Let's turn the idea of authenticity on its head.
That's the provocative idea Von Diaz introduces at the beginning of her new book,Coconuts and Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South."People are very interested in eating authentic food from the places that they're not from," Diaz told me over the phone recently. "But authenticity, when it comes to a culture, a community, an island like Puerto Rico, is really complicated to drill down."
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The questionWhat is Puerto Rican food?has more than one answer. "Is authenticity the food that comes from the indigenousTainos?" Diaz asks. "Is authenticity food informed by enslaved people? Is authenticity Spanish?" In Puerto Rico—and almost everywhere else—the dishes that are native to the country have roots that reach far beyond it.
This idea of combining things plays out in more ways than one inCoconuts. First, there's the book's form: it is part memoir, part cookbook, part photographic tribute to the landscape of Puerto Rico. Then there's the food. Diaz moved from Puerto Rico to Atlanta, Georgia as a child, and the book chronicles the food of both of these homes. The recipes aren't strictly Puerto Rican and they aren't strictly Southern—they're Diaz's own, based on her personal food history and her love of both cuisines.
That comes through in recipes like apestomade not from basil but rather the staple Puerto Rican herbculantro, and in Diaz's Sofrito Bloody Mary. Her coconut grits are a nod to both the Southern staple and a dish made by enslaved indigenous and African people in Puerto Rico during Spanish colonization.
Whatever Puerto Rican foodis,exactly, Diaz wants people to pay more attention to it. Especially in light of Hurricane Maria'sdevastation.
"The people I know on the island are incredibly resilient," she says. "I can't image having been without power for so long." (As of January,450 thousand residents were still without power.) "Of course, it's shifting food on the island. From what I've seen, cooks are starting to, out of necessity, grow their own food again. But a cuisine of scarcity has been a part of the island for a very, very, very long time. People are used to working with limited resources—and they shouldn't have to continue to be used to it."
Diaz hopes that the book she wrote, and the stories she tells, will start a conversation about food in Puerto Rico. "There's a real opportunity to get to know a cuisine that people might never have explored—despite the fact that Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. There's a real richness and vitality to the cuisine there and the potential for its flavors."
A good place to start: Diaz's recipe forsazon, the spice blend that's essential to most Puerto Rican home cooks. "Every Puerto Rican I have ever met has sazon in their house. It's an umami punch—you can put it in literally any kind of braise and it will make it taste incredible."
It's common in Puerto Rico to buy Goya Sazon, a packaged mix of coriander, garlic, cumin, annatto, and a hearty dose of sodium and MSG. When she first started cooking Puerto Rican food, Diaz used it all the time. But she worried it was becoming a crutch. "I wanted to elevate this very simple, essential spice mix to a level that celebrated how delicious it was, and move away from thinking it's a lazy fix for a dish. There's a reason it's delicious. It's full of delicious spices." She removed the MSG, added turmeric for color, and mixed her own powerful blend of garlic and onion powders, ground cumin, black pepper, salt, and achiote. The result is a spice blend meant for Puerto Rican cooking—or not.
"My boyfriend took one look at it and was like, 'Oh this would be great forbeef tacos,'" Diaz remembers. "At first my reaction was,I had never thought of that. That's not what it was intended for.But you know what? It was delicious."
