Much like culture itself, culture-specific meals are complex and rich with history. It’s always worth stepping outside of your regular diet to try something new and maybe even learn a little bit in the process.
Puerto Rican history includes its indigenous peoples, colonization and slavery, and these different presences are all reflected in Puerto Rican genographic make up today. Different ancestral groups in Puerto Rican history all contributed their respective wisdom and practice to its culture, encompassing elements such as religion, architecture and cooking style. According to National Geographic’s Genographic Project, the average Puerto Rican’s genome breaks down into 12 percent Native American, 65 percent West Eurasian and 20 percent Sub-Saharan African. In terms of history, this dispersal may be attributed to Spanish colonization of the Caribbean, where welcome.topuertorico.org said 16th century Spaniards took native women from the Carib and Tainos tribes and raped them to repopulate. Upon arrival of African slaves, further mixing of culture ensued, both forced and voluntary.
As a result of this cultural blending, several new foods arose, one of the most well-known being mofongo. The fried dish comes from a mixture of plantains, meat or vegetable filling and garlic, all processed through particular mashing and pounding technique. According to The Washington Post, mashing root vegetables was derived from both indigenous people and Africans, and the technique for making mofongo, which requires adding fat to soften the mashed plantains, comes from Angolan tradition. Spanish influences on the dish include garlic and other spices like cloves as well as traditional pork filling.
If you’d like to try out mofongo on your own here are the basics:
Ingredients
- 3 green plantains
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 cups water
- 3 garlic cloves (minimum)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Cooking oil
- Salt and pepper (to taste)
- Pork rinds fried in lard, plus lard or fried bacon, plus fat (optional)
- Fresh cilantro (optional)
Procedure
- Heat oil in deep fryer
- Peel plantains
- Cut bacon or pork rinds into small pieces
- Fry bacon or pork rinds until crispy and put to the side, saving the fat
- Once cooking oil is heated, add plantain and cook until golden
- Meanwhile, sautee your garlic in the fat you saved until golden brown
- Crush garlic in mortar
- Mash fried plantains and blend with other ingredients to a paste, do not overmix
- Flip mortar to reveal dome-shaped mofongo
- Refry if desired
