Diasporican Read online

  Text copyright © 2022 by Illyanna Maisonet.

  Foreword copyright © 2022 by Michael W. Twitty.

  Puerto Rico location photographs copyright © 2022 by Erika P. Rodríguez.

  California location and food photographs copyright © 2022 by Dan Liberti.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  TenSpeed.com

  RandomHouseBooks.com

  Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Arte Público Press-University of Houston for permission to reprint “Criollo Story” from AmeRícan by Tato Laviera, copyright © 2003 Arte Público Press-University of Houston. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.

  Print typefaces: Fontsmith’s FS Kim and Monotype’s Macklin Sans

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Maisonet, Illyanna, author. | Twitty, Michael, 1977- writer of foreword.

  Title: Diasporican: a Puerto Rican cookbook / Illyanna Maisonet; foreword by Michael W. Twitty; Puerto Rico photographs by Erika P. Rodriguez; California and food photographs by Dan Liberti.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Ten Speed Press, [2022] | Includes index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021060872 (print) | LCCN 2021060873 (ebook) | ISBN 9781984859761 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984859778 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Cooking, Puerto Rican. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

  Classification: LCC TX716.P8 M35 2022 (print) | LCC TX716.P8 (ebook) | DDC 641.597295—dc23/eng/20211231

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060872

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021060873

  Hardcover ISBN 9781984859761

  Ebook ISBN 9781984859778

  Editor: Lorena Jones | Production editors: Doug Ogan and Sohayla Farman

  Print designer: Betsy Stromberg | Print production designers: Mari Gill and Faith Hague

  Print production manager: Serena Sigona | Print prepress color manager: Jane Chinn

