well as informal conversations with immigrants coming to the US from similar communities. When people migrate to the US, the ready access to these foods is a welcomed novelty – at more accessible prices.

The different meanings of fast food, and how these translate to eating patterns among individual living in transitioning communities, including immigrant US populations, is an important often overlooked issue for nutrition and public health interventions. Observations like these should motivate us to take a look at migration histories and their influence in eating and health behaviors, moving beyond “acculturation” to a more holistic and interdisciplinary view of food choices and eating patterns.

National claims…on Mashed Plantains?

Mofongo and mangú – can this duo of mashed plantain dishes in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean tell us something about national cuisines in this regional context?

In my ongoing fieldwork, these two dishes have continually been used to distinguish Puerto Rican from Dominican cuisine. However, recent interviews with Dominican informants have revealed that they, too, claim mofongo as a national dish. Personally, I have to admit that these moments have created some conflict between my role as researcher and my national identity, as Puerto Rican. The first urges me to stay calm and continue listening, while, at the same time, my Puerto Rican self wants to argue against the assertion, and reclaim mofongo as uniquely Puerto Rican. Fortunately, the researcher in me wins these battles, while also prompting me to look further into this claim.

First, let’s start with the recipes:

The recipes above were selected from important cookbooks identified during my fieldwork, characterized by a long publishing history and staying power among the Puerto Rican and Dominican communities, respectively. In looking at Bornia’s book I see (with some disappointment) that she also has a recipe for mofongo, quite similar to Valldejuli’s, but without the additional olive oil. Cocina Criolla does not have a recipe for mangú…

As the inclusion of mofongo in the Dominican cookbook is not enough to justify claims over the dish, I continued my research, seeking to understand how this distinction is understood by others. During my search I stumbled upon the Urban Jíbaro and his blog, Sofrito in my Soul. In his post, struggling with the same dilemma, I found this video from Corona, Queens – a neighborhood known for its cultural diversity and restaurants,

The video addresses the controversial question, is mofongo from Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic? The video plays with the ethnic tensions that exist between Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, with mofongo at the crossroads. While mofongo is claimed, not surprisingly, by a Dominican restaurant, when the video protagonists take the question to the streets, the answers are different. Case in point: A Dominican woman who responds that mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish, adding,

“I have been here [NYC] for a long, long time, and I never had it when I lived in DR, in Dominican Republic – I had mofongo here”.  

Such response echoes those I have received from other Dominicans I have spoken with, the older generations in New York City and Puerto Rico. Interestingly, the claim for the “Dominican mofongo” has been from younger Dominicans, perhaps signaling the relatively recent introduction (and incorporation) of the dish to Dominican cuisine.

In the end, the Dominican claim on mofongo reflects the inevitable mixing of food cultures in a city like New York, where small, but perceived important distinctions between groups start to blur, melting identities (and food) as “Latino”, “Hispanic”, or (my least favorite) “Spanish”.

Mofongo, as well as mangú, share the green plantain and its African roots, marking the importance of our African heritage in our shared histories and plates: