Few words cause Hispanic people as much consternation as the word pastel, plural pasteles. Nominally translating to “cake,” this word can apply to anything from sweet flaky filled pastries (very popular in Miami) to ordinary American-style cakes to today’s entry, a meat-filled savory mash wrapped in banana leaves and boiled.

If you’re wondering how the word for “cake” could apply to all those things that have nothing except the vague concept of starch in common, you’re not alone. Essentially any use of this word between people from different Latin American ancestries requires clarification, lest someone expect this recipe and receive a cake. Sometimes the same person uses pastel in multiple ways, alternatives forgotten, and only a heaping dose of adjectives can rescue any sense of comprehension. Is it the American pastel, the Cuban pastel, the Puerto Rican pastel? You turn to your loved ones for assistance and steam issues from their banana-leaf clothing; they too are pastel.

If you’re thinking, “Wait, that sounds like tamales, didn’t Alyssa already put up a recipe for tamales?”, you’re also in good company, and you doorknob, you uncultured swine, tamales are steamed.

What defines the pastel recipe we are about to explore is ideas and individual elements rather than a hard-and-fast recipe. Pasteles are such a beloved classic of Puerto Rican cooking that every family has their own variation, leading to hundreds of versions across the island and its diaspora. Nevertheless, a few elements are common enough that deviating from them means one is making something else that probably has another name. The dough of a pastel is a mix of underripe banana with Xanthosoma sagittifolium (malanga/yautía), both grated to a fine paste. Some recipes suggest adding lard, similar to the mix for tamales. Most recipes suggest guineos, which are ordinary Cavendish bananas peeled while green and underripe, as the banana portion, but others suggest plantains (platanos). In places where X. sagittifolium is difficult to source, related roots are often used, including eddoes and taro, and recipes written in English often mistakenly suggest taro by default. To this core, recipes sometimes make additions as diverse as sweet potato (boniato) and West Indian pumpkin (calabaza), both of which result in sweeter pasteles. The filling is usually shredded pork but could also be ground or shredded beef, and the specific additions and flavorings are distinctive to each chef. Recipes agree on three last points: pasteles are always wrapped in banana leaves, those leaves should be lightly greased with achiote oil, and pasteles are boiled to cook them before serving. The recipe below is a mix of my memories of childhood, what I had handy in my kitchen during my exploratory attempts, and Carmen Aboy Valldejulí’s version in Cocina Criolla, widely considered the authoritative reference for Puerto Rican cuisine.

If you’re thinking, “Wait, that sounds an awful lot like Alyssa’s recipe for alcapurrias,” you’re also in good company, and you dingus, you cuboidal walnut, alcapurrias are fried. But you’re right, pasteles are very similar to alcapurrias in composition. Ratios vary and specific ingredients are common in one and rare in the other, but the two items are definitely of a piece.

The history of pasteles is an illuminating cultural exercise as well. In my recipe for tamales, I imagined that Puerto Rico’s tamales, wrapped in banana leaves as they often are, might count among their descendants several other steamed and fried doughs, including the recipe we are about to explore today. This would have been far from the only adaptation of a Mesoamerican staple in Puerto Rican cuisine, so the idea has an intuitive appeal. Further reading suggests that tamales are quite distinct from these other items and, if anything, the convergence was in the other direction. Pasteles, alcapurrias, and likely some of Puerto Rico’s other filled savory pastries appear to have their most direct inspiration in West African foodways. Ghana, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire all feature variations on a dish called fufu in their cuisines, consisting of a mix of starchy vegetables mashed together and boiled in round loaves wrapped in whatever was handy, often banana leaves. Fufu is itself a conversation between Latin America and West Africa; whatever fufu might have been before the Columbian exchange, it now firmly favors Latin American malanga and cassava alongside Asian bananas. Fufu is hardly unknown in Latin America in its own right, including in Puerto Rico, though it often has other names and Latin American versions are notably different from their cousins across the Atlantic. With these practices already established, adapting the banana-leaf wrap for a conceptually similar dish from Mexico was an easy step.

Food is, as ever, a conversation, and in societies that come together from disparate origins, that conversation gets especially interesting, as does the pattern of informational resources often neglecting Africa’s contributions to Latin America.

This recipe makes 6 to 7 pasteles. Two pasteles is a filling meal for one person. Pasteles, like tamales, can be frozen before or after the last cooking step and served later, which is often beneficial. Pasteles are traditionally made in anticipation of holidays because of the time and effort involved.

Equipment

For the filling, use a large pan, a wooden spoon or plastic spatula, and your favorite cutting and measuring tools.

For the dough, you will need a large mixing bowl, your favorite cutting and measuring tools, a mixing tool, and a large spoon. Due to the intensity of the required mixing, it is recommended to use an electric mixer; a stand mixer is ideal.

For the wrap, you will need a ruler and a set of kitchen shears.

For final assembly, you will need cooking twine and some spoons. This can be substituted with strips of leftover banana leaf (see below), but this will be more fragile. You will also need a large pot for boiling, the larger the better, and the associated bottom-up heat source. Pasteles are usually served with scissors in addition to a normal complement of dining utensils.

Ingredients

Metric and imperial units used here do not match 1:1 for convenience to the home cook. I used imperial measures while cooking; feel free to vary ratios slightly to suit one’s palate.

Wraps

• Frozen banana leaves, one 1-lb (454g) package. You will not need even most of this package, but good luck trying to separate and thaw a smaller quantity from one of these packages. The remainder can be re-frozen and used later. If you have access to fresh banana leaves, use those instead.
• For maximum authenticity, make some achiote oil. I usually skip this because I’m bad at it, but it helps.

Filling

• Fennel bulb, 1/3
• Green bell pepper, ½
• Red bell pepper, 2
• Cuban oregano, fresh, ¼ cup
• Vegetable oil, 2 teaspoons
• Asafoetida, a generous sprinkle
• Ground beef, ½ lb
• Dried oregano, 1 teaspoon
• Crushed red pepper, 1 teaspoon
• Salt, ½ teaspoon
• Frozen mixed vegetables, 2 cups
• Sour orange juice (jugo de naranja agria), 2 tablespoons. Substitute 1 tablespoon of ordinary orange juice and 1 tablespoon of vinegar.
• Variants: There are as many pastel fillings as there are people and cultures that make pasteles. Try a Cuban-style shredded pork filling, the filling I use for alcapurrias, or a Mexican chile-based filling instead, but watch out for the amount needed to match the rest of the recipe. If you are not worried about managing FODMAP risk, add 1 clove of garlic and ½ of a small onion.

