December 20, 2024 • 43 mins
Illyanna Maisonet's work Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook covers history, shares stories and digs into the varied facets of Puerto Rican cuisine. Anney and Samantha discuss the book and recipes they made from it.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephen.
Never told you a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Uh, y'all. Today we are doing things a bit differently
for our Feminist Book Club. You know how we love
to throw in different types of books and reading materials,
and so today we're decided we're gonna take on a cookbook. Yeah,
and I feel like we've been talking about Puerto Rican
culture a bit more than usual, which I love, so
(00:40):
fils are appropriate that we are actually going to feature
Ileana Masonette's Dsporican the Cookbook. And it's a Puerto Rican
cookbook that's not a Puerto Rican cookbook, as she would say,
I think. And this is from her website, Ileana Maisonette
dot com. Ileana Masonette spent years documenting her family's Puerto
Rican resides and preserving the islands disappearing food waste through rigorous,
(01:03):
often bilingual research. In Dasporikan, she shares over ninety recipes,
some of which were passed down from her grandmother and mother,
Classics such as tostanes pernil and erls con gandules, as
well as pinchols with barbecue, guava, sauce rabbit frigacy with
chote and Flon de Casol. There's a lot in there, y'all.
There's a lot of It's a giant book, wonderful pictures,
(01:26):
really great storytelling as well, don't you read any.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, she gives so much context and background and personal
experiences that the photographs are amazing, and it was There's
just so many different recipes in there, and all of
them tell kind of the history of Puerto Rico on
how they ended up there. So it was great read
with great recipes.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yes, and yeah, she really has a huge variety of
recipes that we can use for this. Annie and I
decided to pick different recipes as dry and I actually
too because I was like, oh, these are easy, let
me let me do these two. And I will say,
I think it's like cheat sheet level of like I
picked the recipes, it is like ingredients I can find
very minimal cook time, thank you very much. And we
(02:15):
are really fortunate that I'm specifically very close to an
international market that has a lot of Latino and Asian
ingredients that you can't find on a regular so I
was able to it to take me some hunting, though.
I was like, oh, we'll find this Weirdly enough, one
of the ingredients polina, I could not find except for
(02:36):
the American I'm putting this in quote section that they
have in the international market because I think they just
use corn corn mill, but she said polina, and I
am a stickler. I'm like, I gotta figure out exactly
what this is. But for the most part, when you
read her book, she talks about the corn mill and
it's from a specific type of corn flint. I'm assuming
you already know this any a safer Yeah, yeah, she's not. Yes,
(03:01):
So I couldn't find that. So I was like, you
know what, I need to stick with the polenta, even
though it's the same thing, and I'm going to do it.
And I did. But again, like I said, I didn't
find it in the Mexican Flash Latino section. It was
in the America quote unquote American section. That's interesting, right,
I just don't think I understood what I was looking for,
(03:22):
to be honest, because I'm such a like on edge
about making sure I get the exact ingredient, especially for
the initial Are you like.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
That's funny because I'm like, this will have to do.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's what I am really good at that I was
just thinking about the talent that comes with cooking and baking.
Baking is different, I know, but like the level of
creativity you have to have to make things, and for me,
I need everything prepared beforehand, like I need to know
what I need to have it and not have a
panic attack about not having that ingredient, which is an
odd thing. And I think it's a talent but what
(03:59):
I but yeah, So back to when it comes to
Puerto Rican cuisine, it is flavorful, unique and diverse, and
Masonette does a beautiful job not only sharing her love
for the food, but her love for her family and heritage.
Because it is a cookbook, it isn't your typical biography
or autobiography or memoir obviously, but she does a great
(04:23):
job in folding in her stories and life lessons with
a recipe. So let's jump in. We're going to do
themes with quotes, so follow a longer if you can.
And when I say themes, we're just gonna go with
her recipe, like with her categories and types of recipes,
So follow if you can. If you can't, you should
also buy this book because you should, like it's a
fantastic cookbook. In general. She begins her book with the
(04:47):
memories of our grandparents immigrating to the west of the
US and the food that influenced her life, and how
her culture has transformed through the pains of colonization but
still remain deep in their original culture, and why she
wrote this book.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yes, here is a quote. There are Puerto Ricans who
don't know about their own cuisine, no shade. That tends
to happen when you believe it is your birthright, you
take it for granted. Sometimes it feels like somewhere along
the line, Puerto Rican's lost their way and with it
their food, with colonization that isn't entirely unintentional. There can
be several arguments against why there's no emphasis on the
(05:24):
beauty of Puerto Rican cuisine. Puerto Ricans don't tend to
be cerebral about their food, but rather emotional.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Oh and I'm going to reference this a lot because
I have a pretty good friend who is Puerto Rican
and he actually started a restaurant called me a Boilis
with his sister, and he wanted to focus on Puerto
Rican food. And he was the first one to introduce
me to this type of food. And that is so correct,
(05:53):
that level of like emotion. He cooks with feeling, he
cooks with love, and he says that, and I know
that's kind of gooey type of thing to say in cooking,
but he truly did. This is how he cooked with
love and with honor to dedicate to his grandparents and
his parents, and really pushed it forward. And it's interesting
(06:14):
to see her recipes and the similarities and then also
the love that she has and the memory she has
of our family, because he puts the same amount of
dedication in his food, and you can tell, like it
is so beautiful. But going back to what we were
talking about, she writes, we are Teano, Spanish and African.
The peaceful Tano was never native to the Caribbeans, much
(06:36):
like their enemies, They migrated to the Antilles from South America.
Lots of Tano culture still runs through our veins and
our vocabulary words such as barbecue, hammock, canoe, and iguana.
The Tano presence is still felt of the island of Borinquan.
The Tano called the island Borinquans land of the Brave Lord,
which is why Puerto Ricans call themselves Barriqua's to this day.
(06:58):
My grandparents came to Sacramento from Puerto Rico in nineteen
fifty six, so my grandmother didn't adopt many of the
gastronomic influences that the US had on Puerto Rico. If
we had ever added ketchup to her pastelles, she'd lose
her mind, which I think is funny because they do
love some ketchup. When I was in Puerto Rico for
a short time, they love their ketchup too.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I do too, and it's it's one of those things
which again has a lot of downsides, but when you
see like how cuisines come together, Ketchup is one that
shows up in a lot of different places and you're like, oh, catchup,
and I'm.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Going to talk a little bit. But like the Mayo Ketchup,
which that's one of their sauces, that's all that is international.
It's such a weird like phenomenon of the like Mayo
being huge, Ketchup being huge, and they're like, we're going
to combine these. And when he when he first introduced me,
because I'm like, I hate Mayo, but he was like
this is I'm like, I'm not making that. That's disgusting. Again,
(07:58):
nothing to do with the culture is everything to do
with Mayo. I despise it so much. But yeah, and
going back about Masonette's own experience, she says, I grew
up in the unincorporated county of South Sacramento, a place
that often feels forsaken. It was a neighborhood where you
could tell what time of year it was by the
activities being performed. And then she goes on it was
(08:20):
a working class part of town, consisting of a diverse
immigrant population and a dining scene that reflected it. The
smell of charred chiles and cooking cortillas and the sound
of a wooden pestle pounding against the crook would escort
you on your evening walks home, all smells and ingredients
that would inevitably end up in my Californian, Puerto Rican
or callea Rican cooking style. And that's why this is
(08:44):
not a Puerto Rican cookbook. This book is for the
diaspor Rican, the five point five million people living stateside
who continue to cook the food of our homeland. This
is for the tribe of the nide Qui nide Aya,
not from here, not from there. I thought it was
beautiful well, and I think it's speaks to so many
(09:04):
people immigrants and refugees and people who have multicultural background.
It reflects, you know, that feeling of being assimilated but
at the same time keeping your own, and so what
that looks like when you start diverging the two is
quite beautiful. So Masonette starts off her cooking book with
a one on one on traditions and flavors as well
(09:27):
as the ingredients or the tastes and seasonings of Puerto
Rican cuisine, and she of course talks about washing of meat.
I swear it's I think I'm gonna say just people
of color who talk about this, because Asian people do
this too a lot. And then going back and forth
of like do you do this, she talked about the
(09:47):
fact that she does not wash her meat, but she
does pad it down, and I was like, that's the
new generation of understanding. Okay, don't don't wash chicken because
if you do, who you're just spreading more germs. Stop that.
Stop it. But that's the the thing is still a thing,
as well as the other hotly like hotly contested rinsing
of the rice, yeah, which you need to rinse your rice, y'all.
(10:11):
If you're if you're, if you're making home and he's
looking down, I have a feeling she does not, but.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I do rince noodles. I rinch rice noodles, but not rice.