  Food and prop stylist: Jillian Knox | Food stylist assistant: Malina Syvoravong

  Copyeditor: Mi Ae Lipe | Proofreader: Hope Clarke | Indexer: Amy Hall

  Publicist: Felix Cruz | Marketer: Brianne Sperber

  Ebook production manager: Eric Tessen

  rhid_prh_6.0_141492000_c0_r0

  Contents

  Foreword by Michael W. Twitty

  Introduction

  Cooking Traditions and Flavors

  Frituras

  Bacalaitos

  Empanadillas—Pastelillos

  Papas Rellenas

  Tostones

  Macabeos

  Alcapurrias de Jueyes

  Arañitas de Plátano

  Granitos de Humacao

  Almojábanas

  Guichis

  Arepas de Coco

  Barriguitas de Vieja

  Beans, Soups, and Stews

  Nina DeeDee’s Beans

  Puerto Rican Habichuelas

  Mami’s Chicken Soup with Bisquick Dumplings

  A Chicken Curry

  Rabbit Fricassee with Chayote

  Sancocho

  Pastele Stew

  Caldo Santo

  Seafood

  Grilled Oysters

  Salmorejo

  Califas Shrimp

  Empanadas de Scallops

  Dungeness Guanimes

  Bacalao Ensalada

  Lobster Sauce with Mofongo

  Ensalada de Pulpo y Camarones

  Chillo Frito

  Halibut with Mojo Isleño

  Poultry

  Casa Adela–Inspired Roasted Chicken

  Mojo Braised Chicken

  Chicharron de Pollo

  Mami’s Mushroom Chicken

  Pinchos with Guava BBQ Sauce

  Pavochon

  Thanksgiving Leftovers Pavochon Pasta Bake

  Pork

  Jamonilla Guisada

  Nana’s Oven-Barbecued Ribs

  Puerto Rican Laab

  Pernil

  Leftover Pernil Sandwiches

  Leftover Pernil Cheat Chile Verde

  Sandwiches de Mezcla

  Chuletas

  Chuleta Kan-Kan

  Pasteles

  Lechón

  Beef

  Picadillo

  Pepper Steak

  Jibarito

  Braised Corned Beef

  Carne Guisada

  Puerto Rican Meat Logs

  Bistec Encebollado

  Piñón

  Spaghetti with Not Fideos

  Sloppy Joes

  Rice and Other Grains

  Basic White Rice

  Arroz con Gandules

  Arroz con Jueyes

  Arroz con Longaniza

  Arroz Chino Boricua

  Arroz Mamposteao

  Casabe

  Funche

  Salads and Sides

  The Pop-Up Salad

  Tres Hermanas Sauté

  Cauliflower “Arroz” con Gandules

  Guineos en Escabeche

  Maduros

  Viandas

  Mofongo

  Mofongo Dressing with Salami

  Maisonet’s Cornbread and Salami Dressing

  Sweets and Drinks

  Persimmon Cookies

  Coconut Soda–Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

  Brazo Gitano with Burge Road Cherry Cream Filling

  Strawberry Shortcakes

  Ron del Barrilito Rum Cake

  Pastelillos de Yellow Peaches

  Quesitos de Queso y Guayaba

  Apple Empanadillas

  Cazuela

  Flan de Queso

  Budin with Walnuts

  Arroz con Dulce

  Mallorcas

  Tembleque

  Coquito

  Maví and Hibiscus Cooler

  Roasted Piña Colada

  Acknowledgments

  Index

  Foreword

  by Michael W. Twitty

  She had me at asapao and funche, guineos turned into macabeos, steaming bowls of sancocho, and juicy pernil. The point of a good cookbook is to make you curious, fascinated, and to want to start cooking immediately. Tito Puente and Willie Colon are already in the queue and maybe some menudo. My hands are ready to get covered in garlic and achiote, I’m ready to smash some guineos, and my culo is ready to shake to keep the impatience to chow down on arroz con pollo at bay. Diasporican is a warm, conversational, wise work that is rooted in the values, memories, and family history that Illyanna Maisonet beautifully and matter-of-factly brings to the kitchen table. This game-changer is an invitation to the diversity and singularity of the Puerto Rican experience as a global culture.

  The cookbook you are holding is a forceful love letter to a culinary tradition often sidelined and caught up in its perceived ambiguity. Puerto Rico is part of the United States—and yet it is not. It is part of Latin America but also in the sphere of North America. It is brown, it is Black, it is Caribbean, it is Iberian, it is African, and it is Native. Turn it any way you like, Puerto Rico is Puerto Rico, and the island and its people, proud and landed or ever on the move, have loyalty and love with a signature devotion for Borinquen.

 
Puerto Rican cuisine. Indigenous traditions of the Taino have survived, forming the backbone of Puerto Rican food and identity. Puerto Rico was one of the oldest Caribbean outposts of the Spanish empire, and with it came ingredients and ideas about food that fermented in Spain over a millennium as Iberian, North and West African, Sephardic Jewish, and Arab influences blended over the centuries. Puerto Rico also remains one of the key pinpoints in the African Atlantic. West and Central African people—Wolof, Igbo, Yoruba, Kongo, Mbundu, and many others—accomplished what they did in other parts of the African Diaspora: under the lash and labor in the sugarcane fields, they pieced together elements common to their civilizations and connected adjacent Native traditions to give the Puerto Rican table its soul. All these cultural pieces gave the Puerto Rican cook the ability to translate and absorb, creating an even broader edible vocabulary that moved well from Spanish Harlem to Oahu, Hawai‘i, and from Hialeah, Florida, to Oakland, California.

  The strength of Diasporican is that it moves the conversation beyond the island, drawing us into the essence of Puerto Rican food as it morphs across North America. In these pages, we go to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Hawai‘i, Chicago, California, and beyond, getting a real sense of what matters most in Puerto Rican culture and civilization—family, friends, spirit, ancestors, rhythm, and joy-inducing flavor.

  Diasporican is informed, intellectually rich, beautiful, earthy, and irreverent just like its author, my friend.

  Get cooking. Ahora!

  Clockwise from left: Arroz con jueyes, El Buren de Lula, Loíza, Puerto Rico; Pork skin, Lechonera de Apa, Guaynabo, Puerto Rico; Corn ice cream, King’s Cream, Ponce, Puerto Rico.

  Clockwise from top left: Old San Juan, Puerto Rico; Mami, Burge Road Cherry Farm, Stockton, California; Flying kites, El Catillo San Felipe del Morro, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.