Dough

• Green bananas (guineos), 5. These are ordinary bananas that are sold deliberately underripe.
• Malanga/yautía (X. sagittofolium), 2 lbs (about three corms)
• Water, 2 cups
• Sazón, 1 tablespoon

• Variants: If you use plantains instead of guineos, use fewer to account for the greater size of plantains. Add lard for a richer dough.

Final Assembly

• Water and 6 tablespoons of salt for boiling.
• Hot sauce to taste.

Common Food Restrictions

• Gluten-Free: As written, this recipe is gluten-free if the asafoetida is gluten-free. Pay attention to the ingredients in the filling.
• Ketogenic / Low-Carb: This recipe showcases carbohydrates and cannot be made low-carb.
• Low-FODMAP: This recipe makes several digestion-friendly substitutions, but watch out for garlic and other potential hazards in the sazón.
• Vegetarian/Vegan:  Use a vegetable filling or skip filling entirely.

Preparation

The Night Before

1. Thaw the banana leaves in the refrigerator.

Wraps

2. Cut the banana leaves into six or seven 12” by 12” (30 cm by 30 cm) squares, orienting so as to leave torn or damaged parts of the leaves out of the squares as excess.
3. Rinse the squares and set aside to dry.
4. Reserve the excess for use in patching any damage done to the squares during assembly. Any unused banana leaves at the end of the process can be returned to their package and frozen again.

Filling

5. Finely chop the fennel. One of the grater settings on a food processor is ideal.
6. Blenderize the green bell pepper, red bell pepper, Cuban oregano, and (if present) the garlic and onion.
7. Heat oil in your pan on medium-high and add asafoetida. Heat for a few minutes.
8. Add fennel from Step 5 to the pot and cook until the fennel shrinks and odor changes.
9. Put the ground beef, dried oregano, crushed red pepper, frozen mixed vegetables, sour orange juice, and the ingredients from Step 6 in the pan. The frozen vegetables provide some water that helps the other ingredients mix, in addition to their value as vegetables.
10. Continue heating while stirring until the water is mostly gone. Set aside to cool.

Dough

11. Peel the green bananas. Green bananas do not separate from their skins the way ripe bananas do. I recommend cutting a slit along the curve of the banana and using a thumb to separate the peel from the flesh on the inside, going around the banana and along this slit to complete the separation. Remove any remaining flecks of skin from the bananas.
12. Peel and grate the malanga using the fine option on the grater. The goal is a paste, not ribbons.
    1. Because malanga is so slippery, I recommend peeling about 10 centimeters of the pointed end, grating the peeled portion, and peeling another 10-centimeter segment, repeated until one reaches the scaly (top) end of the malanga. This enables the chef to hold onto the much less slippery skin rather than the flesh underneath.
    2. Because malanga is relatively floppy, it is important to keep it from flopping too much during grating. If it snaps, grating it becomes more dangerous.
    3. This is an ideal job for an electric device with a fine enough attachment, if one is available.
13. Grate the bananas into the same container as the malanga.
14. Add the water and sazón to the banana/malanga mixture and mix well. Hands work well but a stand mixer will do the job faster and with less effort.

Assembly and Frying

15. If using achiote oil, apply it to the inner surface of each banana leaf from Step 3.
16. Add three to five heaping tablespoons of dough to each square of banana leaf in an oval shape.
17. Add one to three tablespoons of filling atop the dough.
18. Gently use the banana leaf to help the dough enclose the filling, and then roll it shut. Gently fold in the ends to enclose the pastel. For greater success, gently slide one end of the banana leaf under the dough on the other side during the rolling process. If the wrap split along its length, add a scrap of banana leaf over the damaged area. Carmen Aboy Valldejulí recommends wrapping this parcel in another banana leaf square, which helps keep it intact during later steps.
19. Secure the pastel with at least two pieces of string tied in place, one lengthwise, one across its width. For a large or fragile-looking pastel, use more string.
20. Bring a large pot of water to a boil with 6 tablespoons of salt.
21. Add your pasteles to the boiling water and boil for 30 minutes.
22. Flip the pasteles and continue boiling for another 30 minutes.
23. Remove from the boiling water and serve with scissors and hot sauce.

Part tamal, part alcapurria, and somehow all cake, pasteles are a high-effort, high-reward dish that I have enjoyed exploring, and I hope they serve you well when you aim to impress your friends who may or may not also be cake.

The post Pasteles, Alyssa Style appeared first on The Perfumed Void.

Some memories demand to be remade.

One of the few culinary memories I have been completely unable to experience outside of a home kitchen is alcapurrias. This classic Puerto Rican fritter features prominently in my childhood as an occasional treat, especially around holidays, and made for exciting lunches because of their rarity. On occasion, the whole family would get together to make an especially large batch, a rustic experience wonderfully out of place in our big-city home. Posted recipes posit that the alcapurria is a variety of croquette and usually recommend the familiar croquette log or cigar shape, but the ones I knew were round, more like hand-pies or empanadas in size and presentation. Once I left Miami, those memories became more and more distant, and more and more treasured. As a matter of my Puerto Rican pride, I needed to take control of those memories and make them more firmly mine, and that meant learning how to make alcapurrias. And today, I succeeded.

Alcapurrias were not a staple food in my childhood in part because they are a decidedly high-effort dish. Unlike the croquettes of which they are sometimes considered a variety, they are not widely available already made, meaning each encounter involved my family’s personal effort. Large quantities of the alcapurria’s component starches must be grated to a fine paste to make its dough, which is hard on the wrists, takes a long time, and comes with a risk of injury. Because of this difficulty, alcapurrias are traditionally made in large batches, reducing the time per alcapurria. This recipe reflects that tradition. I faced an additional challenge in mastering this dish, in that I was doing so from Ottawa, and a critical ingredient in alcapurrias is a tropical root vegetable I grew up calling malanga.

What’s a Malanga?

“Malanga” is the traditional Cuban name of the corm (semi-underground storage stem) of Xanthosoma sagittifolium, a plant in the arum family. This family also contains wildflowers like jack-in-the-pulpit, ornamental plants like pothos vine and calla lilies, and a variety of other edible corms. Native to lowland regions of South America, X. sagittifolium has been an indigenous food plant for thousands of years. Following humans in their migrations, it spread to Central America and to the Caribbean islands much as yuca did, becoming a staple crop throughout the region. After European contact, colonizers and other migrants spread it farther, bringing this crop to the attention of cultures who had never seen it in Africa and Asia. Along the way, to my chagrin, X. sagittifolium acquired a deeply frustrating relationship with names.

