Mamá, Borinquen me llama
Reflections on an overdue trip to the motherland, a figgy piggy pizza, and more.
I was sitting in the back of my mom’s car on the way home one afternoon when she taught me a song:
¡"Mamá! ¡Borinquen me llama!
¡Este país no es el mío!
Borinquen es pura flama,
¡y aquí me muero de frío"!
[Mother, Borinquen calls me/This is not my country/Borinquen is pure flame/ and here I am freezing to death!]
Excitedly, she called my dad to have me sing him my new song over the phone (and knowing myself, I probably refused. The battle against performing on command was constant. I was a diva who refused to work for free). For me it was just a song whose lyrics I barely understood beyond their literal meaning. For my mother, who for much of my childhood talked of going back to Puerto Rico, I think her delight in my learning the song came not just from her own homesickness, but in her desire to have her own children associate Puerto Rico with home, even if it was not where we lived - to share a connection to the island she missed so much.
I thought of this song as my plane touched down in the San Juan airport a few weeks ago, apprehensive of what I would find after so many years away. I had made that journey countless times, frequently enough to only barely notice the subtle changes that came with each visit. I don’t remember when we stopped clapping upon arrival (a practice that I am in the minority in wholeheartedly defending). It must have been around 2001, post 9/11, when my grandfather could no longer stand right at the gate so that we could see him when we disembarked. Over the years my visits became less frequent as both my personal life and the situation on the island generally made visiting more complicated, and it had been my first time landing at the airport in a few years.
This time around the crowds of families waiting excitedly for their loved ones to clear the baggage claim area were nowhere to be seen, save for a couple of people, replaced instead by a Covid checkpoint and healthcare workers that I’m told people call “Los Minions” because of their yellow and blue uniforms. As a kid I would wait with my mother and brother for what seemed like eternity in the pickup area, standing on my tiptoes to see if I could spot my Abuela circling the airport to pick us up, desperate for the respite of the car AC and maybe a Happy Meal once we made the one hour journey to Ponce. This time around, I wandered around a strangely desolate airport pickup area following the signs to meet Erik the Uber driver at the rideshare area. I used to say that you could blindfold me and I would recognize that airport just by the smell of the hot air and humidity the second you step out the automatic doors. If it weren’t for the sound of the coquis and the blast of humidity, I’m not sure I would have immediately recognized this place I had passed through a million times before.
Visiting Puerto Rico for the first time in a while felt like going to a class reunion and bumping into a good looking ex. When did you become so beautiful? Or were you always this way and I just was too stupid to notice? I’m happy for you but damn, it does hurt a little. Immigrants and their children (or whatever you would classify Puerto Ricans in the mainland who, technically speaking, are not immigrants) dine out on nostalgia. The same place we would often complain was too hot, too congested, too chaotic now looked fresh and lush. It’s sadly the moment you stop taking a place for granted and the nostalgia kicks in that that place stops being your home. Homesickness is a longing for a home far away from you, but nostalgia for a place is mourning something that no longer exists. Long after the familial ties are gone and the mother tongue is rendered useless, we cling on to whatever stimulus transports us back - a favorite dessert, the smell of a specific perfume, the opening bars of a favorite song. Even the song my mother taught me speaks of a good plate of arroz con pollo and a decent cup of coffee like other songs bemoan the loss of a great lover.
My Puerto Rico, to the extent I could ever have called it “mine,” is from the before. Before the pandemic, Maria, la Junta, the earthquakes. Before we sold the apartment in Humacao. Before my grandfather died, before my uncle died, before my aunt got sick. Before my Dad’s parents moved away and before their next door neighbor, who I only knew as “Bird Man” got rid of all his birds. Before. Before. Before. No matter how beautiful Puerto Rico seems to me now, there is a part of me sad to see things change, as though I’m owed something by this piece of land. I want it to fossilize for my own selfish purposes. But in my heart I know worse than moving on is never changing, even if it means the rope that once tethered me to the island is now fraying at a terrifying pace. The remaining strings – a grandmother, a cousin, a couple aunts – will too at some point let go.
I wonder what my future children’s connection to this island will be. I want to believe I will keep Puerto Rico alive for them, through language (despite my own resistance as a child to speak), through traditions, through food. But if I’m being honest with myself they will see this place as somewhere in stories. As time goes by my own telling of it will be as distant as Narnia or Hogwarts. Will my children know the delight of eating a rapidly melting cherry piragua on a hot day, licking the red syrup off their lips and pretending it’s red lip stick? Will that cherry flavor permeate their memories the way it has mine? Will they know what a quenepa is, how the hell you’re supposed to eat it or that you probably will have better luck finding them on the side of the road than at the supermarket? Or will Puerto Rico be just a place they visited a couple times on vacation? A heritage they will mention only once in a while at parties when they want to seem intresting. A place they see on the news (only when something bad happens) and feel a very vague connection to it because they grew up eating tostones. Will they be embarassed of their accent when they speak Spanish, as I am, or will they be at that point considered gringo enough to impress people when they speak it?
