You won’t find nixtamalized corn in the more Iberian-influenced regions of Latin America like the Hispanic Caribbean, the northern part of South America, or Brazil, but you’ll see cornmeal—mostly used in porridges—and cracked dried corn, used for arepa and tamale dough.
What different beans are used in what parts of Latin America?
In my own island home of Cuba, stewed red beans are a staple in the east, while black-bean soup rules in Havana and the western part of the island. Black beans are also popular in Venezuela and in Veracruz, Mexico. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans favor pink beans and red beans as well as green pigeon peas, which came from Africa; like other African ingredients, they were brought not by slaves, you understand, but by the slave traders. Fava beans, another old-world legume, compete with native common beans throughout the Andes. Canary beans, which have a lovely golden color and are cooked with Andean peppers and cilantro, are a specialty of the northern coast of Peru. On the southern coast of the country, particularly in Ica, a pisco-producing area, the lima bean—an ancient bean named for the city in which the Spaniards found it—is preferred.
When I was studying medieval history in Spain years ago, I once cooked black-bean soup for a couple from Havana I had befriended. Not really used to cooking black beans, I used a red-bean recipe I had learned from my aunts in Santiago de Cuba. I thought my friends would be pleased. They ate in silence, and when they were ready to leave, they thanked me for my red-bean soup. Then they proceeded to give me an unforgettable lesson on how to cook black beans properly, which ended with a menacing tone and an accusing finger pointed at me: “Cooking black beans with a tomato sofrito is a sacrilege.”
What about chiles? They’re indigenous to Latin America, but much of the food isn’t hot.
Chiles play a more dominant role in regions with sizable indigenous populations, such as Mexico, parts of Central America, and the Andean region. In parts of the Andes like Ecuador, though, chiles are seldom added to food while it cooks, but instead are stirred into table sauces so people can modulate the amount of heat in their meal. In the Hispanic Caribbean, where there’s a stronger Iberian influence (the indigenous population was virtually wiped out by conquistadores), hot chiles are used sparingly because, in Spain, milder, aromatic seasonings have always been preferred.
But some chefs in the U.S. are adding chiles to Hispanic Caribbean dishes.
There are a few chefs who practice what I call cocina de autor, which can be loosely translated as “personal” or “creative” cuisine. When this cocina de autor has integrity, I applaud it. What troubles me is when it is labeled “traditional” or when a food writer comes along and holds it up as the standard of excellence against which traditional cooking should be judged. However, borrowings are inevitable in a multicultural pan-Latin context. Here in the U.S., many Latins are coming together for the first time, and we have begun to learn from one another. I know I now use more hot peppers and cilantro in my cooking than ever before. But I have not started adding them to my Havana-style black beans.
How do you see the pan-Latin culinary scene developing in the U.S.?
Visit any Cuban-owned supermarket in Union City, New Jersey, and you will find a complete selection of Mexican chiles. Go shopping at a Mexican market in Los Angeles, and you will find yuca and plantains. In South Florida, fields of yuca, malanga, and plantains coexist with new luxury condos. So the idea of a pan-Latin cuisine is no empty label. We’ve wholeheartedly embraced foods that were once the domain of particular countries or geo-graphical regions, foods such as churrasco—the generic name we have all chosen for the grilled skirt steak (entraña) doused with chimichurri sauce from Argentina and Uruguay; the Cuban sandwich, Cuban black-bean soup, the Mojito, and the concept of the Cuban cafeteria; the Mexican and Central American tortilla; and the Peruvian cebiche. Together with the ubiquitous dulce de leche, which everyone loves, these have become foods that belong to all of us. My two restaurants, Zafra and Cucharamama [in Ho-boken, New Jersey], are pan-Latin be-cause I find that concept liberating. Imagine a meal that starts with Peruvian-style potatoes in a creamy Andean pepper-and-walnut sauce, followed by Uruguayan grass-fed rib eye served with chimichurri, Cuban fried green plantains, and thinly shredded kale sautéed with some garlic in the style of Minas Gerais in Brazil—all washed down with a Susana Balbo Malbec from Argentina or a Montes Syrah from Chile. Finish with dulce de leche ice cream and Venezuelan hot chocolate or smooth Colombian coffee. At the other end of the spectrum, though, the very nature of the immigrant experience often pushes us to look inward and use food as a way to preserve our national identities. I don’t discard the idea of opening a truly authentic Cuban restaurant one of these days!
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