My searches for malanga pointed me at several other plants, and even now, searching the name “malanga” can point a person in several directions. Wikipedia flags this name as pertaining to Colocasia antiquorum, an East Asian arum otherwise known as the “eddo.” Google’s default search results can instead connect the name “malanga” to taro (Colocasia esculenta), the staple crop of the South Pacific, as a result of X. sagittifolium getting spread there and being confused for the original taro. Both taro and eddo are relatively close cousins of X. sagittifolium, but their flavors are distinct and cannot replicate the classic alcapurria experience. Searching for the Puerto Rican name for this plant, yautía, offered little help, with sources still attributing this name to any of the three plants in various combinations—usually different from the attributions made for the name malanga. The internet, seemingly, was in denial that X. sagittifolium even existed, and seemed convinced that eddoes and/or taro filled this role in people’s kitchens. But abortive tries with these proposed substitutes proved that neither was the malanga/yautía I sought. Meanwhile, tropical foliage enthusiasts know X. sagittifolium and a few of its cousins as the “elephant ear plant,” grown for its large, attractive leaves without knowing that they, too, are apparently edible. It was not until this article that I could untangle my confusion and aim my searches more productively.

So armed, I persevered. At last, I found Xanthosoma sagittifolium, the plant I had known as “malanga” in my youth, sold under the name “lila malanga” in one specialty grocery store in Ottawa, after so many other vendors had only eddo and/or taro in stock.

“Lila malanga,” as Ottawa’s grocery calls it, is a long, thin, purple-brown root, visually distinct from the much thicker taro and the short, round eddo, but also clearly related to them. Like its Colocasia kin, X. sagittifolium has a hairy, almost elephantine appearance, but the long hairs are often rubbed off much of its length by the time it reaches distant shores. Under its thin skin, X. sagittifolium flesh is exceptionally slippery, making the experience of working with it quite different from more common root vegetables such as potatoes or carrots.

The more I think about it, the more interesting I find it that my family used the Cuban name “malanga” rather than the Puerto Rican name “yautía” when talking about this plant, given that the Puerto Rican side of the family did the cooking.

Back to the Recipe

Making alcapurrias by oneself is an all-day affair. One should anticipate that this process takes about five hours, including a break after the arm workout of grating the dough components. The result is 15-16 fritters in classic hand-pie size, one or two of which provides a filling meal. With a stand mixer with a grater attachment or some other powered aid, or with one or more assistants, the time commitment is correspondingly reduced. I did mine by hand, partly from lack of other options, partly for the communion with my memories of grating malanga by hand.

Equipment

You will need a deep fryer or a pot capable of holding enough oil for frying, a shallower pot, two large bowls, a vegetable peeler, a cheese grater, your favorite measuring tools, a paring knife, a chef’s knife, a blender, a metal spatula, metal tongs (optional), wax or parchment paper, and a surface lined with paper towels. You will also need a stove or other source of bottom-up heat.

Ingredients

Filling

• Green bell pepper, ½
• Cuban oregano, fresh, ¼ cup
• Small Roma tomato, 1
• Dried hot pepper, 1
• Chorizo, 2 ounces
• Ground beef, ½ lb
• Dried oregano, ½ teaspoon
• Salt, ½ teaspoon
• Vegetable oil, 2 teaspoons
• Water, 1 cup
• Pimento-stuffed Manzanilla olives, ¼ cup
• Raisins, 2 teaspoons
• Capers, ½ teaspoon
• Variants: If you are not worried about managing FODMAP risk, add 1 clove of garlic and ½ of a small onion.

Dough

• Green bananas (guineos), 8. These are ordinary bananas that are sold deliberately underripe. Using ripe bananas will result in an unusually sweet batch of alcapurrias. Using plantains will confuse the ratio of guineo to malanga.
• Water, 8 cups
• Salt, various quantities (see below)
• Malanga/yautía (X. sagittofolium), 2 lbs (about three corms)
• Vinegar, 2 teaspoons
• Vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons
• Oil for frying

Common Food Restrictions

• Gluten-Free: This recipe is naturally gluten-free.
• Ketogenic / Low-Carb: This recipe is very high in carbohydrates by its nature.
• Low-FODMAP: This recipe is already designed to reduce its potential FODMAP content. However, sources conflict on whether malanga/yautía is itself a high-FODMAP food and my reaction to eating large amounts of it suggests it should be consumed sparingly if one is avoiding FODMAPs.
• Vegetarian/Vegan: Use your preferred meat substitute and adjust cooking times accordingly.

Preparation

Filling

1. Blenderize the green bell pepper, Cuban oregano, dried hot pepper, Roma tomato, and (if present) the garlic and onion. For a more convenient texture later, you can include the olives here as well, but I prefer to leave them whole.
2. Cut the chorizo into small pieces.
3. Put the ground beef and the ingredients from Step 1 and Step 2 in the pot and set heat to medium-high. Add the dried oregano, salt, vegetable oil, and water. The water serves to help the other ingredients mix.
4. As the water reduces, add the olives, capers, and raisins.
5. Continue heating until the water is mostly gone. Set aside to cool.

Dough

6. Peel the green bananas. Green bananas do not separate from their skins the way ripe bananas do. I recommend cutting a slit along the curve of the banana and using a thumb to separate the peel from the flesh on the inside, going around the banana and along this slit to complete the separation. Remove any remaining flecks of skin from the bananas. Place the peeled green bananas in a bowl with the water and 2 tablespoons of salt.
7. Peel and grate the malanga using the fine option on the grater. The goal is a paste, not ribbons.
   1. Because malanga is so slippery, I recommend peeling about 10 centimeters of the pointed end, grating the peeled portion, and peeling another 10-centimeter segment, repeated until one reaches the scaly (top) end of the malanga. This enables the chef to hold onto the much less slippery skin rather than the flesh underneath.
   2. Because malanga is relatively floppy, it is important to keep it from flopping too much during grating. If it snaps, grating it becomes more dangerous.
8. Once the malanga is grated, drain the bananas. Grate the bananas into the same container as the malanga.
9. If you can create alcapurria dough by hand without leaving flecks of blood and skin in it due to contact with the grater, consider that you may be either a food-processing robot from the future or the platonic form of the Boricua abuela waiting for when she is once again needed to bring love into this world.
10. Add the vinegar, vegetable oil, and 4 teaspoons of salt to the banana/malanga mixture and mix well. Hands work best.