I know, makes sense. I'm an enigma.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
That's the opposite. Anyway. Going back to and of course
the different flavors and sauces like Mayo ketchup, which we
just talked about, which is essentially what you think it is. Yeah,
Mao and ketchup and combined. But it is a specialty
sauce that they named Mao ketchup. At least it's on point.
I will say that. You know.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
The interesting thing though, is being on a food show
every now and then I'll just say something and people
will write it and they'll be like, actually, this is
a huge thing in Utah. I'm pretty sure they call
it fry ketchup. It's Mayo and ketchup, but they call
it fred ketchup. And I've never heard of price sauce.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
That's and you know what that is in like the
South that was an island.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
We have all regional, which I never liked and I
cannot stand and I knew it from childhood, and my
mother tried to check me into eat well. My mother
was really obsessed with me eating mayo.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Man, I don't know why. It's like a lot of
Southern foods.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I guess so, and I hated it. I hated as
a kid. Well, did I tell you that my dad
admitted that he remembers those incidents because my mom has
now gotten to the point which I think we all
get to when you're like, oh, yeah, I try to
traumatize my kid, so I'm gonna I didn't do it.
My mother was like, I don't. I don't remember trying
to sneak in Mayo and.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Your girl trees.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And my dad waited till she left, and he was like,
I remember that, Smantha, it happened, never fear. I was
like you, and he did in front of my partner,
So I was like, see anyway. But Thousand Islands also
was my family's uh dressing. So because I didn't like it,
(12:03):
she eventually relented and got me Italian. Yeah, but like
for the longest time, that was also a point of
contingent in our house because I did not like it.
Turns out it's just pretty much mail cotch up with relish,
which makes that worse to me, but whatever. And then
of course the very famous safrito. We don't really talk
(12:23):
much about this in We won't be talking about much
about this in the episode, but she has an amazing
recipe in there and talks about the different ways to
make it and like the depths and the history behind it,
like the Chile's and bring in all the different types
of spices and to remind people spices not necessarily spicy,
so spices good use it anyway. Moving on, so sofrito
(12:47):
is what she says is the soul of Puerto Rican cooking.
A fleck day are based that starts and ends almost
every savory recipe in the card file. So if you
want to truly understand in Puerto Rican cuisine, figure out
the sofrito. Okay okay. In her book, she divides her
(13:10):
recipes under these categories for doras, bean, soup and stews, seafood, poultry, pork, beef,
rice and other grains, salads and sides, sweets and drinks.
So those are the different sections that you should go
look into. We're gonna talk a little bit about each section,
and then when it comes to the section that any
Night cook from, which is not till the end because
(13:33):
gotta wait, gotta hold you in suspense. But yeah, so
we're gonna go talk a little bit about them. But
there's so many different recipes in the history of the
food in Puerto Rico's pretty, uh, heartbreaking and enlightening at
the same time. So you really should get this book.
Bet Duves. A shout out to colt Flaves, which is
(13:57):
a YouTube channel slash. I watched them on TikTok as
a couple who reviews different books and how like accessible
it is, and they recommended this book and loved this book,
and I was like, yeah, so that's kind of where
I got this book from.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
FYI.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So going to Fretturas or Fritter's, she begins the chapter
talking about her angsty teenage years and about how her
family was interconnected or reconnected through the baccolottos, and this
is what she writes about it. Before you even taste
the flavor of baccalatto, you hear the crunch, the shatter.
(14:35):
The center was toothsome like ar hints our people's resistance,
salty from the tears we've shed. But the edges were delicate,
and vulnerable, like when we reveal our underbellies. A boila
amilias baccolatto was also familiar. I had eaten it before
because it was my nana's bacolatto. They hadn't seen each
other in forty years, but their identical baccolatos proved they
(14:58):
were still connected, whether they liked it or not. And I,
oh man, this sounds amazing. I love the way she
wrote this, and I do remember these. I did eat
some in Puerto Rico and I'm like, yeah, I want one.
I'm craving it now, like I want to. This is
something you would dip in the mail ketchup. Some people
would breaking their hearts. But I just know, like kind
(15:23):
of right up there with the tostona ass which I
have made. So I'm gonna reference again my friend who
ran the restaurant I would help, and this is the
one thing he put me on. He's like, you can't
stick this up right, so let me put you on these.
It is satisfying the little testonic makers that you crush
and you see those little tiny like platinums just like
squished that You're like, yeah, I did that, and then
(15:45):
they come out all crispy and fried and salty and yummy.
I need one.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I think you do. I do.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I got some Puerto Rican food too. And then the
next chapter is beans, soup and stews. She writes this
about her grandmother, and I thought it feels so familiar.
Just when you talk about soups and anything stews and hardy,
(16:19):
you know this. And also when it comes to Latina
cultures and Puerto Rican cultures, beans are on a different level.
You know. When you have these beans, it's not what
you would get from your from my white mother. I
love you, mom, but I don't like your black eyed peas. Anyway.
Moving on, here's what she writes. When guests line up
(16:41):
in the warm kitchen, the frenzy of gathering and passing
plates and utensels begin. We serve ourselves from the steaming
pots of beans and rice on the stove, grabbing a
few tortillas, we sit down at the aged dining room
table and silently dig into our homemade tortillas. Beans and
rice home made. The beans are simple, only five ingredients,
(17:02):
and yet they are buttery, creamy, salty, and floral. They
are meaty and melty. We're all thinking this is the
single best thing I've eaten in a long time. My
Nina apologizes for not having company appropriate food in the house.
She complains that the tortillas are tough they are not,
and the beans are too simple they're not. And my
(17:23):
mom finally tells her, oh, will you shut up and eat?
And that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I
feel like this is just all cultures when it comes
to a matriarch in general, that they know that they
made something good, but they have to just in case
downplay it and criticize it and wait for the compliments
(17:46):
to roll in. But I will say for myself, and
I think for a lot of especially Southern women, they
really do doubt that. They really are like questioning whether
or not it's that good, and then people have to
validate it. It's not. It's not passively aggressive thing, not
for everyone, but it's truely like, it's not my best,
this is how I would improve it, but everybody's like, no,
(18:07):
it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Shut up. Yeah, my mom is really bad about this everything.
She's like, oh, I should have had this, and I
shouldn't have done this. This is too dry, or this
is too and we're all like this is delicious. We
love it. And she's even said, you know, if you
cooked for me, I wouldn't have this. I wouldn't be like,
oh I should have had this or this or this.
(18:29):
It's only it. Yeah m hm.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
That's self criticism, but it's always delicious and like having
that like that kind of there's like a bean soup
ish and she immediately says, beans are not stew. This
is not soup. But it's a meal that could stand
on its own. And it really is like having a
good actually well made m h. Like Mexican Puerto Rican beans.
(18:56):
It's so satisfying. It's just delicious and you eat it
up with that rice and homemade tortilla. Yeah, I will
always pick that over it. I will pay the extra
two dollars, give me the homemade tortilla. There's something to it.
I remember. Yeah, I went to Mexico, that's what. And
(19:18):
like watching them many going into the smaller villages where
they did still do the wooden stoves or the fire
stoves outside or like separately from their home because it
was a danger and watching them do those magic and
the taste it was just flower and water, but it's
delicious or corn and water. Amazing, amazing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah. I was in Mexico once and I just went
down like an alleyway to the first restaurant I found,
and it was like some of the best tacos I've
ever had in my entire life.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Bar none, like amazing when things are homemade.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Mm hmm, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
That's so different.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
There is there is Okay, Okay, now you're getting to
experience what I go through her savor all the time.
Every time you're like, I have to get this in this.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
And then yeah, well that's what I do with watching food,
like watching TV, especially like culinary shows. I'm like, well
I have to eat that now.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yep, that's just how it is. That Well, moving on,
that does bring us to the next section, which was
on seafood. Here's a quote. People think of seafood when
they think of the islands, but are often disappointed when
they go to Puerto Rico. I'm frequently asked, where's the
fresh seafood? The easiest answer that I can offer is
they export most of it. Between pollution and the complex
(20:39):
regulations governing local fishing, the island's own fishing industry could
never truly develop.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Right, And I know you probably have a lot to
say on this because you have you talked about like
the export and port of Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yes, and we've also talked about it specifically in this case,
I would say Hawaii because they also kind of got
hamstrung by US laws about fishing and where you can
fish and when you can fish when they had been
doing it responsibly for like ever, but they were getting
(21:13):
punished for it. And so yeah, it's really complicated the
situation of import export, especially with islands often.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, and when it comes to I need more about
the history of Puerto Rico again because they spend some
time there and they it's pretty rough. The statehood of
Puerto Rico, the desire to be independent from the US,
rightly so, the colonization, history of colonization that happened on
Puerto Rico, and just a chaos that happens. We saw
(21:43):
this with Hurricane Maria, how little the US government did
in helping them and assisting them, and still they're still struggling.