  Introduction

  How I became a cook is not a romantic story. I learned how to cook Puerto Rican food from my grandmother, Margarita Galindez Maisonet. Margarita was born in 1938 in the campo of Manatí, on the northern coast of the island not too far from Hacienda La Esperanza, a former sugarcane plantation. When Margarita was nine years old and in the third grade, she was sent to live with her Titi Emilia. That was the end of Margarita’s formal education. That was also the end of seeing her biological mother for several decades. Margarita went to work as a “domestic” during a time when people didn’t have to apologize for deep-frying their foods, when it was a way of life. There would be no passing down of heirloom cookbooks (I don’t think my grandma ever owned a cookbook), words of encouragement, or time to enjoy a childhood. By the time that Margarita was fourteen years old, she was already pregnant with the first of her seven children, Carmen, my mother. Margarita, Carmen, and I became cooks out of economic necessity. We did not have the privilege of cooking for pleasure or joy. Our story is one of generational poverty and trauma with glimpses of pride and laughter, all of which have been the catalysts of ample good food in my life.

  My own days begin with only the sound of my feet shuffling through dawn’s sleepy light. I turn on the stove. Shuffle to the sink; the faucet knob squeaks and the aerator spits. My black pinky toenail and I wait impatiently for the spouted Le Creuset pot to fill with water. Shuffle to put the pot on the burner. The pour-over cone goes on top of the coffee mug, the coffee filter into the pour-over cone, then the coffee grounds. In the meantime, I open all the windows in the front of the house to let the morning coolness seep through the mesh screens. By the time my shuffling feet make it back to the stove, the water is bubbling. I pour the water over the coffee grounds, and the conjured smell of foggy mountains in the interior of Puerto Rico fills my California kitchen. The water sinks into and penetrates the cone, sending the dominion brew into the cup below. A flourish of cream ends my ceremony. This entire process mirrors my late grandmother’s morning routine, although her pot of choice was a small aluminum Farberware made in the Bronx, and her pour-over cone was a colador. She began every waking morning with this routine, a necessary moment of meditation and coffee to galvanize her weary body into the next step—starting the daily meals, which always consisted of rice and beans.

  Many of the old Puerto Rican recipes aren’t quick and easy, which might be one of the reasons that the food of the island hasn’t exactly taken off in the land that sits mere hours away. Another reason is probably because people don’t understand the cuisine. Hell, most people don’t understand us! “How can brothers and sisters from the same two parents range in color from white to Black?” they ask. Colonialism. There are white Puerto Ricans getting radical and surfing in Rincón with sun-bleached blond hair, and Black Puerto Ricans with afros creating arts and crafts in Loíza. And everything in between. And our food reflects that diversity. We know how much people love to have things simplified so it all fits neatly into a little box. The truth is, Puerto Rican cuisine shares a lot in common with the cuisines of Hawai‘i, Guam, and the Philippines—all the places that got fucked by Spanish and United States colonialism. To most, Puerto Rico is just a pit stop on their boat cruise to the Bahamas. “I loved Old San Juan and mofongo” is the common response I hear when I tell someone I’m Puerto Rican. To Puerto Ricans, Puerto Rico represents a constant battle for land and a broad understanding of our identity.

  When my family first came to the States and my mother was enrolled in elementary school, she didn’t speak any English. During the country’s Cold War–era security push, it became necessary to read and write English well, which meant that racist policies, such as the “No Spanish” rule, lingered in the newly desegregated schools. And so, my mother just didn’t speak. It was a decision that would mold her personality to this day (and the reason that I don’t speak Spanish). A more confrontational person might have rebelled and fought. That’s not my mother’s way. How could she have been confrontational at five years old? Well, ask my mom what happened when my kindergarten teacher wouldn’t let me wash my hands after I went to the bathroom. All hell broke loose! I suppose because of my mother’s inability to speak out, she made sure that I was the opposite of her in that way.