Assembly and Frying

11. Make 15 to 16 palm-sized discs of dough on parchment or wax paper. This should use up a bit more than half the dough.
    
    
12. Add 1 tablespoon of filling to each disc.
13. Use the remaining dough to cover the discs so that none of the filling is visible and there are no holes. You will likely have excess filling.
14. Heat your fryer oil to 170 °C (338 °F). Carmen Aboy Valldejuli recommends a somewhat hotter temperature, but I fry with coconut oil and this temperature avoids smoke without negatively impacting the results.
15. Introduce an alcapurria to the fryer using a metal spatula. This tool helps remove the sticky fritter from the wax or parchment paper and bring it to the fryer without it disintegrating.
16. Unless your fryer is unusually large, fry the alcapurrias individually until they are golden brown and cooked through, 5 to 7 minutes each. Drain on paper towels and serve.

It is a triumphant moment that finds me able to make these traditional Puerto Rican treats myself, and to share them with friends who have no experience with anything like them. It has also earned me a jolt of my grandmother’s delight, as she sees her skills passed on to another generation, and that makes me happy. I hope this recipe enables you to provide a similar joy to the people in your life.

The post Alcapurrias, Alyssa Style appeared first on The Perfumed Void.

A quick survey of the dishes I’ve presented so far might present the impression that Puerto Rico’s and Cuba’s primary proteins are sausage, beans, and beef. Beef certainly has a prominent place in Cuban cuisine, but in Puerto Rico, the place of honor goes to the pig. (And we haven’t even started exploring the chicken possibilities that these gastronomies offer.) Like everything else about Puerto Rican cooking, the pig became the fixture it is today because pigs are easier to raise in Puerto Rico’s difficult terrain than cattle, and less expensive for an island with a long history of poverty and neglect from is colonial masters. I’ve neglected my way into a nostalgic fixation with the pork dishes of my youth, so, here are chuletas a la jardinera, or, “garden pork chops.”

Chuletas a la jardinera is one of many variants of chuletas guisadas, or “stewed pork chops.” Puerto Rican meat dishes are usually braised or boiled rather than grilled or baked—an odd turn for the country that invented the word “barbecue”—and this method provides comparatively low-effort, exceptionally moist and flavorful results. Chuletas a la jardinera features bone-in pork chops lightly browned and cooked in a tomato-based sauce loaded with a veritable garden of other vegetables, at once homey and rich.

As presented here, chuletas a la jardinera is the meat and the sauce. For a complete meal, serve with a rice dish, a salad, and a side, such as yuca or tostones.

Equipment

You will need a stovetop or similar bottom-up heat source, your favorite cutting and chopping tools, food tongs, a small container for mixing the rub, a long wooden spoon for stirring, and a large pot or saucepan. For bonus authenticity, mix the rub in a pilón y maceta, the Puerto Rican version of a wooden mortar and pestle. The traditional pot for most Puerto Rican cooking is the caldero, a cast-aluminum pot with curved, medium-height sides and a fitted lid. Similar in concept to the “Dutch oven” style of cast-iron pot, this is a versatile and convenient addition to any kitchen. Anything with similar properties and appropriate volume will do the job; the close-fitting lid is important.

Ingredients

Pork

• Bone-in pork chops, 2 lbs. / 1 kg. ½-inch to 1-inch thick preferred.
• Oregano, ½ teaspoon.
• Salt, 2 teaspoons. For extra flavor, substitute with 2 teaspoons Badía Sazón Tropical with Annatto and Coriander.
• Olive oil, 1 teaspoon.
• White vinegar, ½ teaspoon.
• Garlic, to taste.

Sauce

• Whole canned tomatoes, 1 can (1 lb. 12 ounces).
• Onions, 1 cup. Substitute ¼ cup dried onion flakes.
• Bay leaf, 1
• Ground black pepper, 1 tablespoon, or 4 black peppercorns
• Cilantro, 2 tablespoons
• Salt, 1 tablespoon.
• Honey, 1 tablespoon. Substitute granulated sugar, 1 tablespoon
• Whole kernel corn, canned/fresh/frozen, 1 lb. (or 1 can). If using canned, include the fluid from the can for a sweeter dish.
• String beans, canned/fresh/frozen, 1 lb. (or 1 can). If using canned, include the fluid from the can for a sweeter dish.
• Variations: Add 1 tablespoon of cumin for additional earthiness. Add 1 cup chopped green bell pepper for additional sharpness. Add additional vegetables for weight. Add Manzanilla olives if you’re like me and olives belong in everything.

Common Food Restrictions

• Gluten-Free: This recipe is naturally gluten free.
• Ketogenic / Low-Carb: The use of honey, corn, and string beans makes incorporating this recipe into a low-carb diet challenging.
• Low-FODMAP: Reduce corn and string beans for a FODMAP-friendly sauce.
• Vegetarian/Vegan: The preparation methods provided here can work for vegan alternatives to pork.

Preparation

1. If desired, trim fat from pork chops. Leaving it on results in a richer meal, but a lower-fat chuleta is still delicious.
2. Mix other pork ingredients (oregano, salt/sazón, olive oil, vinegar, and garlic) in a small bowl. If available, grind lightly in a pilón y maceta (mortar and pestle). Rub the resulting paste into the pork chops.
3. Lightly brown and sear the pork chops on medium-high heat. Flip to sear as many surfaces as possible. For best results, do this in the same pot or caldero where you complete the rest of the recipe. Remove from pot and set aside when finished.
4. If using fresh onions, finely chop now. Add whole canned tomatoes, onions, bay leaf, black pepper, cilantro, salt, corn, string beans, and other optional ingredients to pot. Mix well.
5. Return pork chops to pot, well within the sauce.
6. Bring to a boil over moderate-high heat.
7. Cover, reduce heat to moderate, and boil for 30 minutes. If using whole peppercorns, remove now.
8. Uncover and boil for 30 minutes.
9. Let cool and serve. Suggested accompaniments include a rice dish, a salad, and a side.

I had no recollection of this specific dish when I decided I would learn this recipe, but the results are intensely familiar anyway. This dish’s long history means every family’s version is different, and for now, this is mine. Chuletas a la jardinera extends the proud Puerto Rican one-pot tradition a step further, showing the versatility of this practice. May this addition to your culinary repertoire serve you well.

The post Chuletas a la Jardinera, Alyssa Style appeared first on The Perfumed Void.

This recipe is as much a requiem as a celebration.

