Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Dulceras

Dulces, recipes below

Iberians in the sugar producing regions of colonial Latin America and Brazil devoured dulces (sweets) created largely by Afro-Hispanic women known as dulceras. About noon they roamed the streets of urban centers with platters of sweets for sale ousted on their heads. They sold cakes, pies, and in the words of one visitor to Havana in the nineteenth century “little bowls and cups of freshly made sweetmeats, preserved guavas and mammees (an apple like fruit), grated coconut stewed in sugar, and a very delicious custard made with cocoanut-milk, besides various other fruit-preparations.” These venders worked for masters who sent them out to hawk their wares as part of what was called in colonial Latin America the jornal system. This system gave enslaved African women who came from societies in which women ran local food markets in Africa an opportunity to use their entrepreneurial skills with the understanding that they would give the majority of their earnings to their masters and keep the rest (say for example, 25 cents of every dollar). The master’s assumption was that their slave would turn in the desired earning percentage. Historic records show stealing as form of resistance to one’s master was rampant and as a result enslaved entrepreneurs working under the jornal system often gained the capital necessary for them to purchase their freedom and start their own businesses. The key here is that these women had lucrative culinary skills that their owners needed and thus provided the enslaved person a degree of leverage within an oppressive relationship. It was dulceras across Latin America that one finds in the historic records as some of the first enslaved people who earned enough income to purchase their freedom, that of loved ones, and often go on to establish profitable eateries such as taverns and boarding houses with employees.

Baked pineapple with coconut dulces recipe: http://canelakitchen.blogspot.com/2010/06/baked-pineapple-with-coconut-and-honey.html

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Plantains

Spicy plantains, recipes below

Banana and plantains are indigenous to India. We know that after Asian traders introduced them to Africa during the Christian era, cooks gradually made them a staple across West and Central Africa. African cooks steamed, boiled, grilled, and fried plantains. Some recipes call for green ones which taste more like a potato or you they ate them overripe in they are sweet. African women made plantains into flour for breads and fritters, drinks, fried chips, and as fufu. Like other Asian plants, Africans introduced them to the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade. Travelers to the Andean region found fried and roasted plantains had become a classic dish among poor Columbians and Ecuadorians of various ethnic groups because South America had so many plantains. Thus they naturally became one of the staples foods for all sectors of society. My favorite way to prepare plantains are to slice them into long thin pieces, deep fry them golden brown, and serve them seasoned with grated fresh ginger, cayenne pepper, and sea salt. My children loved them served that way. Below are a host of great plantain recipes:

Plantain recipes: http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/Articles/Ethnic-Unique-Foods-Ingredients-645/plantain.aspx

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Chocolate and Cassava

Cassava chocolate cake, recipes below 

In the viceroyalty of Peru, which included modern day Colombia, Iberians in urban centers purchased a sizeable number of enslaved Africans for cooking and other household tasks. Enslaved Africans also worked on large plantation cultivating the cacao plant which produced the key ingredient for making chocolate. People in Cartagena, Colombia loved chocolate so much “that there is not a negro slave but constantly allows himself a [delight] of it after breakfast; and the negro women sell [cakes made with corn, cassava, and chocolate] . . . about the streets,” wrote traveler Charles Stuart Cochrane in the early nineteenth century. The ingredients used to make these popular chocolate cakes illustrate the culinary syncretism that emerged at the intersection of African, Indian, and Iberian influences. Below are recipes for cassava chocolate cakes:

Cassava chocolate cake recipe: http://cookingdiva.net/blog/comments/la_receta_del_dia_cake_de_yuca_al_chocolate_y_coco_mandioca-chocolate_and_c/

Cassava chocolate avocado cake video recipe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfdVfAD5iGw

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Empanadas

Guava Empanadas, recipe below

As a senior in high school, Latin Americans bodegas in North Tarrytown (now Sleepy Hollow) became my introduction to Hispanic foodways. I became exposed to them while working weekends with my father. By my senior year in high school in 1981, my older brothers were out of the house and my dad and I spent lots of early weekend mornings cleaning offices including Frank’s Fuel. Frank’s lay in an industrial section of Sleepy Hollow on the outskirts of a Hispanic neighborhood. The Hudson river side of town has historically been where immigrants from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic lived. My dad with give me a couple of bucks to get some food. One day, I found this corner bodega up the street from the entrance to the GM plant that had really great fruit empanadas. They had delicious fruit fillings such as pineapple and my favorite, Guava. I’d buy a couple of empanadas and a carton of orange juice and was good to go. Iberian immigrants introduced empanadas to Caribbean and other parts of the Latin America during the colonial period. It wasn’t long before they became a fixture on family tables across Americas with regional differences based on local ingredients. 


Guava Empanada Recipe: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=656455

Back to School Foodways Series: The Croton Dinner

Croton Dinner located on the corner of 9A and 129 in Croton-on-Hudson, NY. Great food and a family atmosphere in 1970

If you're from my home town of Croton-on-Hudson, or perhaps from any Westchester County town, back to school food as something to do with a local dinner. In my town high school students viewed the Croton Dinner as an iconic symbol of our teenage experience in the 1970s and early 1980s. Open since 1970, the dinner had a Greek owner who we all knew as Pete who wisely opened his place with a 24 hour operating schedule. In our small town no eatery competed with it because of its hours, great burgers, large salads, breakfast food (pancakes, waffles, French toast, and home fries) 24 hours a day, great baked goods—including killer fruit pies, and layer cakes by the slice, and enormous muffins. On a Friday or Saturday night, a corn bread muffin toasted on the grill and served with melted butter was one of my favorites! Baked large and thick, those corn muffins with a large glass of milk tied me over until breakfast the next day. Congrats Pete on celebrating 40 years in business! That is a real accomplishment in a town that has seen its share of restaurants, delis, and other eateries come and go. Here are some corn muffin recipes if you can't make to the dinner:

Sweet corn muffin recipe: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/sweet-corn-muffins/Detail.aspx

Vegan corn muffin recipe: http://www.theppk.com/recipes/dbrecipes/index.php?RecipeID=68

Back to School Foodways Series: Part 5 Howard University

It’s amazing how some stories stick with you over the years. That’s the case with the story my older brother Marshall Noel Opie (named after Thurgood Marshall) told my family about his first meal as a Howard University freshmen in the fall of 1980. Marshal and I grew up in middle class predominately white school system in Westchester County. I believe my mother encouraged him to attend an HBCU like Howard because it’s a good school with a long tradition of excellence. Moreover it’s a school for giving a healthy dose of the black experience to black African American youth who grow up in white suburbs. My first academic job was at Morehouse College (the House) a HBCU in Atlanta and I found that students with similar backgrounds also chose the House for the same reason-tradition and a parent interest in seeing them gain an Afrocentric inculcation. Marshall tells the story that at the first meal—a formal southern fried chicken sit down with all the fixings—the students hesitated before eating. They were looking for clues from each other about how to eat the fried chicken: knife fork it or work it with your finger and mouth? Most started with the knife and fork. After a pause that seemed like an eternity, my brother said non-verbally, oh forget elitist customs and gripped his fried chicken with his hands and went to town. His response triggered a chain reaction and everybody followed suite laughing and enjoying the finger licking good fried chicken

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