They're still struggling with aftermath, and we know they're continue
to be bombarded with different hurricanes and storms that have
happened and continue to happen, and they're not getting much
rice I think it took a long time to even
get voting rice. They are heavily taxed, and then also
(22:06):
they are heavily regulated, way more so than within the
US mainland. So there's a conversation and they even she
even writes in the book about how they feel like
the Disney version of their island is Hawaii because they've
they've figured it a little more out and they have
done a little better with the battles. Not great, but
(22:27):
you know, because there's still very much there's a lot
wanting when it comes to regulation and the over taxing
and the abuse from the United States government. But all
that is say is stuff like that, and so they do.
They have lost a lot of their own products and
their own exports, like they've lost a lot of money.
(22:50):
So there's a lot to be said about that, as
well as the amount of taxation and regulation that they
go through. It's expensive Puerto ricospens because of that, and
yet people still trying to colonize it. So moving on,
we're going to talk about poultry. And I love this
beginning story because it just reasons so much. She tells
(23:12):
the story of chef Adela Fargas so Adela. She starts
who is a famous chef I believe in was a
famous chef in New York and here's what she had
to say about her. Adela hustled in La Caye, selling
Puerto Rican street snacks to the community. Soon after, she
opened her own restaurant where she cooked order in Kucho,
(23:32):
Frito land of heat, lamp and steam table, speed service
and almost folkloric work ethic of our Puerto Rican Abuela's.
From Adela's generation, it was nothing for her to awaken
at the crack of dawn to head to the restaurant.
She started the day by cooking her pernill, a large
pork shoulder that was slow roasted until the skin became
thin and crispy and refracted like untempered glass. The meat
(23:56):
was spoon tender, but it was her roasted chicken for
which she became famous. Patrons would drop in after work
to purchase her chicken on their way home, and so
Adela would spend the day cooking with a restless affection
for her craft and our hinte, keeping a watchful eye
in the community until she called it at night around
at around eleven o'clock. And in that story, they talk
(24:18):
about a poet who would often come through. She would
feed him because he would go through hard times, and
he dedicated a whole poem to her food and her craft. Again,
go get this book because you need to read this
poem and this story that he writes. But people like
her who really put a mark for Puerto Rican cuisine
because and pernil, y'all, that is a feat like I
(24:42):
like I said, watching the friend cook as much as
he did, and a dedication it takes to cook this
food anyway. But it did make me want the roasted chicken,
and I'm sad I'm never gonna have.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
It her specifically, but specifically, yes, yeah, not like maybe
inspired by her, I would definitely have roached chicken.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
That's not a thing I meant like by.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Her specific Yeah, I got you, okay.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And then were moving on to pork and yeah, so
pork's a big deal in Puerto Rican cuisine. Here's what
she says, Ah, pork monarch of colonial proteins seen in
many of our celebratory foods. Pork is king in Puerto Rico,
but not because it was native to the culture. So
she kind of explains how Columbus comes in. It was
(25:31):
like Hey, there's nothing here. If we want people to survive,
we're going to have to help out. So she writes,
as far as Columbus was concerned, this land required everything,
everything that the colonists were going to need to supply
their long term stay. And she goes on to talk
about one of those resources left by Columbus being livestock,
including pigs, including hogs, and how that kind of became
(25:53):
like the rich people food, which again colonization really does
a lot to that. Again talking about perno it is
a halt feet like the actual process of it all
and making sure that it's perfect and the skin is
still perfect. Again, shout out to my friend Luise. He
did a vegan version and it was good.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Silly me because he tied. He had to tie so
the way he makes it, he pretty much created pork
shoulder type of thing. He tied it with like the
cooking string. I didn't know with cooking stree and I
tried to eat it.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Did anyone see?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
You know me? I had to tell on myself because
I was sitting there chewing on it for a good minute,
like what is this? And I pulled it out and
I was like oh, and they're like, what is it?
I was like, I tried to eat this, and of
course I became the butt of the joke for the
rest of the night, as I should. But yeah, yeah,
but it was really good. So Louise heats off because
he does an amazing job and turning these dishes vegan
(26:56):
or vegetarian friendly. Amazing people might be offended by that.
I don't know. I don't know if Portocan's like, what
are you doing to my name?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I mean, people like to fight about that no matter what.
Some people will be like they just like to fight
about it every show.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
He did this fantastic job. He did his job by it.
But you know, there's that. But just so y'all know,
don't need the string Park.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
If you needed any advice, be on the lookout that
brings us to beef. Quote. The Hipperito was created in Chicago,
making it a diasper Rican creation. In the late nineteen nineties,
Jan Peter Figueroa and his brothers owned Borriquin restaurant and
the predominantly Puerto Rican community of Humboldt Park. Figaroa got
(27:42):
the idea for this dish from a recipe in Puerto
Rican newspaper El Valcero for a sandwich deep plantano, which
used two big tustone's instead of bread.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Ooh yeah, so the sandwich de platano. Apparently there's a
restaurant that they got this recipe from and it still
exists in Puerto Rico. Again, this is written in her book,
so that was publishably last year. I'm assuming it's still there.
You never know, but that sandwich was absolutely inspired by that.
(28:13):
But yeah, this was a creation by fickeeroa and fun
side piece that the fact that Chicago proudly claims the
sandwich as they should, but they this is this is Chicago,
like this is there, like yeah, this is my baby,
don't touch it type of conversation, So be careful what
you say. Be careful in Chicago specifically. But yeah, you know,
(28:38):
I love a good Puerto Rican sandwich anyway, because that Pernill.
Also they do like a left of a Pernell sandwich
and it's so tasty, like it's on par with a
Cuban and it's just like a Cuban sandwich, you know,
if you know, you know, the hemolas, the mustard pickle,
all of us, all perfectly flying. I'm a need. I'm struggling,
(29:02):
Like my mouth is watering as we're talking. Yeah, struggle
bust in here. But yeah, those sandwiches they hit and
they hit good, yes, But moving on to the rice
(29:24):
and other grains, and here I start my venture. Any
and I decided again I would make the food chair.
And here's what she wrote about food chair. There are
no grits in Puerto Rico, not even as an import item,
which I find is true for many places. Nobody really
cares about grits except for the South. I feel like anyway,
but cornmill has been utilized by the inhabitants of the
(29:47):
island since long before the conquestadors baby blues sparkled on
the horizon. Just as grits are mostly eaten for breakfast
in the American South, foond chair is mostly eaten for
breakfast by the older Puerto Ricans. I feel like I
just got called out because I was like, yeah, I'll
eat this, but it's okay. And talking about corn, she
(30:08):
goes on to say, the relationship between Puerto Rican and
corn goes back further. Despite what many state siders assume
is a love affair between Puerto Ricans and rice, corn
was a stable that was essential to the indigenous Tatos
who inhabited Blorinquin long before Europeans landed. The Danos planted
and harvested corn in fertile soil and were even documented
(30:30):
as preparing corn dumplings. So this was in conversation about
where rice came from, and that was actually a colonial thing.
They did not have rice beforehand, but they've had corn,
and I think that's kind of the story about like
North America in general, like having corn first and what
that looks like. And yet so I made this dish.
This is my adventures in trying to find polina, and
(30:52):
I finally found it. It took me forever. I looked
like an obvious foreigner in the aisles of the Latino
grocery section that I was like, I don't know where
this is. Finally found it and it is really delicious.
It's a little bit sweeter. So according to Maisonette, her
grandmother would do contenus milk and cinnamon and brown sugar,
(31:15):
so that was very sweet. So kind of oatmeal porridge,
which I feel like we need to have this conversation
in food in general about how porridge is worldwide, like
it is a version of it, whether it's rice, whether
it's corn, exists, and like everybody eats it and everybody
finds healing within those dishes. I love it. But anyway,
(31:36):
coming back to so, I made it and she calls
for coconut milk and then tons of butter and a
lot of thyme, because I'm like, oh my god, oh
my god, I can do this, I can do this,
and it came out really good. She serves it with
shrimp like a shrimp a play on shrimp and grits,
and I can see how it's really good. But I
decided to like honor the grandmother way and use brown
(31:59):
sugar and all that. It was really good. I got
so excited about it. I ate a big bowl and
gave my partner some and we both really liked it.
And then I was like, I'm going in for a second.
I forget how heavy corn yeah when it comes, especially
ground corn, like it sits. And I was like, oh,
I'm besick.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Like breakfast because you use it to fuel you the
whole day.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
And I almost eating it like I was never going
to eat again. Because when I like something, I get
so excited that I was like I need more. Yeah, yeah,
one bowl was good and it was so delicious. It
was so warm and it was cold that day and rainy.