Frijoles negros, black beans, are at the center of the Antillean Hispanic culinary constellation. Any group meal will have them, any celebration platter will center them, and any rotation of different dishes will find them eventually. One does not experience the food of Puerto Rico, Cuba, or the Dominican Republic without dining on black beans and rice. I made this meal the center of numerous efforts to impress non-Hispanic paramours, and I kept it in my repertoire because of how constant, and powerful, its memories are.

What’s interesting is that I know that smell in two rather different forms. One side of my family is Cuban, the other, Puerto Rican. In our day-to-day, the frijoles negros I experienced were the Puerto Rican congri style, based in the same West African one-pot cooking method that spawned arroz con gandules. Cooking the beans and rice together causes the beans to stain the rice dark gray and infuse it with the beans’ rich flavor. But for holidays, which I often spent with my father’s family and which followed my father’s patterns even at home, we instead ate moros y cristianos. When the beans and rice are kept separate until serving, the rice remains white, and Spain and Cuba both name the resulting two-tone dish “Moors and Christians,” in reference to Medieval Spain’s ethnic makeup. Both versions are otherwise quite similar. I got used to congri as ordinary and intimate, and moros y cristianos being a sign of festive times. In both forms, hearty and heavy with cumin, black beans and rice smell like home. I should clarify, both versions appear in both countries, yet the pattern remained.

Like most notions of home, it is one I can experience only fitfully. The North American black turtle bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, is far less kind to the frail stomach than pigeon peas, and my body has progressively rejected it. What I share with you now is one last attempt to get it right.

Because the techniques involved are so similar and ingredients lists identical, I cover both versions here. This recipe serves six and reheats well, but does not last especially long after cooking. The beans in particular are vulnerable to mold. Congri and moros y cristianos are both often served as vegetarian meals in their own right, due to the hearty, meaty presence of the black beans, but can be combined with small portions of protein if desired.

Equipment

You will need a stovetop or similar bottom-up heat source, your favorite cutting and chopping tools, a long wooden spoon for stirring, and a large pot or saucepan. The traditional pot for congri and most other Puerto Rican one-pot dishes is the caldero, a cast-aluminum pot with curved, medium-height sides and a fitted lid. Similar in concept to the “Dutch oven” style of cast-iron pot, this is a versatile and convenient addition to any kitchen and is easier to clean after use with rice than a stainless-steal, straight-sided pot. Anything with similar properties and appropriate volume will do the job; the close-fitting lid is important. For moros y cristianos, a pressure cooker is also recommended.

Ingredients

• Black beans (frijoles / habichuelas negros), 1 cup dried or 1 can
• Water (see “Soaking the Beans”)
• Salt (see “Soaking the Beans”)
• Yellow Spanish onion, 1, small, or dried onion flakes, 1 tablespoon
• Vinegar, 1 tablespoon
• Green bell pepper, 1, without seeds
• Red pepper flakes, ½ teaspoon
• Fresh culantro/recao leaves, 3. Substitute with a slightly higher quantity of cilantro.
• Oregano, ½ teaspoon
• Cumin, 1 tablespoon
• Sazón, to taste. I prefer Badía.
• Olive oil, 1 tablespoon
• White rice, 2 cups
• Pimento-stuffed manzanilla olives, 6

Common Food Restrictions

• Gluten-Free: This recipe is gluten-free.
• Ketogenic / Low-Carb: This recipe is based on rice and beans and cannot be made low-carb.
• Low-FODMAP: This recipe is not FODMAP-friendly in the slightest and should be consumed with great caution on a low-FODMAP diet, if at all. The impact can be reduced by not retaining any liquid from cans or that was used in soaking the beans.
• Vegetarian/Vegan: This recipe is vegan.

Soaking the Beans

Black beans need to be soaked prior to cooking, or they will be somewhere between inedibly hard and far crunchier than this recipe demands. All of these steps should be completed shortly before the steps in “Preparation”; soaked or drained beans have a very short shelf life.

Canned: Canned beans do not need to be soaked. Drain them and optionally retain the liquid for use elsewhere in the recipe.

Dried: Rinse the dried beans to remove dust. Soak for at least 24 hours. Use a ratio of 1 cup of beans to 2.5 cups of water to 0.5 tablespoons of salt. Optionally retain this liquid for later use in the recipe. The beans should be soft enough to squeeze between two fingers.

Note that the liquid drained from canned or dried beans will contain some of the complex sugars that induce intestinal gas and make beans troublesome for people with digestive conditions. Although this dish is never kind to frail guts, it is much worse if this liquid is incorporated into the dish. These liquids can be discarded instead of retained, at the cost of a small amount of bean flavor and salt. If soaking longer than 24 hours, discard and replace the liquid after each 24-hour increment.

Preparation, Congri

1. Bring 6 cups of water to a boil. If retaining soaking water, include this in the 6 cups.
2. As the water boils, finely chop or blend the green bell pepper and yellow onion and set aside.
3. Combine the rice, beans, spices, olives, olive oil, vinegar, green bell pepper, and yellow onion with the boiling water, stir well, and bring to a boil again.
4. Once the water begins to boil again, reduce the heat to moderate-high and continue to cook uncovered until most of the water evaporates.
5. Reduce heat to low, stir again, and cover for 10 minutes. Keep an eye on the caldero to make sure the edges do not burn, and remove it from the heat early if it does.
6. Stir the rice and cook until done.

Preparation, Moros y Cristianos

1. Finely chop or blend the green bell pepper and yellow onion and set aside.
2. If using a pressure cooker
   1. Combine the green bell pepper, yellow onion, vinegar, olives, olive oil, spices and beans in 2 cups of water in the pressure cooker.
   2. Cook for 20 minutes after the cooker pressurizes.
   3. Allow to depressurize and set aside.
3. If using a stovetop
   1. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil. If retaining water from soaking the beans, include that water in the 2 cups.
   2. Add the beans, green bell pepper, yellow onion, vinegar, olives, olive oil, and spices and boil until desired degree of softness is achieved, adding water if necessary. Do not allow to dry completely or they will burn.
   3. Remove from heat and set aside.
4. Bring 4 cups of liberally salted water to a boil.
5. Add rice and bring to a boil again.
6. Once the water begins to boil again, reduce the heat to moderate-high and continue to cook uncovered until most of the water evaporates.
7. Reduce heat to low, stir again, and cover for 15 minutes.
8. Stir the rice and cook until done.
   1. Alternately, replace steps 4-8 with using a rice cooker to cook the rice, as long as salt is included.
9. Serve the rice first with the beans on top

As above, neither congri nor moros y cristianos requires a protein counterpart to be a full meal, though both benefit from a salad of fresh tomato and lettuce. When accompanying these dishes with baked chicken breast or similar fare, reduce the portion size accordingly. This dish is naturally gluten-free. Add garlic for extra flavor, albeit for extra risk for sensitive stomachs.

