A Nuyorican Thanksgiving
There's about 8 more people you don't see in this photo not including someone family was dating.
I always wanted to be one of those "SEVENTEEN magazine" girls, the red head with green eyes and skin so light that she could wear the palest pink blush and you can still see it on her skin. Whose family like each other, ate turkey and stuffing for the holidays, sat at the dinner table, in their "Home Alone" looking house in suburbia, with their home fully decked out with lights.
What I had was the entire Puerto Rican side of my family crammed into grandma's railroad apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, eating in front of the T.V., then hopping from apartment to apartment to keep eating but also avoid "so and so" because they never paid them back $20 from 3 years ago.
Before Sunset Park was slapped across the face with a gentrification stick, you could smell the entire neighborhood cooking up a storm for the holidays. UGH! My grandmother's building had the most intoxicating smells of food! Specifically Puerto Rican food. All 6 apartments in her building were occupied by Nuyorican families.
Now, what does a Nuyorican (a first generation Puerto Rican born in and living in New York City) Christmas feast look like? Lets start with the national dishes of Puerto Rico...
Arroz con Gandules (Rice with Pigeon Peas)
This is the most delicious rice dish, 2nd to biryani, in my opinion. Flavorful yellow rice seasoned with Sazon or achiote oil (aka annatto seed oil) the "saffron" of the Caribbean. A can of pigeon peas, some olives with a little juice, made on a slightly higher than usual heart to get that pegao, burnt rice at the bottom of the pot.
Pernil (Pork)
Slow roasted pork shoulder slathered in spices and garlic. Bone in skin always on.
... then there's the dish I was terrified to eat as a kid, because it looked and smelled "weird" but ended up being so delicious and really hard to make!
Pasteles
Grated plantains stuffed with a saucy meat filling, wrapped in a banana leaf or parchment paper, then boiled.
Coquito
Which is not Puerto Rican egg nog, please stop calling it that. It's white Bacardi rum, coconut milk, some spices. Everyone makes it differently. I'm going to have a coquito making workshop on December 25th, for those who want to party but are social distancing this holiday season.
Entenmann's Pound Cake
Salad
Iceberg lettuce with tomatoes, drizzled with canola oil and white vinegar. The least exciting thing but I guess we needed veggies 🤷🏽♀️
Grandma would start crazy early in order to put the food out by 12 noon because the Pernil took 5 hours. The food would sit out on the stove, buffet style... well, except for the peril that sat in a warm oven because there was no where else to put it in her tiny kitchen.
We would scatter through out the 2 bedroom apartment and throughout the building because our aunt and cousin lived on the 2nd floor and thats where the pasteles were.
The front room that faced the street was the larger bedroom where the video games were. As the years went by, the game systems went from Atari to Sega Saturn. This was also the room that people would scream into the window from the street because we couldn't hear the bell ring over all the loud conversations, Puerto Rican and New Yorker... very loud combo. In general, this is how New Yorkers get each others attention, by screaming from the ground floor up.
The room next to it was where you went to have a private conversation because you're sandwiched between loud kids and then a short hallway that doubled as a walk thru closet, where grandma stored the family archives that we weren't allowed to touch, into the living room.
The living room is where a majority of the family was, watching T.V. with thin paper plates of heavy food balancing on their laps, cups on the floor. Some people sat on the floor, 5 people squeezed on to grandma's futon that actually sits 3 thick aunts, one in the rocking chair, and there was always someone sitting in someones lap.
Then there was the kitchen ❤️ where the main entrance into the apartment was. It's where you greeted people with hugs and kisses, took jackets and stacked 20 of them on top of 3 hooks and some how they never fell. The door straddled the kitchen and living room so if you were bringing a new beau to grandma's for the first time they were immediately overwhelmed and sucked into the family. But my favorite spot in the kitchen was a chair by the kitchen window, the furthest end of the railroad apartment, because I can look right down the entire apartment and see the whole family in each room. I love(d) grandma's kitchen.
Surprisingly, this year isn't that different from last. As we all get older, move out of New York due to high cost of living, someone can't afford to fly back home because they have 5 kids, we have new families we join, some just never show up anymore, there's a cousin in jail... again, and grandma hates cooking. She's also no longer strong enough to go up the stairs to our cousin's place, and if she could, it wouldn't matter because our cousin now goes and volunteers in Puerto Rico because our aunt, his mother passed away and it's too painful to be home for the holidays.
I haven't seen my family in over a year and I miss them, didn't think I would. Took a pandemic to show me how much my family’s story and traditions mean to me. Yes, crowding in grandma's place is the tradition, we don't have many.
Shining A Light on Puerto Rican Cuisine
Reina Gascón-López's arroz con gandules from New York Times Magazine
Thank you New York Times Magazine and Bon Appetit for killing it this holiday season by highlighting Puerto Rican chefs and their recipes, WEPA! 🎺💃🇵🇷 .
One of the chef's is Reina Gascón-López and her arroz con gandules, adapted by Samin Nosrat was featured in New York Times Magazine. It is the recipe of my dreams! Homemade Adobe, heating up the annatto seeds to make achiote oil, using culantro in my sofrito.... none of this is happening. Why? Because I burn my achiote oil, I can't make a decent sofrito or homemade adobe, there's always something missing and I can't figure it out. That's why it's my dream! I would like to share how I make mine. I eyeball my rice, I taste the water after seasoning to see if I need anymore of anything then bringing rice to a boil. I don't write recipes lol.
Serves 3’ish, serves me 😉
1 small hamhock (special occasions usually)
2 ish cups long white grain rice
2 ish table spoons olive oil
½ ish cup sofrito <<<< click for Illyanna Maisonet's recipe.
1 big squirt of tomato paste
1 packet of Sazon con Culantro y Achiote
As many stuffed Manzanilla olives I feel like eating and with a little olive juice
1 15-ounce can gandules, drained (some use the liquid, I use to)
Instructions
Boil hamhock for 20 mins, make sure it's submerged in the water.
Wash the rice till drained water runs clear'ish.
Drizzle olive oil in medium sized sauce pan, heat oil on medium heat so you can lightly toast the rice, then tomato paste. When you can lightly toasted or just allow the rice to absorb the oil and tomato paste changes things.
Add enough water, I measure water with my finger. From the surface of the rice to my knuckle is how much water I want. Does that make sense? Like less than a ½ inch of water over the rice. Here's an explanation, I love the internet.
Add the sofrito, Sazon, olives, a little juice, ham hock and gandules to the pot. This is where I taste the water to see if I want to add more of whatever. Sometimes I can more olive brine, more sofrito, more sazon, I might randomly sprinkling in Adobe.
Then bring to a boil, cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 20 mins
To get the pegao (burnt rice) at the bottom of the pot, I tend to crank the heat up a bit towards the end... this is the best part!