美国国家公共电台 NPR Puerto Rican Cooking And The American South Mix In 'Coconuts And Collards'

Puerto Rican Cooking And The American South Mix In 'Coconuts¹ And Collards'

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

What do you get when you marry Puerto Rican spice with Southern comfort food? "Coconuts And Collards" is Von Diaz's new cookbook, which combines the flavors of her childhood in the American South with her Puerto Rican heritage. And she says the idea began with her grandmother's 1962 copy of "Cocina Criolla."

VON DIAZ: "Cocina Criolla" in Puerto Rico is considered by a lot of people to be kind of the Puerto Rican "Joy Of Cooking."

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And how did you use it?

DIAZ: This book really came as a result of a project that I started four years ago - kind of "Julie & Julia" style to cook my way through that cookbook. It was, as you said, my grandmother's copy. I really wanted to use kind of this quest through the book as a way to connect to her and the way that she had learned to cook. And I found fairly quickly that while the dishes that I was making out of the book were, you know, really rife² with nostalgia³, and they were certainly delicious, they felt really outdated⁴ and sort of very heavy, very greasy⁵ preparations. And so I started to instead use it as a guide for evolving cooking techniques and dishes that were kind of similar to those dishes but a little bit more upgraded and also included some fusion⁶, for lack of a better term, of the places that I had grown up and lived.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'd like you to take me back to your grandmother's kitchen. She seemed like someone who loved cooking and loved reading about food.

DIAZ: Absolutely. I mean, my grandmother, who, in many ways, is my culinary muse⁷, was an incredible cook. I mean, she was the kind of cook that people would coincidentally show up at her house. They were sort of just passing through the neighborhood and would walk in her front door, kind of sniffing⁸ the air to see what was going on. And so when I was a little kid, my mom several times sent me to Puerto Rico to spend the entire summer with her. And during those trips, I would inevitably⁹ end up in her kitchen, watching her cook. And so she started to give me little tasks.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You had a very different experience, though, in the United States when you were living in Georgia. You describe having food insecurity in the United States. As a child, you sort of cared for your younger sister. It was just a very different experience.

DIAZ: Yeah, definitely. I feel like in many ways, you know, my grandmother was this very sophisticated, very gourmet¹⁰ cook in her own right. And my mother is a very good cook, but because of the circumstances of our life working as a single mom and also having some real financial hardships off and on, we ended up just having really limited ingredients in our household. And my mom is an incredible innovator¹¹ when it comes to the kitchen. And so she was always figuring out these little ways to make very little food super delicious.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: You mix these two legacies¹² of the southern United States and Puerto Rico. I want you to talk me through your Brussels sprout¹³ recipe, which is not something that we normally eat down south, you know, in the Caribbean.

DIAZ: So my grandmother, for whatever reason - she had a really interesting, really unusual taste for vegetables.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And we should say that Puerto Rican food, Cuban food doesn't - not a lot of vegetables there.

DIAZ: Exactly - my grandmother - all she had access to, at least when my mom was a kid, were frozen Brussels sprouts¹⁴, which she was forever trying to get my mom and my uncle and my aunt to eat. She would put sofrito on them. She would put olive oil and garlic. And they didn't like them.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: We should say sofrito is the staple¹⁵...

DIAZ: Exactly. Sofrito is the flavor base of almost all Puerto Rican food. So it's typically garlic, onion, pepper, culantro or cilantro. And you blend it into a spice paste. And so ultimately, what I did was combine what is a really traditional way of preparing Brussels sprouts in the South, which is to either saute them or roast them with some kind of pork fat and instead use chorizo, which is more traditionally used in Puerto Rico and also references that Spanish root to Puerto Rican food. And so I combined all of those ingredients as a way to say, you know, Tata (ph) if you had had access to these ingredients in this way, you might have come up with this yourself.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'd like to talk a little bit about what Puerto Rico has been going through recently. You've been in touch with many people in Puerto Rico's food world. What have they been telling you about how the island is coping now and how that's really affecting the way people are eating there?

DIAZ: You know, I think it's really been a struggle. In the fourth chapter of "Coconuts And Collards," I talk a lot about an incredible chef named Berto (ph). And his entire community has actually been without power since Hurricane Irma. My cousin who's on the island has told me that, interestingly, because of the lack of power and also lack of access to things like meat, a lot of people have kind of gone vegan. So they're eating more of the fresh produce that grows naturally on the island and innovating¹⁶.

And I know that for me, when I cook Puerto Rican food lately, I do it a little bit differently. I was making a stock the other day and realized that I had an entire container of rock salt from Cabo Rojo, which is on the southwest tip of the island. And when I put that salt into my stock, it felt different than it had before. It felt like I was honoring my island and continuing to celebrate its cuisines¹⁷ and to hope for recovery and that people would make it through.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Von Diaz is a writer and a radio producer based in New York. Her new cookbook is "Coconuts And Collards." (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: (Speaking Spanish).

