During this time my father was in a labor camp, for the crime of wanting to leave the country. Alone, and with few provisions, as my mother struggled to care for us, she was struck with inspiration. One day she went out to the back patio to do the wash and saw a cute little frog sitting by the door to the kitchen. My mother has always liked frogs, and this little frog by the kitchen door gave her an idea...
My father and I were very close, but I did not always get along with my mother, so even though she was a marvelous cook, I had never been interested in learning her cooking secrets. However, after my father’s death, I witnessed my mother’s severe deterioration and overwhelming sadness. Looking for a way to engage her, I had the idea to ask her to teach me how to cook like her...
A great many of the delicious foods that came out of Mamina’s kitchen began with a sofrito. It is the seasoning base for many Cuban dishes. Sofrito is sauted onions, peppers, garlic and sometimes tomatoes....
I love vegetables, I love salads, but that was not always the case. My mother used a lot of vegetables in the soups she made for us when we were children, but did not try to convince us to eat other vegetables.
Mamina loved this very simple, quick salad. Sliced cucumbers with vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. As a child I refused to eat it. I thought cucumbers were boring and that I didn't like vinegar and oil. Yucky adult food, would not even try it. Thank goodness we get to learn and grow in this life!
PEPINOS CON ACEITE Y VINAGRE or Cucumber Salad
1 Cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced 2 Tablespoons Raw Apple Cider Vinegar 1 Tablespoon Olive Oil 1/2 teaspoon Real Salt or sea salt Fresh ground black pepper, to taste
Peel and slice the cucumber. Add vinegar, olive oil and salt. Sprinkle with black pepper. Stir and taste. Enjoy.
I'm glad my children and grandchildren are not as silly as I was. They love this salad and if I make it and leave it on the counter, it usually gets eaten up before the rest of dinner is finished and served!
Here is a video with my granddaughters, making Pepino salad.
I've been thinking about my first Halloween. Our family arrived in the US at the end of July in the late 60's. My father's family helped us find a place to live, work, schools, etc. They taught us about this wondrous country and new culture. A couple of months later, we started hearing about Halloween. Our cousins explained that children dressed up in costumes, then went door to door and people gave them candy!
Wow, I loved dressing up in costumes. During our last few years in Cuba, Mamina had let us use her pretty loungerie to play princesses. She knew we would be leaving everything behind when permission to leave the country finally came, so why not let the children have some fun with her pretty things. We did have fun and destroyed her gowns, climbing, running and having sword fights.
So here we were in this new country I was still unsure about, and I find out there is a holiday for dressing up and pretending! Plus the candy. In Cuba we couldn't even buy candy, because there wasn't any to buy, and my cousins tell me that in the US the neighbors are going to give us candy just for dressing up and asking for it!!!!
And so at 13 years old I got to go trick or treating for the first and last time....unless you count taking the children trick or treating.
Halloween has me thinking about pumpkins. Pumpkin in Spanish is Calabaza, but the calabaza I knew in Cuba is nothing like a pumpkin. Well, it is shaped like a pumpkin, but it is a green spotted squash withyellow-orange flesh. I searched all over for a picture of the kind of calabazas we ate in Cuba but couldn't find a good one. This is the closest I found on the web: Calabaza Squash. It's also called West Indian Pumpkin. You can buy it in Latin markets, usually already cut in pieces, because it's hard to cut. Papillo was always searching for the right variety of seeds to grow a proper calabaza in Utah, but was not successful.
My mother often cooked calabaza, because my father loved it. She cut the calabaza in large pieces and cooked it in her pressure cooker, with a little water. It was soft in 5 minutes. While it cooked she sauted onions and garlic in olive oil. Sometimes just garlic. Then she'd take the calabaza out of the pressure cooker, pour garlic and oil over it, sprinkle with salt and scoop right off the peel to eat.
I can't find any real calabaza where I live, but I prepared some butternut squash in a similar way to how my mother cooked calabaza and it was delicious! Acorn squash (or any other hard winter squash) also works.
Butternut Squash
CALABAZA COCIDA - Winter Squash
½ of a calabaza squash, or butternut squash
3 garlic cloves
1 onion
3-4 Tablespoons olive oil or butter
Salt to taste
Wash squash. Cut into a few pieces, remove seeds. You can peel it at this point, but it is easier after it's cooked. Put the squash pieces in a pan with about 1 inch of water, cover and steam for 10-15 minutes, until tender. Just five minutes in a pressure cooker, let the pressure disipate completely before opening it. Peel the squash and cut it into smaller pieces
Pieces of butternut squash
Or leave it in large pieces
Acorn squash pieces
While the squash is cooking, slice onions and sauté them in butter or olive oil, on medium heat, until translucent
Mince or smash the garlic
Add to the sautéing onions and cook 1-2 minutes longer, the smell will be wonderful and permeate your whole house.
Spread this on top of the squash and sprinkle with salt generously.
This is good for you and yummy. Enjoy! "Calabaza, calabaza, cada uno pa' su casa"- a saying which basically means it's time to go home. Thanks for the reminder, Rosa!