  Anyway, during Margarita’s (my nana’s) first years in the States, she spent her mornings in the fields picking produce, spent her evenings in the kitchen cooking for her husband and children, and spent her nights procreating more children. Every day. Routines and rotations of Puerto Rican recipes passed down to her from her aunt, who raised her, and her biological mother. “The mama who gave birth to me, or the mama who raised me?” she’d always clarify when asked about her mother. By the time that I arrived on this spinning marble of malachite and lapis lazuli, Nana already had a few recipes in the rotation that had been absorbed, digested, and regurgitated as “American”—spaghetti, oven barbecue, hamburgers, meatloaf, and pancakes the size of dinner plates. But she mostly made Puerto Rican food. And, for Nana, as someone who was a part of what would eventually become the 5.5 million Puerto Ricans living Stateside, mostly on the East Coast and in Florida, being on the West Coast always emphasized a pivotal issue: No one seems to know anything about Puerto Rican food. Sometimes, not even Puerto Ricans.

  Left: Alcapurrias; right: Longaniza, El Rancho de Don Nando, Naranjito, Puerto Rico.

  Puerto Ricans are quick to argue about the roots and regulations of what Puerto Rican food is. Honestly, they just love to argue. (Guilty.) There are Puerto Ricans who don’t know shit about their own cuisine. No shade. That tends to happen when you believe it’s your birthright; you take it for granted. Sometimes it feels like, somewhere along the line, Puerto Ricans 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 beauty of Puerto Rican cuisine. Puerto Ricans don’t tend to be cerebral about their food but rather emotional. More than 80 percent of food consumed in Puerto Rico is imported. The costs of importing produ
cts, especially food, make them more expensive than if they were produced locally. Most of the time, the food is not even good quality because it has lost its freshness during the long shipping to the island! And don’t let it be hurricane season while all this is happening. United States citizens made such a fuss over the “pandemic pantry” during COVID. Puerto Ricans’ pantries are basically in a perpetual state of survival mode. The pandemic pantry is a lot of folks’ everyday pantry. And all the inequity of the United States’ industrial cookery culture has really left its mark on Puerto Rican cooking. There’s not a single word that I could use to define Puerto Rican cuisine. If I were forced to pick one, I’d choose sofrito. This herb paste made of culantro, cilantro, tomatoes, garlic, onion, and chiles or other peppers is the bedrock of our cuisine, which is a straightforward, proletariat proposition—something flavorful, hot, and filling to maintain your strength while you work.

  We are Taino, Spanish, and African. The peaceful Taino were not native to the Caribbean; much like their enemies, the cannibalistic Caribs, they migrated to the Antilles from South America. Lots of Taino culture still runs through our veins and our vocabulary—words such as barbecue, hammock, canoe, and iguana. The Taino presence is still felt on the island of Borinquen. The Taino called the island Borinquen (land of the brave lord), which is why Puerto Ricans call themselves Boricuas to this day. The Spanish renamed it Porto Rico. While the legend of the Jibaro farmer might be one of folklore, the Taino influence lives on.

  A genographic study (National Geographic’s Genographic Project, 2014) showed that Native American ancestry is higher in Puerto Rico than in any other Caribbean island, and it originated from groups migrating to Puerto Rico from both South and Central America. It also found that the average Puerto Rican has 12 percent Native American, 65 percent West Eurasian (Mediterranean, Northern European, and/or Middle Eastern), and 20 percent sub-Saharan African DNA. What this study really proves is what some of us already knew: You cannot have the creation of Puerto Rican food without the influence of the Taino, Spanish, and the Africans. Many of our ingredients are straight from Africa. But, according to archeological evidence, the Taino of Puerto Rico cultivated several crops contemporaneously with the Incas of Peru and other peoples of the Andean region. I’m never surprised by the similarities between some Puerto Rican and African dishes, but I’m always surprised by the commonalities in preparations of South American recipes. Most of the crops that are associated with Puerto Rico are not even native to the island: sugarcane, rice, coffee, tobacco, coconut, bananas, plantains, and avocados. All those crops came from Central America or with enslaved Africanos, and they were all far more monetarily valuable than whatever crops were being cultivated by the Taino.