1 coconuts   

n.椰子( coconut的名词复数 )；椰肉，椰果

参考例句：

• We found a bountiful supply of coconuts on the island. 我们发现岛上有充足的椰子供应。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Coconuts provide "meat", drink, oil, soap and fiber for fishing line. 椰子提供“肉类”，饮料、油脂、肥皂和做钓（鱼）丝的纤维。 来自百科语句

2 rife   

adj.(指坏事情)充斥的，流行的，普遍的

参考例句：

• Disease is rife in the area.疾病在这一区很流行。
• Corruption was rife before the election.选举之前腐败盛行。

3 nostalgia   

n.怀乡病，留恋过去，怀旧

参考例句：

• He might be influenced by nostalgia for his happy youth.也许是对年轻时幸福时光的怀恋影响了他。
• I was filled with nostalgia by hearing my favourite old song.我听到这首喜爱的旧歌，心中充满了怀旧之情。

4 outdated   

adj.旧式的，落伍的，过时的；v.使过时

参考例句：

• That list of addresses is outdated,many have changed.那个通讯录已经没用了，许多地址已经改了。
• Many of us conform to the outdated customs laid down by our forebears.我们许多人都遵循祖先立下的过时习俗。

5 greasy   

adj. 多脂的，油脂的

参考例句：

• He bought a heavy-duty cleanser to clean his greasy oven.昨天他买了强力清洁剂来清洗油污的炉子。
• You loathe the smell of greasy food when you are seasick.当你晕船时，你会厌恶油腻的气味。

6 fusion   

n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接

参考例句：

• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc. 黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
• This alloy is formed by the fusion of two types of metal.这种合金是用两种金属熔合而成的。

7 muse   

n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感

参考例句：

• His muse had deserted him,and he could no longer write.他已无灵感，不能再写作了。
• Many of the papers muse on the fate of the President.很多报纸都在揣测总统的命运。

8 sniffing   

n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• We all had colds and couldn't stop sniffing and sneezing. 我们都感冒了，一个劲地抽鼻子，打喷嚏。
• They all had colds and were sniffing and sneezing. 他们都伤风了，呼呼喘气而且打喷嚏。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

9 inevitably   

adv.不可避免地；必然发生地

参考例句：

• In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去，毫无疑问是会散伙的。
• Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。

10 gourmet   

n.食物品尝家；adj.出于美食家之手的

参考例句：

• What does a gourmet writer do? 美食评论家做什么？
• A gourmet like him always eats in expensive restaurants.像他这样的美食家总是到豪华的餐馆用餐。

11 innovator   

n.改革者；创新者

参考例句：

• The young technical innovator didn't lose heart though the new system was not yet brought into a workable condition. 尽管这种新方法尚未达到切实可行的状况，这位青年技术革新者也没有泄气。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Caesar planned vast projects and emerged as a great innovator. 恺撒制定了庞大的革新计划。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史

12 legacies   

n.遗产( legacy的名词复数 )；遗留之物；遗留问题；后遗症

参考例句：

• Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind. 书是伟大的天才留给人类的精神财富。 来自辞典例句
• General legacies are subject to the same principles as demonstrative legacies. 一般的遗赠要与指定数目的遗赠遵循同样的原则。 来自辞典例句

13 sprout   

n.芽，萌芽；vt.使发芽，摘去芽；vi.长芽，抽条

参考例句：

• When do deer first sprout horns?鹿在多大的时候开始长出角？
• It takes about a week for the seeds to sprout.这些种子大约要一周后才会发芽。

14 sprouts   

n.新芽，嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出

参考例句：

• The wheat sprouts grew perceptibly after the rain. 下了一场雨，麦苗立刻见长。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The sprouts have pushed up the earth. 嫩芽把土顶起来了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 staple   

n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类

参考例句：

• Tea is the staple crop here.本地产品以茶叶为大宗。
• Potatoes are the staple of their diet.土豆是他们的主要食品。

16 innovating   

v.改革，创新( innovate的现在分词 )；引入（新事物、思想或方法），

参考例句：

• In this new century, the company keeps innovating and developing new products. 新世纪伊始，公司全面实施形象工程及整合营销，不断改革创新，开发高新产品。 来自互联网
• Beijing is backward most prime cause is innovating at system lack. 北京落后的最根本原因在于制度缺乏创新。 来自互联网

17 cuisines   

n.烹饪( cuisine的名词复数 )；菜肴；（通常指昂贵的饭店中的）饭菜；烹饪艺术

参考例句：

• Could you tell me the different features of these cuisines? 能不能告诉我这些不同的烹调流派各自有哪些特点？ 来自地道口语脱口SHOW 高中超越版
• Ice sculptures are used as decorations in some cuisines, especially in Asia. 冰雕在某些菜肴中被当作装饰品，尤其在亚洲。 来自互联网