So many of memories of Puerto Rico surround food, rituals that I took for granted and now seem so special. Pressed turkey and cheddar sandwiches on pan de aqua with my parents at Cafeteria Espana on the way to the airport. Rainbow sherbet with my grandparents at the Baskin Robbins. Fried cheese balls on New Year’s Eve with my cousins, preferring to burn the roofs of our mouths than wait until they cool and risk not getting one. Grease soaked paper bags of chicharones de pollo from Pizza Heaven. The best I can do is try to create new rituals with Puerto Rican food, even if they’re not the dishes I grew up with. I save every article in every magazine or newspaper that has a Puerto Rican recipe in it. Every Christmas I say it will be the Christmas I finally learn how to make pasteles. I’m still in search of the perfect recipe for barrigas de vieja (translation: old lady bellies) a pumpkin fritter that I have never actually tried but have heard my father talk about countless times. Like so many other first generation-ers with an obsession with food (or, again, whatever you would classify us as), I cling on to the hope that I will always be able to whip up an arroz con pollo the way my grandmother did, carefully deboning the chicken so every bite gets chicken AND rice, and be transported to her sweltering kitchen one more time. Maybe my children won’t know the Puerto Rico I grew up with, but maybe I will finally learn how to make that pumpkin flan we always have at Thanksgiving. I can tell them that its the recipe from their great great grandmother, written during the era where recipes were more general guidelines rather than exact timeframes and measurements.
As I wander around the airport before my return flight, I encounter a bag of Carla’s Sweets mantecaditos, or as my family jokingly calls them “little lardies.” The colorful cellophane wrapping and plastic ribbon that have not changed since I was little tempt me as I try to fool myself into thinking that I can bring these home as a souvenir for my boyfriend, as though I wouldn’t polish off the entire bag the moment I sit on the plane. I decide against buying them, reminding myself that the cookies aren’t going anywhere, I can always just get them next time around. For the first time, I realize that someday I will be standing there, debating the cookies, and not know that there is not a next time around. There will be a trip, hopefully far in the future, that will be my last, and I probably won’t notice until it’s too late. A life without Puerto Rico was something that as a child would have never occurred to me. As an adult, I catalogue my memories, my favorite foods, whatever smells, tastes, or sounds can still bring me back in time, knowing that someday all I will have left is nostalgia.
Recipe: Fig and Prosciutto Pizza
When I was studying in Buenos Aires, I lived with a host family that had 2 young children. When they were good, they would beg to be taken to Pertucci’s, the Argentine equivalent of a Chuck E Cheese but somehow more refined and with much better food and no creepy animatronics. I’m sure any Argentine reading this would be offended to know that it was there that I had one of the best pizzas of my life. While the kids would play, my host mom, her teenage daughter and I would dig into a fig and prosciutto pizza. The super sweet figs with the salty fatty prosciutto and creamy cheese make this almost too rich, but the fresh peppery arugula salad ontop gives it just the rite amount of fresh bite to keep it in check.
1 pound favorite pizza dough, removed from fridge and brought to room temp for an hour.
2 tablespoons olive oil
Cornmeal or semolina (for sprinkling)
4 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced thick
1/3 cup fig jam
balsamic vinegar, to taste
2 cups arugula
8 slices prosciutto
Parmesan shavings, to taste.
Place baking sheet in oven and preheat to 450°F. With your fingers, spread out dough on floured work surface, working from the center out until thin at the bottom, leaving about an inch perimeter with the dough thicker. Remove sheet from oven and, working quickly, drizzle olive oil on the sheet. Sprinkle dough with cornmeal or semolina and transfer to sheet, cornmeal-dusted side down. Dollop the fig jam followed by the mozzarella slices. Bake until crust is golden brown on bottom, and light gold ontop, about 10-15 min.
While pizza bakes, toss arugula in a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, just enough to get it wet, but not soggy. Add black pepper, to taste. Once the pizza is out of the oven, put prosciutto slices over, covering the pizza. Transfer pizza to cutting board. Sprinkle the salad over the pizza as well as the Parmesan shavings. Slice and serve.
Hits, misses, recommendations
This Achiote Chicken Stew comes together easily in the slow cooker, and is hearty and healthy without too much effort.
It’s football season (so I hear). If you’re looking for a good wings recipe, these Hot honey wings are amazing, though very spicy. You can to the last step with a broiler if you aren’t up for heating up a grill.
The perfect ragú is my white whale. I don’t know if this Weeknight Ragu will be my be all end all, but until I find The One I will happily go steady with this one.
I’m just as interested in Puerto Rican food from the diaspora as I am in the traditional dishes. This ultra-savory, super garlicky Nuyorican Grilled Chicken was definitely worth a repeat. Don’t skip on the homemade sazon. It makes more than what you need for the recipe and is a great alternative to the Goya stuff that a little too heavy on the MSG for my taste.
I continue to be awful at pie. This Blueberry and peach graham galette was a flop for me (it came together fine, but didn’t have much of the promised graham flavor to justify the extra step/ingredient). I fared better with a peach lattice pie flavor-wise, but def need to work on my presentation skills (forgot to take a pic). If any of you have a good beginner pie guide, please send the intel over!
As far as reading goes, see if you can get your hands on the September 6 Issue of the New Yorker (if you subscribe, you can get it on the app, but I was able to find it through my public library’s Libby app). It’s a food themed issue full of essays from writers like Joan Didion (re: Martha Stewart) and Anthony Bourdain (re: behind the scenes at the kitchen of Les Halles). The whole thing is full of the kind of writing that makes me almost embarrassed to write publicly. My favorite was “Gastronomy Recalled: Once a Tramp, Always” by M.F.K. Fisher. She touches on similar themes as I do in this month’s essay, nostalgia and food, while exploring the sensation of craving. She’s the G.O.A.T. of food writing for a reason!
As always thanks for reading and sharing. Until next month!