I was very satisfied, Like, I'm gonna make some again,
so I have to get more coconut milk because she
(32:46):
uses coconut milk instead of condensed milk, and I probably like,
I'm like, yeah, I think I would be along those
lines too, but yeah, don't eat a lot. You don't
eat a lot. It's delicious though, And then the next
session is salad and size, and she didn't have much
to say outside of like, she doesn't like vegetables that much, yeah,
(33:10):
which I appreciated, but she's like, I still eat them,
don't get me wrong, but I don't like them. She
talks about my fungo, which, if you know anything about
part Drican culture, this is a pretty big staple. Any
did you also do an episode on this?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Probably, I guess it's hard to remember it, but I
know what it is. I think we have I think
explain to us what it is. Don't focus on the
spots man.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Okay, fine, bye bye, we'll move on. We'll move on
for now. But if you know, you know, if you know,
you know, the next part is sweets and drinks, and
she talks about the fact that sweets are not a
big We're not a big thing in Puerto Rico until
the Europeans came and the Spanish came, and they brought
in like their uh pastries and then you know, if
formed from there, and one of my favorites is casitos.
(34:02):
So the minute I saw this recipe, I was like,
I need to do this because again when I lived
and I like, I'm like, when I was there for
a summer, right, I was. I was doing the colonizing
thing and I'm really sorry for that in Puerto Rico
for a summer, but I was also building houses, so
very least I was being somewhat somewhat helpful. But there
(34:23):
we uh, I would eat casitos. We would find a
bakery for me to buy casitos every day, and it's
pretty much from when I would buy it there. It
was just a cream cheese, a sweet cream cheese pastry.
And so she does a take it's the casitos de
Queso de Guayaba or guava. So again I was like, yeah,
(34:45):
I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this again. This
is a colonial influence from Europe and made for the rich,
and I'm like, oh damn, I'm doing it all wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
But just did an episode on Cuava, did you well?
And we talked about yeah, tell me about it. Oh well,
we were mostly talking about how so the cream cheese
was really popular in the US. A lot of times
people use cream cheese. Not always, but cream Cheese set
(35:17):
up at Philadelphia. Cream Cheese set up a factory in Cuba,
and so they added guava and they made the pastry
which was from Europe. So it's like all of those
cultural influences coming together of the pastry, the American cream cheese,
the guava, and then adding you know, based on where
you are, the different spices, maybe different textures, different methods.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Look at you, which is perfectly what I made. Mason
that writes Traditionally Cuisitos contained only cheese, but as time
went on, we required more and more from the little pastry.
What most people don't know is that it's traditional to
brush the tops of the finished pastry with a sim
bull syrup, giving it an inviting shine. And then she
(36:03):
goes on to talk about sprinkle sugar or the standing sugar,
which is the big lumps of sugar. I did not
do that because I went past the issle. I'm like,
I'm not going back. I think I had gone back
three times to find ingredients. I'm like, I'm not going
back there. But I did all the other things and
it turned out wonderful. I didn't. I think I need
to cook it a little longer than she recommended. I
was very impatient, and I was like, I'll let it's
(36:24):
it for about a minute and then I bit into
it and it was like lava and it burnt all
the things in my mouth. But it was worth it.
It tasted yummy, y'all. It tasted yummy. We have gone
through the first round of them, and I will be
making the second round of them. It's good because it's
(36:45):
also really cute. They look really cute because you fold
over the pastry puffs into like a little blanket type
of thing, like a sleeping bag. At one point, though,
I didn't do it long enough and so one side
of the pastry would go up, like I said, art,
so it looks like a ghost saying hi.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I thought when I saw that, which Samantha sent me
a picture and told me about the burning situation, but
also that they were very good and it's worth it.
The first thing I thought of was those Halloween treat
you do that look like a finger and you're like, oooh,
you're eating the finger.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Oh okay, I get that the bottom parts much okay, yeah, yeah,
but it does look like a ghost because it's a
little flat. Would come up and be like, hey, how
you doing. But it was tasty and I love them,
and it was very reminiscent of the casito's that I
would eat. Not as good, of course.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
But yeah close. They looked great close.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
And then a drink and a.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yes, yes, So I made coquito, which are a lot
of us do you drink as a holiday drink? So
fitting it is fitting. Here's a quote. As with much
of history and cultures that pass down traditions orally, it's
hard to track the origins of coquito pert Rico's rum
punch that's serve during the holidays. The most common story
(38:02):
goes that the first coquito was created with pitto moonshine
rum made from sugarcane and buried underground to ferment. You
would combine with fresh coconut water and later grated coconut.
So I made it, and I actually tried it right
before I started recording, and it is delicious. It's got
a lot of spice to it, which I like, Yeah,
(38:23):
it's got I might have added too much cinnamon, but
I love cinnamon, so that was sort of a personal
personal choice. Yeah. But I also read that it's traditional
sometimes to put it cheese in it, yeah, and take
it out and like serve it as you're like with
crackers while you're drinking it. I think that would be amazing.
I didn't do that, but that I like the sound
(38:45):
of it.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I like where this is going. Yeah. Yeah. I was
introduced to coquito again a while back as a gift,
and I'm like every year i'd be like, you're gonna
make more?
Speaker 1 (38:56):
What about now?
Speaker 2 (38:57):
What about it now? So last year, because we were
in Florida, my partner and I decided we would make
our own. It was good. It's not as good as
when a Puerto Rican person actually makes it for you.
I feel like this is this is good, don't get
me wrong, but like, because how it's traditionally like an
oral recipe, like they just tell you or you do
it by side type of thing. Everybody has a different
(39:19):
touch to it, and so again. The friend. He he
does his own touch to it and it's delicious, and
I'm like, yeah, I feel good. I feel real good.
But it's kind of like a it is kind of
an eggnog ish and I hate saying that because I
don't want to compare it, but just for the comparing,
like of the traditions and it being white and silky
(39:41):
and very creamy, still different. Yeah, just no coconut. This
is coconut heavy based and it's delightful and I like
it a lot, So I was really glad. I was like, yeah,
you should do that. I think that caught like that
recipe is more complicated than the poon jay really, yeah,
your recipe was like, I may have done any wrong
(40:02):
on this one.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
That's the man I was trying to spare me because
I never have any ingredients my blender.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I didn't know they took a blender. I'm not gonna lie.
I didn't read that. I just knew it was in there.
I knew that recipe was in there, and that's that's
all I had. But yeah, the fund chap, you still
have to have probably gone to the grocery store unless
you have polinta and oh my god, serious yeah, Now
I feel bad. I should have asked you, what do
you have in your parentry? That'll be the question next time,
(40:28):
because I kind of just assigned. I feel when we
do recipes, I'll just assign you something like this is
what you're gonna need. I've dropped off ingredients.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
For you before you need. I'm much appreciated, and do
that again.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
But next time, now I know that you made it,
like I was like, oh damn, except do you have
coconut milk?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I don't have coconut milk?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Okay, there we go, So you still would have gone
to the store. Yes, But all that's say this book
was delightful and her stories our very heartfelt U. She
even talks like stories about some of the violence that
they've experienced in the neighborhood and how that kind of
like taught her all these things about herself and her
family and just like so much history, so much depth
(41:05):
to this. She was like the first I believe Puerto
Rican food writer, food critic in the country, which is
like what because I think she's younger than me for sure,
So all of those things. She this is her first
cookbook and she's already gotten a James Beard award for
it as she should. Like all of these things are
(41:26):
so accessible. Her writing is accessible. Some of the ingredients
are difficult, I think if you start looking at some
of the soups which I love, the stews like I again,
the friend actually came over to my house as a
parting gift because he was moving and made me this.
He pretended to be my personal shofvels like please stay
here forever, making me some of the soups and the
(41:49):
stews that I love, the seafood snoos, and all the
good flavors. Because even though the spices and like the
ingredients are different from Korean culture, there's still aamiliarity. And
there is a conversation about how Chinese food actually in
Chinese immigrants did influence Puerto Rican cuisine as well. So
(42:09):
it's interesting to see how the different layers go when
it comes to cuisine. But yeah, this book is amazing.
If you love cooking, if you love experiencing new types
of food to cook, you should definitely definitely buy this.
Buy this, make some recipes, tell us how it goes,
and then also give us an advice on how to
cook it ourselves.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yes, yes, please do recipes always welcome, especially like I
just love hearing people's own If you don't mind sharing,
I get if you're like never this is my recipe,
But I like hearing like people's different traditions around the
holidays and what they eat or for comfort food, always welcome.
Let us know, or if there's another cookbook you think
(42:51):
we should talk about, let us know about. This was fun.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
This was so fun.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, you can email the stepan youw mom Stuff at
heeartmedia dot com. You can guys on Twitter and blue
Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on TikTok and Instagram
at stuff I Never Told You for also on YouTube.
We have a tea public store and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always here a super producer Christina xect producer my
aunt urtubitor Joey, Thank you and thanks see you for listening.
Stuff I Never Told You is prediction of I Heart Radio.