And with this, I share with the world a recipe I can no longer effectively share with myself. May frijoles negros serve you as they can no longer serve me.

The post Frijoles Negros, Alyssa Style appeared first on The Perfumed Void.

The papa rellena, or “filled potato,” is some of Latin America’s finest party food. A papa rellena is mashed potato made into a meat-filled dumpling/fritter, breaded, and deep-fried. They emerge from the fryer looking like small loaves of golden-brown joy, and provide a deeply engaging combination of textures when bitten. I’m a big fan, and I challenged myself recently with learning how to make them, as part of a foray into more technically challenging Hispanic recipes.

First things first: It’s hard for many to imagine, but the potato is a Latin American staple. Europe may have made the potato the center of several of its cuisines, but it is indigenous to southern Perú, where it was domesticated and grown in large quantities for thousands of years before the Spanish began spreading it around the world. To this day, Perú has the largest diversity of potato varieties, including additional species not grown elsewhere, and this shows in Perú’s rightly award-winning gastronomy. The potato may today be Irish, Russian, and more, but before all of that, it was Incan, and its Spanish name papa comes from this heritage.

The papa rellena, in turn, owes its particular origin to contact between France and Latin America in the 19^th century. Much of Latin America fell in love with the French croquette, a side dish consisting of a meaty filling, a middle layer that was often potato, and a bread crust. Different parts of Latin America produced numerous variations. The papa rellena apocryphally owes its origin to Peruvian soldiers’ implementation of the croquette concept using their trail rations during the War of the Pacific, later refined. Once born, the papa rellena itself became widespread, spawning Puerto Rican, Cuban, Dominican, and other descendants.

What I present here is my take on this venerable classic, drawing on the Puerto Rican and Cuban styles and my own sensibilities to make something distinctive.

Papas rellenas are not a dish to make on short notice. Like all dumplings, their preparation is fairly involved, and these additionally require a few hours of chilling between certain steps for best results. This is something to make at least a day in advance, or for special occasions. As given here, this recipe makes about six papas rellenas, which is a meal for three or an appetizer for more.

Equipment

You will need a large pot in which to boil the potatoes, and something for straining and mashing them. You will also need something for finely chopping or blending seasonings, a large skillet, a mixing bowl, a bowl for beating eggs, and a plate for breading. Finally, you will need a deep fryer or a large pot filled with hot oil.

Common Food Restrictions

• Gluten-Free: This recipe is as gluten-free as the bread crumbs used with it.
• Ketogenic / Low-Carb: This recipe is based on potatoes and bread crumbs and cannot be made low-carb.
• Low-FODMAP: This recipe is fairly FODMAP-friendly. Reduce onion and garlic and consider gluten-free bread crumb options for best results.
• Vegetarian/Vegan: Substitute beef with plant-based equivalent for a vegan alternative.

Ingredients

Potatoes

• Potatoes, 5, medium
• Green pepper, ½, small, chopped
• Salt, in various quantities (see below)
• Onion, ¼ cup, chopped, or a comparable quantity of dried onion
• Ground cumin, 2 teaspoons
• Ground pepper, 1 teaspoon
• Tomato paste, 4 teaspoons
• Sazón, 1 teaspoon. I prefer Badía.
• Garlic, to taste

Filling

• Vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon
• Ground beef, ½ lb
• Onion, ¼ cup, chopped, or a comparable quantity of dried onion
• Green pepper, ½, small, chopped
• Salt, 1 teaspoon
• Ground cumin, 2 teaspoons
• Ground pepper, 1 teaspoon
• Tomato paste, 4 teaspoons
• White vinegar, 1 tablespoon
• Sazón, 1 teaspoon
• Garlic, to taste
• Variations: For a more Cuban papa rellena, add a teaspoon of oregano and some Manzanilla olives to the filling. For a more Puerto Rican papa rellena, add chunks of mozzarella cheese.
• Note: It’s very easy to make more filling than your potatoes can encompass. If this results, you can mix the filling with rice as a separate meal, or find other uses for it. Get creative with this leftover gift!

Breading

• Eggs, 2
• Bread crumbs, 1 cup. For extra flavor, use Italian-seasoned bread crumbs
• Oil for frying

Preparation

1. Blend the seasonings for the potatoes (onion, cumin, pepper, tomato paste, garlic, sazón)) and ½ teaspoon of salt.
2. Peel the potatoes and chop them into chunks. Boil in salted water for about 20-30 minutes minutes, until fork-tender.
3. Drain the potatoes. Add the potato seasonings from step 1 and mash until uniformly mixed and no lumps remain. Allow to cool to room temperature.
4. Meanwhile, heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook and stir the onion, green pepper, and garlic in the hot skillet until the onion has softened and turned translucent. (If using dried onion, stir for about 5 minutes).
5. Stir in the ground beef, increase heat to medium-high, and cook until beef is no longer pink. Add the salt, cumin, pepper, tomato paste, white vinegar, and sazón and stir until the lot is uniformly mixed. (If using olives and oregano, add here.). Scrape into a mixing bowl and allow to cool to room temperature.
6. Line a baking sheet or casserole dish with plastic wrap, waxed paper, or greased aluminum foil and set aside. Leave enough for a crude lid. Pour the bread crumbs onto a plate and set aside. Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat until uniformly mixed.
7. Once the potatoes and beef have cooled, take a handful of potato and flatten into a bowl, place a tablespoon or more of beef in the bowl, and place more potato atop. (If using mozzarella, add a bit to each papa rellena as you form it here.) Seal the edges so that the beef is not exposed, roll into a ball, and roll gently in the egg. Retrieve and roll gently in the bread crumbs until no more wet egg is visible. Place in the baking sheet / casserole dish. Repeat until all of the potato and beef is spent.

8. 

   Refrigerate for two to four hours, or freeze for later use. This helps the potato and egg hold together during frying.

9. Heat the fryer oil to 175°C / 350 °F .

10. 

    Fry each papa rellena for three minutes, turning the papas if necessary. Do not overload your fryer or the temperature will drop, impeding frying.

11. Drain on a paper towel and allow to cool before serving.

From Perú to Cuba to Canada, from classics across Latin America to restaurant specialties loudly desired across the US, papas rellenas are well worth the effort they entail. May this flavorful blend of mashed potatoes, beef, and breading lead your guests to reconsider the potential of the humble potato.

