A food historian savors the tastes of her island roots sweet mangoes, lobster empanadas, cinnamon-dusted milkshakes and discovers how homegrown ingredients along a lush shoreline set the table for the future
Intensely green, verging on chartreuse, plantains hang like chandeliers from tall broad-leafed plants across the Caribbean. The botanical name is Musa paradisiaca, the second word meaning “of paradise.”
The plátano is generous, and can be eaten in all stages of ripeness. In Puerto Rico, the greenest ones can be fried, smashed and blended with garlic, olive oil and chicharrones pork cracklins to make mofongo, one of the island’s best-known dishes. When their peels turn bright yellow, speckled with dark spots, plátanos can be fried and served alongside rice and beans for that signature agridulce flavor, sweet and salty. And when they finally become black and squishy, seemingly past their prime, their flesh can be boiled, then blended with butter, and then pressed into a pan to make pastelón, a casserole layered with sofrito-laced beef.