(43:17):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio Appuple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite ships.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephen.
Never told you a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Uh, y'all. Today we are doing things a bit differently
for our Feminist Book Club. You know how we love
to throw in different types of books and reading materials,
and so today we're decided we're gonna take on a cookbook. Yeah,
and I feel like we've been talking about Puerto Rican
culture a bit more than usual, which I love, so
(00:40):
fils are appropriate that we are actually going to feature
Ileana Masonette's Dsporican the Cookbook. And it's a Puerto Rican
cookbook that's not a Puerto Rican cookbook, as she would say,
I think. And this is from her website, Ileana Maisonette
dot com. Ileana Masonette spent years documenting her family's Puerto
Rican resides and preserving the islands disappearing food waste through rigorous,
(01:03):
often bilingual research. In Dasporikan, she shares over ninety recipes,
some of which were passed down from her grandmother and mother,
Classics such as tostanes pernil and erls con gandules, as
well as pinchols with barbecue, guava, sauce rabbit frigacy with
chote and Flon de Casol. There's a lot in there, y'all.
There's a lot of It's a giant book, wonderful pictures,
(01:26):
really great storytelling as well, don't you read any.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, she gives so much context and background and personal
experiences that the photographs are amazing, and it was There's
just so many different recipes in there, and all of
them tell kind of the history of Puerto Rico on
how they ended up there. So it was great read
with great recipes.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yes, and yeah, she really has a huge variety of
recipes that we can use for this. Annie and I
decided to pick different recipes as dry and I actually
too because I was like, oh, these are easy, let
me let me do these two. And I will say,
I think it's like cheat sheet level of like I
picked the recipes, it is like ingredients I can find
very minimal cook time, thank you very much. And we
(02:15):
are really fortunate that I'm specifically very close to an
international market that has a lot of Latino and Asian
ingredients that you can't find on a regular so I
was able to it to take me some hunting, though.
I was like, oh, we'll find this Weirdly enough, one
of the ingredients polina, I could not find except for
(02:36):
the American I'm putting this in quote section that they
have in the international market because I think they just
use corn corn mill, but she said polina, and I
am a stickler. I'm like, I gotta figure out exactly
what this is. But for the most part, when you
read her book, she talks about the corn mill and
it's from a specific type of corn flint. I'm assuming
you already know this any a safer Yeah, yeah, she's not. Yes,
(03:01):
So I couldn't find that. So I was like, you
know what, I need to stick with the polenta, even
though it's the same thing, and I'm going to do it.
And I did. But again, like I said, I didn't
find it in the Mexican Flash Latino section. It was
in the America quote unquote American section. That's interesting, right,
I just don't think I understood what I was looking for,
(03:22):
to be honest, because I'm such a like on edge
about making sure I get the exact ingredient, especially for
the initial Are you like.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
That's funny because I'm like, this will have to do.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's what I am really good at that I was
just thinking about the talent that comes with cooking and baking.
Baking is different, I know, but like the level of
creativity you have to have to make things, and for me,
I need everything prepared beforehand, like I need to know
what I need to have it and not have a
panic attack about not having that ingredient, which is an
odd thing. And I think it's a talent but what
(03:59):
I but yeah, So back to when it comes to
Puerto Rican cuisine, it is flavorful, unique and diverse, and
Masonette does a beautiful job not only sharing her love
for the food, but her love for her family and heritage.
Because it is a cookbook, it isn't your typical biography
or autobiography or memoir obviously, but she does a great
(04:23):
job in folding in her stories and life lessons with
a recipe. So let's jump in. We're going to do
themes with quotes, so follow a longer if you can.
And when I say themes, we're just gonna go with
her recipe, like with her categories and types of recipes,
So follow if you can. If you can't, you should
also buy this book because you should, like it's a
fantastic cookbook. In general. She begins her book with the
(04:47):
memories of our grandparents immigrating to the west of the
US and the food that influenced her life, and how
her culture has transformed through the pains of colonization but
still remain deep in their original culture, and why she
wrote this book.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yes, here is a quote. There are Puerto Ricans who
don't know about their own cuisine, no shade. That tends
to happen when you believe it is your birthright, you
take it for granted. Sometimes it feels like somewhere along
the line, Puerto Rican's lost their way and with it
their food, with colonization that isn't entirely unintentional. There can
be several arguments against why there's no emphasis on the
(05:24):
beauty of Puerto Rican cuisine. Puerto Ricans don't tend to
be cerebral about their food, but rather emotional.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Oh and I'm going to reference this a lot because
I have a pretty good friend who is Puerto Rican
and he actually started a restaurant called me a Boilis
with his sister, and he wanted to focus on Puerto
Rican food. And he was the first one to introduce
me to this type of food. And that is so correct,
(05:53):
that level of like emotion. He cooks with feeling, he
cooks with love, and he says that, and I know
that's kind of gooey type of thing to say in cooking,
but he truly did. This is how he cooked with
love and with honor to dedicate to his grandparents and
his parents, and really pushed it forward. And it's interesting
(06:14):
to see her recipes and the similarities and then also
the love that she has and the memory she has
of our family, because he puts the same amount of
dedication in his food, and you can tell, like it
is so beautiful. But going back to what we were
talking about, she writes, we are Teano, Spanish and African.
The peaceful Tano was never native to the Caribbeans, much
(06:36):
like their enemies, They migrated to the Antilles from South America.
Lots of Tano culture still runs through our veins and
our vocabulary words such as barbecue, hammock, canoe, and iguana.
The Tano presence is still felt of the island of Borinquan.
The Tano called the island Borinquans land of the Brave Lord,
which is why Puerto Ricans call themselves Barriqua's to this day.
(06:58):
My grandparents came to Sacramento from Puerto Rico in nineteen
fifty six, so my grandmother didn't adopt many of the
gastronomic influences that the US had on Puerto Rico. If
we had ever added ketchup to her pastelles, she'd lose
her mind, which I think is funny because they do
love some ketchup. When I was in Puerto Rico for
a short time, they love their ketchup too.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
I do too, and it's it's one of those things
which again has a lot of downsides, but when you
see like how cuisines come together, Ketchup is one that
shows up in a lot of different places and you're like, oh, catchup,
and I'm.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Going to talk a little bit. But like the Mayo Ketchup,
which that's one of their sauces, that's all that is international.
It's such a weird like phenomenon of the like Mayo
being huge, Ketchup being huge, and they're like, we're going
to combine these. And when he when he first introduced me,
because I'm like, I hate Mayo, but he was like
this is I'm like, I'm not making that. That's disgusting. Again,
(07:58):
nothing to do with the culture is everything to do
with Mayo. I despise it so much. But yeah, and
going back about Masonette's own experience, she says, I grew
up in the unincorporated county of South Sacramento, a place
that often feels forsaken. It was a neighborhood where you
could tell what time of year it was by the
activities being performed. And then she goes on it was
(08:20):
a working class part of town, consisting of a diverse
immigrant population and a dining scene that reflected it. The
smell of charred chiles and cooking cortillas and the sound
of a wooden pestle pounding against the crook would escort
you on your evening walks home, all smells and ingredients
that would inevitably end up in my Californian, Puerto Rican
or callea Rican cooking style. And that's why this is
(08:44):
not a Puerto Rican cookbook. This book is for the
diaspor Rican, the five point five million people living stateside
who continue to cook the food of our homeland. This
is for the tribe of the nide Qui nide Aya,
not from here, not from there. I thought it was
beautiful well, and I think it's speaks to so many
(09:04):
people immigrants and refugees and people who have multicultural background.
It reflects, you know, that feeling of being assimilated but
at the same time keeping your own, and so what
that looks like when you start diverging the two is
quite beautiful. So Masonette starts off her cooking book with
a one on one on traditions and flavors as well
(09:27):
as the ingredients or the tastes and seasonings of Puerto
Rican cuisine, and she of course talks about washing of meat.
I swear it's I think I'm gonna say just people
of color who talk about this, because Asian people do
this too a lot. And then going back and forth
of like do you do this, she talked about the
(09:47):
fact that she does not wash her meat, but she
does pad it down, and I was like, that's the
new generation of understanding. Okay, don't don't wash chicken because
if you do, who you're just spreading more germs. Stop that.
Stop it. But that's the the thing is still a thing,
as well as the other hotly like hotly contested rinsing
of the rice, yeah, which you need to rinse your rice, y'all.
(10:11):
If you're if you're, if you're making home and he's
looking down, I have a feeling she does not, but.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I do rince noodles. I rinch rice noodles, but not rice.
I know, makes sense. I'm an enigma.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
That's the opposite. Anyway. Going back to and of course
the different flavors and sauces like Mayo ketchup, which we
just talked about, which is essentially what you think it is. Yeah,
Mao and ketchup and combined. But it is a specialty
sauce that they named Mao ketchup. At least it's on point.