The post Papas Rellenas, Alyssa Style appeared first on The Perfumed Void.

You’re attending a quinceañera. You’ve never seen the birthday girl before. Everyone else in attendance knows you, but if you ask them how, they change the subject. The caterers kiss you on the cheek and ask you when you’ll give them grandkids. You’ve never seen them before, either.

Every building you see is made of limestone that shows the spherical grains of its oceanic birth. Any building made of something else looks sad and tragic, for even they know the doom that waits for those who dwell near the ocean and do not live within its bones.

The furniture is under plastic that sears into your flesh when you sit. Your grandparents say this is for dust and cleanliness. When you try to leave, the plastic gives up your skin only grudgingly, with a hideous peeling sound. Your grandparents delay you at the door, asking you to sit again. You notice their skin.

Your father shouts, “Because Kennedy was a Communist!” You asked him how he liked the new fabric softener.

They have paved over all of the public-facing floors with marble again, and replaced all of the kitchen appliances. The ceiling is a little closer than before. But it is worth it, if what lies beneath can be held down with another layer of mausoleum white.

The anoles are everywhere, but you only see the brown ones. The green ones fled long ago. What did they see?

You’re a thirty-seven-year-old graphic designer. Your mother tells her friends, “When she grows up, she’ll be a great doctor or a talented lawyer.”

The palm trees reach into the sky, their wiry fronds dancing like obedient fingers. Each segmented marking on each trunk marks a day when the sky took its due.

The shrine to la virgen de la caridad del cobre is a little bigger than you remember. Now it takes a whole wall, its alcove a place where the room lights dare not go. Her downcast eyes follow you. She knows.

Your grandfather shouts, “Because Kennedy was a Communist!” You asked him what he’d like on his pizza.

Opossums sneak into your trash bins at night. When you find them, they stare into you with unseeing eyes. In the morning, the trash is pristine, as if they were never there.

You try to imitate your grandmother’s recipe. None of the ingredients have the names she told you, and some the grocery clerks don’t even recognize. She smiles. Her code is unbreakable. She will save the world from what she knows. But she’ll never save herself.

Company is coming. The whole house is out in force, sweeping, wiping, and tidying. A mote of dust crosses your guests’ eyeline. You nervously laugh about how hard it is to keep up with this place, with so many people, with modern schedules. Your guests are tense. From the corner of your eye, you see another mote, smirking. Every day, they probe at your weaknesses. Every day, they grow bolder. Every day, you wonder when the attack will come.

They solemnly intone, “family honor.” A murmur erupts from behind you: “family honor.” The whispers echo: “family honor.” The sound circle grows louder: “family honor.” By their loyal necromancy, what was a wound in your mind became a wound in your soul. Family honor.

Your cousin vanishes without a trace. When you ask about him, you receive only angry glares. You receive a mysterious letter a few days later. You can’t touch the envelope without the hair on the back of your neck rising. Two weeks later, you open it in a coffee shop two towns over. The paper is blank, and damp, and salty.

Your uncle shouts, “Because Kennedy was a Communist!” You said hello.

The post Cuba-Rican Gothic appeared first on The Perfumed Void.

I had a very special experience last night. I cooked for Ania’s parents for the first time, as part of her father’s birthday festivities. I made a point not to cook something elaborate and time-consuming, though, as one might expect of a holiday meal. Instead, I went with something simple that shows off Puerto Rican cooking techniques that is also very special to me: arroz con salchichas. I look forward to arroz con salchichas every time a visit to Miami is in the offing, and after long, tense absence, I missed it profoundly. As tensions with my parents continue to rise and fall like so many narcissist tides, bringing this dish to a family that accepts me with enthusiasm is an emotional coup. As I come to recognize my belated mastery of this dish, that I had tried to learn how to make intermittently since I moved to Ottawa, I am ebullient.

Arroz con salchichas, like the other Puerto Rican food I have come to love and understand, is the product of poverty. Its achiote coloring is a local, less expensive substitute for Spanish saffron, and its salchichas are not fancy Spanish chorizo or Serrano ham, but Vienna sausage one can now find in grocery stores for less than $1 per can. Cured meat, in all of its forms, is a fixture of La Isla Bonita’s staple dishes, something the well-to-do among us disdain and the rest of us recognize and enjoy.

Perceptive readers will notice that this recipe is very similar to my arroz con gandules. “Puerto Rican rice” could very well be its own recipe, consistent between rice-based dishes across Puerto Rican cuisine, and this provides a shared base from which to innovate. Arroz con salchichas effectively substitutes the pigeon peas, salt pork, capers, and Manzanilla olives of arroz con gandules with its eponymous sausage, and adjusts some steps accordingly. Like the previous rice dish, it is generally hearty enough on its own to not require additional protein, but benefits from lettuce or another salad alongside.

This recipe serves six and reheats well.

Equipment

You will need a stovetop or similar bottom-up heat source, your favorite cutting and chopping tools, a long wooden spoon for stirring, and a large pot or saucepan. The traditional pot for arroz con salchichas and most other Puerto Rican one-pot dishes is the caldero, a cast-aluminum pot with curved, medium-height sides and a fitted lid. Similar in concept to the “Dutch oven” style of cast-iron pot, this is a versatile and convenient addition to any kitchen and is easier to clean after use with rice than a stainless-steal, straight-sided pot. Anything with similar properties and appropriate volume will do the job; the close-fitting lid is important.

Ingredients

• Sofrito. This Puerto Rican traditional flavoring comes in several varieties. Sofrito can be made in advance and stored frozen or dried for use in this and other recipes. The one I use for arroz con salchichas consists of the following:
  • Tomato sauce, ¼ cup. Substitute with 2 tablespoons tomato paste, 2 tablespoons water, and 2 tablespoons honey.
  • Garlic, 2 cloves
  • Onion flakes, 2 tablespoons, or yellow Spanish onion, 1, small
  • Green bell pepper, 1, without seeds
  • Sweet chili peppers, 1, without seeds. Substitute with 1 teaspoon of Sriracha or 1 dried hot pepper.
  • Fresh culantro/recao leaves, 3. Substitute with a higher quantity of cilantro.
  • Oregano, ½ teaspoon
• Annatto/achiote oil, 2 tablespoons.
  • This is vegetable oil or lard colored with extract from Bixa orellana seeds and is responsible for the rich yellow color in Puerto Rican rice. To make annatto oil, heat 2 cups of the fat of choice with 1 cup of annatto seeds for at least five minutes, until the oil takes on the red color of the seeds. Strain out and discard the seeds. Achiote oil can be made in advance and stored refrigerated for use in this and other recipes. Substitute paprika or saffron. Alternately, the fat can be used directly, but will not impart color to the rice.
  • A third option is Badía-brand sazón with annatto and coriander, sprinkled generously.
• White rice, 2 cups.
• Water for the rice, 4 cups
• Salt for the rice, if sazón is not used
• Bouillon cube, 1. Chicken and beef are traditional.
• Vienna sausages, 2 cans
• Capers, ½ teaspoon

Sofrito can be made in advance and stored frozen or dried. My mother prefers a simpler mix of garlic, green bell pepper, and Spanish onion, which my household now puts in just about every meat dish.