I will say that. You know.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
The interesting thing though, is being on a food show
every now and then I'll just say something and people
will write it and they'll be like, actually, this is
a huge thing in Utah. I'm pretty sure they call
it fry ketchup. It's Mayo and ketchup, but they call
it fred ketchup. And I've never heard of price sauce.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
That's and you know what that is in like the
South that was an island.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
We have all regional, which I never liked and I
cannot stand and I knew it from childhood, and my
mother tried to check me into eat well. My mother
was really obsessed with me eating mayo.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Man, I don't know why. It's like a lot of
Southern foods.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
I guess so, and I hated it. I hated as
a kid. Well, did I tell you that my dad
admitted that he remembers those incidents because my mom has
now gotten to the point which I think we all
get to when you're like, oh, yeah, I try to
traumatize my kid, so I'm gonna I didn't do it.
My mother was like, I don't. I don't remember trying
to sneak in Mayo and.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Your girl trees.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
And my dad waited till she left, and he was like,
I remember that, Smantha, it happened, never fear. I was
like you, and he did in front of my partner,
So I was like, see anyway. But Thousand Islands also
was my family's uh dressing. So because I didn't like it,
(12:03):
she eventually relented and got me Italian. Yeah, but like
for the longest time, that was also a point of
contingent in our house because I did not like it.
Turns out it's just pretty much mail cotch up with relish,
which makes that worse to me, but whatever. And then
of course the very famous safrito. We don't really talk
(12:23):
much about this in We won't be talking about much
about this in the episode, but she has an amazing
recipe in there and talks about the different ways to
make it and like the depths and the history behind it,
like the Chile's and bring in all the different types
of spices and to remind people spices not necessarily spicy,
so spices good use it anyway. Moving on, so sofrito
(12:47):
is what she says is the soul of Puerto Rican cooking.
A fleck day are based that starts and ends almost
every savory recipe in the card file. So if you
want to truly understand in Puerto Rican cuisine, figure out
the sofrito. Okay okay. In her book, she divides her
(13:10):
recipes under these categories for doras, bean, soup and stews, seafood, poultry, pork, beef,
rice and other grains, salads and sides, sweets and drinks.
So those are the different sections that you should go
look into. We're gonna talk a little bit about each section,
and then when it comes to the section that any
Night cook from, which is not till the end because
(13:33):
gotta wait, gotta hold you in suspense. But yeah, so
we're gonna go talk a little bit about them. But
there's so many different recipes in the history of the
food in Puerto Rico's pretty, uh, heartbreaking and enlightening at
the same time. So you really should get this book.
Bet Duves. A shout out to colt Flaves, which is
(13:57):
a YouTube channel slash. I watched them on TikTok as
a couple who reviews different books and how like accessible
it is, and they recommended this book and loved this book,
and I was like, yeah, so that's kind of where
I got this book from.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
FYI.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
So going to Fretturas or Fritter's, she begins the chapter
talking about her angsty teenage years and about how her
family was interconnected or reconnected through the baccolottos, and this
is what she writes about it. Before you even taste
the flavor of baccalatto, you hear the crunch, the shatter.
(14:35):
The center was toothsome like ar hints our people's resistance,
salty from the tears we've shed. But the edges were delicate,
and vulnerable, like when we reveal our underbellies. A boila
amilias baccolatto was also familiar. I had eaten it before
because it was my nana's bacolatto. They hadn't seen each
other in forty years, but their identical baccolatos proved they
(14:58):
were still connected, whether they liked it or not. And I,
oh man, this sounds amazing. I love the way she
wrote this, and I do remember these. I did eat
some in Puerto Rico and I'm like, yeah, I want one.
I'm craving it now, like I want to. This is
something you would dip in the mail ketchup. Some people
would breaking their hearts. But I just know, like kind
(15:23):
of right up there with the tostona ass which I
have made. So I'm gonna reference again my friend who
ran the restaurant I would help, and this is the
one thing he put me on. He's like, you can't
stick this up right, so let me put you on these.
It is satisfying the little testonic makers that you crush
and you see those little tiny like platinums just like
squished that You're like, yeah, I did that, and then
(15:45):
they come out all crispy and fried and salty and yummy.
I need one.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, I think you do. I do.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I got some Puerto Rican food too. And then the
next chapter is beans, soup and stews. She writes this
about her grandmother, and I thought it feels so familiar.
Just when you talk about soups and anything stews and hardy,
(16:19):
you know this. And also when it comes to Latina
cultures and Puerto Rican cultures, beans are on a different level.
You know. When you have these beans, it's not what
you would get from your from my white mother. I
love you, mom, but I don't like your black eyed peas. Anyway.
Moving on, here's what she writes. When guests line up
(16:41):
in the warm kitchen, the frenzy of gathering and passing
plates and utensels begin. We serve ourselves from the steaming
pots of beans and rice on the stove, grabbing a
few tortillas, we sit down at the aged dining room
table and silently dig into our homemade tortillas. Beans and
rice home made. The beans are simple, only five ingredients,
(17:02):
and yet they are buttery, creamy, salty, and floral. They
are meaty and melty. We're all thinking this is the
single best thing I've eaten in a long time. My
Nina apologizes for not having company appropriate food in the house.
She complains that the tortillas are tough they are not,
and the beans are too simple they're not. And my
(17:23):
mom finally tells her, oh, will you shut up and eat?
And that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I
feel like this is just all cultures when it comes
to a matriarch in general, that they know that they
made something good, but they have to just in case
downplay it and criticize it and wait for the compliments
(17:46):
to roll in. But I will say for myself, and
I think for a lot of especially Southern women, they
really do doubt that. They really are like questioning whether
or not it's that good, and then people have to
validate it. It's not. It's not passively aggressive thing, not
for everyone, but it's truely like, it's not my best,
this is how I would improve it, but everybody's like, no,
(18:07):
it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Shut up. Yeah, my mom is really bad about this everything.
She's like, oh, I should have had this, and I
shouldn't have done this. This is too dry, or this
is too and we're all like this is delicious. We
love it. And she's even said, you know, if you
cooked for me, I wouldn't have this. I wouldn't be like,
oh I should have had this or this or this.
(18:29):
It's only it. Yeah m hm.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
That's self criticism, but it's always delicious and like having
that like that kind of there's like a bean soup
ish and she immediately says, beans are not stew. This
is not soup. But it's a meal that could stand
on its own. And it really is like having a
good actually well made m h. Like Mexican Puerto Rican beans.
(18:56):
It's so satisfying. It's just delicious and you eat it
up with that rice and homemade tortilla. Yeah, I will
always pick that over it. I will pay the extra
two dollars, give me the homemade tortilla. There's something to it.
I remember. Yeah, I went to Mexico, that's what. And
(19:18):
like watching them many going into the smaller villages where
they did still do the wooden stoves or the fire
stoves outside or like separately from their home because it
was a danger and watching them do those magic and
the taste it was just flower and water, but it's
delicious or corn and water. Amazing, amazing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah. I was in Mexico once and I just went
down like an alleyway to the first restaurant I found,
and it was like some of the best tacos I've
ever had in my entire life.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Bar none, like amazing when things are homemade.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Mm hmm, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
That's so different.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
There is there is Okay, Okay, now you're getting to
experience what I go through her savor all the time.
Every time you're like, I have to get this in this.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
And then yeah, well that's what I do with watching food,
like watching TV, especially like culinary shows. I'm like, well
I have to eat that now.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yep, that's just how it is. That Well, moving on,
that does bring us to the next section, which was
on seafood. Here's a quote. People think of seafood when
they think of the islands, but are often disappointed when
they go to Puerto Rico. I'm frequently asked, where's the
fresh seafood? The easiest answer that I can offer is
they export most of it. Between pollution and the complex
(20:39):
regulations governing local fishing, the island's own fishing industry could
never truly develop.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Right, And I know you probably have a lot to
say on this because you have you talked about like
the export and port of Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Yes, and we've also talked about it specifically in this case,
I would say Hawaii because they also kind of got
hamstrung by US laws about fishing and where you can
fish and when you can fish when they had been
doing it responsibly for like ever, but they were getting
(21:13):
punished for it. And so yeah, it's really complicated the
situation of import export, especially with islands often.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, and when it comes to I need more about
the history of Puerto Rico again because they spend some
time there and they it's pretty rough. The statehood of
Puerto Rico, the desire to be independent from the US,
rightly so, the colonization, history of colonization that happened on
Puerto Rico, and just a chaos that happens. We saw
(21:43):
this with Hurricane Maria, how little the US government did
in helping them and assisting them, and still they're still struggling.
They're still struggling with aftermath, and we know they're continue
to be bombarded with different hurricanes and storms that have
happened and continue to happen, and they're not getting much
rice I think it took a long time to even
get voting rice. They are heavily taxed, and then also
(22:06):
they are heavily regulated, way more so than within the
US mainland. So there's a conversation and they even she
even writes in the book about how they feel like
the Disney version of their island is Hawaii because they've
they've figured it a little more out and they have
done a little better with the battles. Not great, but
(22:27):
you know, because there's still very much there's a lot
wanting when it comes to regulation and the over taxing
and the abuse from the United States government. But all
that is say is stuff like that, and so they do.
They have lost a lot of their own products and
their own exports, like they've lost a lot of money.
(22:50):
So there's a lot to be said about that, as
well as the amount of taxation and regulation that they
go through. It's expensive Puerto ricospens because of that, and
yet people still trying to colonize it. So moving on,
we're going to talk about poultry. And I love this
beginning story because it just reasons so much. She tells
(23:12):
the story of chef Adela Fargas so Adela. She starts
who is a famous chef I believe in was a
famous chef in New York and here's what she had
to say about her. Adela hustled in La Caye, selling
Puerto Rican street snacks to the community. Soon after, she
opened her own restaurant where she cooked order in Kucho,
(23:32):
Frito land of heat, lamp and steam table, speed service
and almost folkloric work ethic of our Puerto Rican Abuela's.
From Adela's generation, it was nothing for her to awaken
at the crack of dawn to head to the restaurant.
She started the day by cooking her pernill, a large
pork shoulder that was slow roasted until the skin became
thin and crispy and refracted like untempered glass. The meat
(23:56):
was spoon tender, but it was her roasted chicken for
which she became famous. Patrons would drop in after work
to purchase her chicken on their way home, and so
Adela would spend the day cooking with a restless affection
for her craft and our hinte, keeping a watchful eye
in the community until she called it at night around
at around eleven o'clock. And in that story, they talk
(24:18):
about a poet who would often come through. She would
feed him because he would go through hard times, and
he dedicated a whole poem to her food and her craft. Again,
go get this book because you need to read this
poem and this story that he writes. But people like
her who really put a mark for Puerto Rican cuisine
because and pernil, y'all, that is a feat like I
(24:42):
like I said, watching the friend cook as much as
he did, and a dedication it takes to cook this
food anyway. But it did make me want the roasted chicken,
and I'm sad I'm never gonna have.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
It her specifically, but specifically, yes, yeah, not like maybe
inspired by her, I would definitely have roached chicken.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
That's not a thing I meant like by.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Her specific Yeah, I got you, okay.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
And then were moving on to pork and yeah, so
pork's a big deal in Puerto Rican cuisine. Here's what
she says, Ah, pork monarch of colonial proteins seen in
many of our celebratory foods. Pork is king in Puerto Rico,
but not because it was native to the culture. So
she kind of explains how Columbus comes in. It was
(25:31):
like Hey, there's nothing here. If we want people to survive,
we're going to have to help out. So she writes,
as far as Columbus was concerned, this land required everything,
everything that the colonists were going to need to supply
their long term stay. And she goes on to talk
about one of those resources left by Columbus being livestock,
including pigs, including hogs, and how that kind of became
(25:53):
like the rich people food, which again colonization really does
a lot to that. Again talking about perno it is
a halt feet like the actual process of it all
and making sure that it's perfect and the skin is
still perfect. Again, shout out to my friend Luise. He
did a vegan version and it was good.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Silly me because he tied. He had to tie so
the way he makes it, he pretty much created pork
shoulder type of thing. He tied it with like the
cooking string. I didn't know with cooking stree and I
tried to eat it.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Did anyone see?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (26:35):
You know me? I had to tell on myself because
I was sitting there chewing on it for a good minute,
like what is this? And I pulled it out and
I was like oh, and they're like, what is it?
I was like, I tried to eat this, and of
course I became the butt of the joke for the
rest of the night, as I should. But yeah, yeah,
but it was really good. So Louise heats off because
he does an amazing job and turning these dishes vegan
(26:56):
or vegetarian friendly. Amazing people might be offended by that.
I don't know. I don't know if Portocan's like, what
are you doing to my name?
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I mean, people like to fight about that no matter what.
Some people will be like they just like to fight
about it every show.
Speaker 2 (27:10):
He did this fantastic job. He did his job by it.
But you know, there's that. But just so y'all know,
don't need the string Park.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
If you needed any advice, be on the lookout that
brings us to beef. Quote. The Hipperito was created in Chicago,
making it a diasper Rican creation. In the late nineteen nineties,
Jan Peter Figueroa and his brothers owned Borriquin restaurant and
the predominantly Puerto Rican community of Humboldt Park. Figaroa got
(27:42):
the idea for this dish from a recipe in Puerto
Rican newspaper El Valcero for a sandwich deep plantano, which
used two big tustone's instead of bread.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Ooh yeah, so the sandwich de platano. Apparently there's a
restaurant that they got this recipe from and it still
exists in Puerto Rico. Again, this is written in her book,
so that was publishably last year. I'm assuming it's still there.
You never know, but that sandwich was absolutely inspired by that.
(28:13):
But yeah, this was a creation by fickeeroa and fun
side piece that the fact that Chicago proudly claims the
sandwich as they should, but they this is this is Chicago,
like this is there, like yeah, this is my baby,
don't touch it type of conversation, So be careful what
you say. Be careful in Chicago specifically. But yeah, you know,
(28:38):
I love a good Puerto Rican sandwich anyway, because that Pernill.
Also they do like a left of a Pernell sandwich
and it's so tasty, like it's on par with a
Cuban and it's just like a Cuban sandwich, you know,
if you know, you know, the hemolas, the mustard pickle,
all of us, all perfectly flying. I'm a need. I'm struggling,
(29:02):
Like my mouth is watering as we're talking. Yeah, struggle
bust in here. But yeah, those sandwiches they hit and
they hit good, yes, But moving on to the rice
(29:24):
and other grains, and here I start my venture. Any
and I decided again I would make the food chair.
And here's what she wrote about food chair. There are
no grits in Puerto Rico, not even as an import item,
which I find is true for many places. Nobody really
cares about grits except for the South. I feel like anyway,
but cornmill has been utilized by the inhabitants of the
(29:47):
island since long before the conquestadors baby blues sparkled on
the horizon. Just as grits are mostly eaten for breakfast
in the American South, foond chair is mostly eaten for
breakfast by the older Puerto Ricans. I feel like I
just got called out because I was like, yeah, I'll
eat this, but it's okay. And talking about corn, she
(30:08):
goes on to say, the relationship between Puerto Rican and
corn goes back further. Despite what many state siders assume
is a love affair between Puerto Ricans and rice, corn
was a stable that was essential to the indigenous Tatos
who inhabited Blorinquin long before Europeans landed. The Danos planted
and harvested corn in fertile soil and were even documented
(30:30):
as preparing corn dumplings. So this was in conversation about
where rice came from, and that was actually a colonial thing.
They did not have rice beforehand, but they've had corn,
and I think that's kind of the story about like
North America in general, like having corn first and what
that looks like. And yet so I made this dish.
This is my adventures in trying to find polina, and
(30:52):
I finally found it. It took me forever. I looked
like an obvious foreigner in the aisles of the Latino
grocery section that I was like, I don't know where
this is. Finally found it and it is really delicious.
It's a little bit sweeter. So according to Maisonette, her
grandmother would do contenus milk and cinnamon and brown sugar,
(31:15):
so that was very sweet. So kind of oatmeal porridge,
which I feel like we need to have this conversation
in food in general about how porridge is worldwide, like
it is a version of it, whether it's rice, whether
it's corn, exists, and like everybody eats it and everybody
finds healing within those dishes. I love it. But anyway,
(31:36):
coming back to so, I made it and she calls
for coconut milk and then tons of butter and a
lot of thyme, because I'm like, oh my god, oh
my god, I can do this, I can do this,
and it came out really good. She serves it with
shrimp like a shrimp a play on shrimp and grits,
and I can see how it's really good. But I
decided to like honor the grandmother way and use brown
(31:59):
sugar and all that. It was really good. I got
so excited about it. I ate a big bowl and
gave my partner some and we both really liked it.
And then I was like, I'm going in for a second.
I forget how heavy corn yeah when it comes, especially
ground corn, like it sits. And I was like, oh,
I'm besick.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Like breakfast because you use it to fuel you the
whole day.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
And I almost eating it like I was never going
to eat again. Because when I like something, I get
so excited that I was like I need more. Yeah, yeah,
one bowl was good and it was so delicious. It
was so warm and it was cold that day and rainy.
I was very satisfied, Like, I'm gonna make some again,
so I have to get more coconut milk because she
(32:46):
uses coconut milk instead of condensed milk, and I probably like,
I'm like, yeah, I think I would be along those
lines too, but yeah, don't eat a lot. You don't
eat a lot. It's delicious though, And then the next
session is salad and size, and she didn't have much
to say outside of like, she doesn't like vegetables that much, yeah,
(33:10):
which I appreciated, but she's like, I still eat them,
don't get me wrong, but I don't like them. She
talks about my fungo, which, if you know anything about
part Drican culture, this is a pretty big staple. Any
did you also do an episode on this?