Common Food Restrictions

• Gluten-Free: This recipe is gluten-free.
• Ketogenic / Low-Carb: This recipe is based on rice and cannot be made low-carb.
• Low-FODMAP: Reduce use of onion and garlic for a FODMAP-friendlier version. Note that Vienna sausage uses sweeteners that are not ideal on this diet.
• Vegetarian/Vegan: Substitute Vienna sausage and beef/chicken stock with plant-based equivalent for a vegan alternative.

Preparation

1. Finely chop or blend the tomato sauce, garlic, green bell pepper, sweet chili peppers, culantro, and oregano into sofrito and set aside. For this sofrito, include the liquid from the Vienna sausage cans as well.
2. Rinse the rice and set aside. This helps keep it from becoming sticky.
3. In your caldero, add the oil and sofrito and simmer over moderate heat for about three minutes while stirring.
4. Raise heat to high, add the water, and bring to a boil.
5. If desired, chop the sausages in half for smaller pieces.
6. Add the rice and sausages and stir well. If you are using sazón, add it here. Crush the bouillon cube and add it now. Bring to a boil again.
7. Once the water begins to boil again, reduce the heat to moderate-high and continue to cook uncovered until most of the water evaporates.
8. Reduce heat to low, stir the rice again, and cover for 15 minutes.
9. Stir the rice and cook until done. Stirring is important because the sausages float and so are found only at the top of the rice when it is done cooking.

This is Puerto Rican comfort food, relatively simple to make and rewarding to eat. It comes with warmth, calm, and nostalgia. May it come to be associated with similar joys for you.

The post Arroz con Salchichas, Alyssa Style appeared first on The Perfumed Void.

Images of people in my culture don’t look like me.

There’s a trivial sense in which that’s not true. My dark, angled eyes, curly hair, curvaceous figure, and diminutive stature all betray my origins. Our beauty queens and pop stars in particular look like me, conspicuously lighter in hue than even our own relatives. As distinctive as I always am in family photos, someone else who looked like me would not have seemed out of place.

But the image of us isn’t a scientist. She isn’t an atheist or a socialist. She isn’t dating outside her race. She isn’t deliberately far away from her parents. She isn’t autistic. She isn’t transgender. She isn’t gay.

What do Puerto Ricans and Cubans look like? We wear gaudy cross necklaces. We come in groups of ten and fifteen, giant families all together. We are loud and outgoing and can’t get enough of each other. We put on great shows of religious devotion and tie the Catholic Church into all of our milestones and ceremonies. We own devotional candles and have tiny decorative shrines in our homes and on our lawns. We colorfully invoke el espíritu santo and Jesucristo when we are surprised. We are brazenly, flirtatiously, aggressively heterosexual, to the point that white stereotypes about us imagine us all as oversexed cuckolders regardless of gender. Our women might seek out caretaking positions out of passion, but our men are pushed hard into law, finance, or medicine and expected to enter the blue-collar, heavy-lifting workforce otherwise. We value learning as long as it gets us something else we want; after that it’s a waste. We all desire to ultimately marry one of our own, or another variety of Hispanic person in a pinch, and any relationship we have outside of that range is a presumed dalliance and distraction until then. We all plan to make sure our parents have flocks of beautiful, gender-normative, Hispanophone, Catholic grandchildren within surprise-driving distance of all of their cousins. We’re either ruthless capitalists who would happily screw most of our own relatives if it meant our own children could be slightly better off (Cuban) or would-be values voters who only vote Democrat because we’re poor and brown and would happily switch to the no-abortion God-everywhere gays-are-icky party if it didn’t mean even worse destitution (Puerto Rican).

This is how my people see themselves. These are the stories my people tell themselves about who we are and what it means to be one of us. These are the signifiers we exhibit that let other Cubans and Puerto Ricans know we’re their kin. These are what our countrymen expect us to be. These are what we must be to dodge the dark spiral of alienation that they reserve for those of us with kinder hearts and more devoted minds. To be otherwise is to be an Americanized melange, a Western perversion, broken, defective, interloper, over-educated, “not real.” Not real.

They don’t see the richness before them. Only the rarest of us see the true value of our inheritance, the long history of survival and resistance and defiance, merger and mixture, taking what was forced upon us and making it uniquely, separately ours. Too few of us see the marvels of taste and light and sound that our people can build. Too few of us see our stylish clothing and Vejigante masks, our Bacilos and our arroz con gandules, as wonders in themselves.

To have this music in our hearts and food in our bellies is nothing to them. My people are not the people who invented these forms and refined these foods, we are not the people who dwelt long among the sunlit palms and made ourselves out of slaves and survivors. We are not the people who speak Spanish with our strange accents that turn Rs into Ls or trill them all, nor the people with strange words like bohio and hicotea substituting the more familiar cabaña and tortuga. We are not the people for whom Willy Chirino sings.

All of those cultural commonalities that should mean everything, that should be how we find and know each other, that should be what brings us together over caja china feasts and what should makes us want to invite each other to our daughters’ quinceañeras and should be all it takes for us to build the community we so determinedly desire…they mean nothing if you’re gay. They mean nothing if you’re atheist or transgender or academic or autistic or any of the other bits of this world they’ve decided just don’t happen amongst us, or even if you tolerate people who are.

Where I come from, the ugliness is the price the community charges to let you see the beauty.

And when I tell them that we can be better than that, that we have been better than that and could be again, that my people don’t have to make pariahs and exiles out of those among us who turn out to be gay or autistic or irreligious or compassionate…I further mark myself as other.

I dream of better people.

And I will type, shout, eat, and pronounce my name in Spanish even when Anglophones ask until I can hear my people’s music outdoors and not have to wonder if I’m safe there, because just being me where others can see me tells them that most precious intimation: Tú no estás sola. You are not alone.

No matter how much they want you to be.

The post My Place in the Palms appeared first on The Perfumed Void.