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Probably, I guess it's hard to remember it, but I
know what it is. I think we have I think
explain to us what it is. Don't focus on the
spots man.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Okay, fine, bye bye, we'll move on. We'll move on
for now. But if you know, you know, if you know,
you know, the next part is sweets and drinks, and
she talks about the fact that sweets are not a
big We're not a big thing in Puerto Rico until
the Europeans came and the Spanish came, and they brought
in like their uh pastries and then you know, if
formed from there, and one of my favorites is casitos.
(34:02):
So the minute I saw this recipe, I was like,
I need to do this because again when I lived
and I like, I'm like, when I was there for
a summer, right, I was. I was doing the colonizing
thing and I'm really sorry for that in Puerto Rico
for a summer, but I was also building houses, so
very least I was being somewhat somewhat helpful. But there
(34:23):
we uh, I would eat casitos. We would find a
bakery for me to buy casitos every day, and it's
pretty much from when I would buy it there. It
was just a cream cheese, a sweet cream cheese pastry.
And so she does a take it's the casitos de
Queso de Guayaba or guava. So again I was like, yeah,
(34:45):
I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this again. This
is a colonial influence from Europe and made for the rich,
and I'm like, oh damn, I'm doing it all wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
But just did an episode on Cuava, did you well?
And we talked about yeah, tell me about it. Oh well,
we were mostly talking about how so the cream cheese
was really popular in the US. A lot of times
people use cream cheese. Not always, but cream Cheese set
(35:17):
up at Philadelphia. Cream Cheese set up a factory in Cuba,
and so they added guava and they made the pastry
which was from Europe. So it's like all of those
cultural influences coming together of the pastry, the American cream cheese,
the guava, and then adding you know, based on where
you are, the different spices, maybe different textures, different methods.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Look at you, which is perfectly what I made. Mason
that writes Traditionally Cuisitos contained only cheese, but as time
went on, we required more and more from the little pastry.
What most people don't know is that it's traditional to
brush the tops of the finished pastry with a sim
bull syrup, giving it an inviting shine. And then she
(36:03):
goes on to talk about sprinkle sugar or the standing sugar,
which is the big lumps of sugar. I did not
do that because I went past the issle. I'm like,
I'm not going back. I think I had gone back
three times to find ingredients. I'm like, I'm not going
back there. But I did all the other things and
it turned out wonderful. I didn't. I think I need
to cook it a little longer than she recommended. I
was very impatient, and I was like, I'll let it's
(36:24):
it for about a minute and then I bit into
it and it was like lava and it burnt all
the things in my mouth. But it was worth it.
It tasted yummy, y'all. It tasted yummy. We have gone
through the first round of them, and I will be
making the second round of them. It's good because it's
(36:45):
also really cute. They look really cute because you fold
over the pastry puffs into like a little blanket type
of thing, like a sleeping bag. At one point, though,
I didn't do it long enough and so one side
of the pastry would go up, like I said, art,
so it looks like a ghost saying hi.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
I thought when I saw that, which Samantha sent me
a picture and told me about the burning situation, but
also that they were very good and it's worth it.
The first thing I thought of was those Halloween treat
you do that look like a finger and you're like, oooh,
you're eating the finger.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Oh okay, I get that the bottom parts much okay, yeah, yeah,
but it does look like a ghost because it's a
little flat. Would come up and be like, hey, how
you doing. But it was tasty and I love them,
and it was very reminiscent of the casito's that I
would eat. Not as good, of course.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
But yeah close. They looked great close.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
And then a drink and a.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yes, yes, So I made coquito, which are a lot
of us do you drink as a holiday drink? So
fitting it is fitting. Here's a quote. As with much
of history and cultures that pass down traditions orally, it's
hard to track the origins of coquito pert Rico's rum
punch that's serve during the holidays. The most common story
(38:02):
goes that the first coquito was created with pitto moonshine
rum made from sugarcane and buried underground to ferment. You
would combine with fresh coconut water and later grated coconut.
So I made it, and I actually tried it right
before I started recording, and it is delicious. It's got
a lot of spice to it, which I like, Yeah,
(38:23):
it's got I might have added too much cinnamon, but
I love cinnamon, so that was sort of a personal
personal choice. Yeah. But I also read that it's traditional
sometimes to put it cheese in it, yeah, and take
it out and like serve it as you're like with
crackers while you're drinking it. I think that would be amazing.
I didn't do that, but that I like the sound
(38:45):
of it.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
I like where this is going. Yeah. Yeah. I was
introduced to coquito again a while back as a gift,
and I'm like every year i'd be like, you're gonna
make more?
Speaker 1 (38:56):
What about now?
Speaker 2 (38:57):
What about it now? So last year, because we were
in Florida, my partner and I decided we would make
our own. It was good. It's not as good as
when a Puerto Rican person actually makes it for you.
I feel like this is this is good, don't get
me wrong, but like, because how it's traditionally like an
oral recipe, like they just tell you or you do
it by side type of thing. Everybody has a different
(39:19):
touch to it, and so again. The friend. He he
does his own touch to it and it's delicious, and
I'm like, yeah, I feel good. I feel real good.
But it's kind of like a it is kind of
an eggnog ish and I hate saying that because I
don't want to compare it, but just for the comparing,
like of the traditions and it being white and silky
(39:41):
and very creamy, still different. Yeah, just no coconut. This
is coconut heavy based and it's delightful and I like
it a lot, So I was really glad. I was like, yeah,
you should do that. I think that caught like that
recipe is more complicated than the poon jay really, yeah,
your recipe was like, I may have done any wrong
(40:02):
on this one.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
That's the man I was trying to spare me because
I never have any ingredients my blender.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I didn't know they took a blender. I'm not gonna lie.
I didn't read that. I just knew it was in there.
I knew that recipe was in there, and that's that's
all I had. But yeah, the fund chap, you still
have to have probably gone to the grocery store unless
you have polinta and oh my god, serious yeah, Now
I feel bad. I should have asked you, what do
you have in your parentry? That'll be the question next time,
(40:28):
because I kind of just assigned. I feel when we
do recipes, I'll just assign you something like this is
what you're gonna need. I've dropped off ingredients.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
For you before you need. I'm much appreciated, and do
that again.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
But next time, now I know that you made it,
like I was like, oh damn, except do you have
coconut milk?
Speaker 1 (40:44):
I don't have coconut milk?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Okay, there we go, So you still would have gone
to the store. Yes, But all that's say this book
was delightful and her stories our very heartfelt U. She
even talks like stories about some of the violence that
they've experienced in the neighborhood and how that kind of
like taught her all these things about herself and her
family and just like so much history, so much depth
(41:05):
to this. She was like the first I believe Puerto
Rican food writer, food critic in the country, which is
like what because I think she's younger than me for sure,
So all of those things. She this is her first
cookbook and she's already gotten a James Beard award for
it as she should. Like all of these things are
(41:26):
so accessible. Her writing is accessible. Some of the ingredients
are difficult, I think if you start looking at some
of the soups which I love, the stews like I again,
the friend actually came over to my house as a
parting gift because he was moving and made me this.
He pretended to be my personal shofvels like please stay
here forever, making me some of the soups and the
(41:49):
stews that I love, the seafood snoos, and all the
good flavors. Because even though the spices and like the
ingredients are different from Korean culture, there's still aamiliarity. And
there is a conversation about how Chinese food actually in
Chinese immigrants did influence Puerto Rican cuisine as well. So
(42:09):
it's interesting to see how the different layers go when
it comes to cuisine. But yeah, this book is amazing.
If you love cooking, if you love experiencing new types
of food to cook, you should definitely definitely buy this.
Buy this, make some recipes, tell us how it goes,
and then also give us an advice on how to
cook it ourselves.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yes, yes, please do recipes always welcome, especially like I
just love hearing people's own If you don't mind sharing,
I get if you're like never this is my recipe,
But I like hearing like people's different traditions around the
holidays and what they eat or for comfort food, always welcome.
Let us know, or if there's another cookbook you think
(42:51):
we should talk about, let us know about. This was fun.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
This was so fun.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Yeah, you can email the stepan youw mom Stuff at
heeartmedia dot com. You can guys on Twitter and blue
Sky at mom Stuff podcast, or on TikTok and Instagram
at stuff I Never Told You for also on YouTube.
We have a tea public store and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
as always here a super producer Christina xect producer my
aunt urtubitor Joey, Thank you and thanks see you for listening.
Stuff I Never Told You is prediction of I Heart Radio.
(43:17):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio Appuple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite ships.
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