My friend Rosa Hernandez (read more about her on her previous post Bacalao Con Papas ) is guest blogging once again! Reading this you will find that besides animals, reading and cooking she also loves music. I am so excited to share this wonderful post with you all! Thank you Rosa! Maria
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Growing up in Communist Cuba we didn’t have much. No one did. But we had each other, we had good friends and neighbors and we had Music. We always had music.
Some of my earliest memories have musical backgrounds, in our house the radio played all the time. I remember being very small and playing in the tub with plastic toys while my mother hovered somewhere nearby. The radio in the next room was playing this:
Orquesta Aragon “Los Pescadores de Varadero”
My father’s family all left Cuba early on but most of my mom’s family stayed behind. When I was growing up we would occasionally have family get togethers in our huge backyard. I remember my mom and her sisters-in-law in the kitchen cooking up Frituras. These were small fried morsels and always delicious. Typically they were made from grated vegetables but vegetables were hard to come by. They improvised by making what my uncle’s wife used to call “Frituras de Aire” Air Fritters. They were basically flour and water and garden grown herbs rolled into little balls and fried. They were delicious. At these get togethers, my grandfather and his brother Tio Felo would sing on their own or with the radio. I can almost hear them singing along to this:
Beny More “Maracaibo”
Oh so many memories associated with music! Songs I heard with my grandfather, songs I heard with my dad, my brother, songs my mom sang. With the passing of the years they should sound fainter…but they don’t.
FRITURAS DE AIRE
Just like modern day potato chips, these very plain frituras are not long on taste but they are hot, crunchy comfort food.
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
finely chopped fresh herbs of your choice. (I am sure dried herbs would be fine too. I used about 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil. I think dried would take less amount)
Oil for frying
Mix all together in a bowl to make a pancake like batter and let it rest for about 5 to 10 minutes. Letting it rest will enhance the flavor. In any case, though, the flavor will not be over powering.
Heat up your electric fryer or heat oil in a skillet and drop the batter by spoonfuls. They will turn golden quickly. Flip them. When the second side is golden, remove them quickly.
Let them rest a few minutes. They are actually better warm than piping hot. At least I thought so. The flavor came through better.
And that's it.
I had a friend assist me and we loved these and will make them again. I don't own an electric fryer, it's hers, so I would have to involve her in the next Fritura adventure. She assures me she is game. Next I want to try using cornmeal.
I toyed with the idea of adding sugar, soy sauce, crumbled bacon, bbq sauce (one or the other not all) but that would have violated the original concept of the "aire" idea set out by my mom and her sisters-in-law back in the day. Maybe I will try my additions at some point but these were fine and didn't necessarily need to be altered.
My sisters and I owe our parents not only for our lives, but also for our freedom. It wasn’t until I reached the age my parents were when we left Cuba, (mid 40's) that I began to appreciate the magnitude of their sacrifice. They left their home, possessions, friends, family, and the country of their birth, to start over as exiles in a place where they didn’t even speak the language.
For something much more valuable, FREEDOM…for their children…for me.
Once in this great country my parents worked hard at factory jobs and prospered far beyond anything they could have accomplished in Castro’s communist Cuba. They taught my sisters and me the value of hard work, education, family and most of all freedom. We, like countless others, have lived the American Dream.
I guess that is why I cringe as I notice the erosion of liberty going on in our society. Many well meaning entities wanting to tell us even something so basic as what we should eat and drink. Let us learn, even educate one another and then make our own choices! But getting the information we need is not always easy, for example some of us might not want to eat genetically modified food. Fifty other countries label it as such, but not yet the US. California is trying to remedy that with Proposition 37, the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act which will require that genetically engineered food be labeled, so that we have the freedom to choose wether we want to buy it or not. I think the companies fighting this are afraid of what the consumers will choose. If it passes in California, it will benefit the rest of the country. You can learn more about it HERE
This recipe will have you making some choices, since it is not very exact...but it is delicious! I will give you the recipe for a normal size cucumber (I used a giant one this last time), but it's all very much to taste. This is the way my mother always cooked, and I do take after her in that respect.
PEPINOS Y TOMATES-Cucumbers & Tomatoes
1 cucumber
3-4 tomatoes
3-4 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 to 1 teaspoon Salt
Pepper to taste
Wash, peel and cube the cucumber, wash and cut up the tomatoes. Mix them together until it looks like you have about the same amount of each and it looks pretty. Pour the apple cider vinegar over the cucumbers and tomatoes, these measurements are estimates because and I never measure it, I just pour some good quality vinegar over it till it looks like enough, and then I taste it. Then I pour a little less olive oil then the amount of vinegar over the vegetables. Again, the quality of oil will make a difference, use the best you can afford. Sprinkle with sea salt or Real Salt and grind some fresh pepper over it. Stir and taste. Add more of what ever as needed. You want it to be kind of vinegary and salty.
Two types of tomatoes and a very large cucumber my niece Michelle gave me
This is the King of Bean Soups and about as Cuban as you can get. I can't imagine any Cuban get together that doesn't involve food, and specifically Black Beans and rice as a featured complement to the main course. Many people think of beans as healthy, sensible, inexpensive, something you make to stretch your food budget. This bean soup is all that, but it is also delicious and an exotic experience for your taste buds. Picture yourself on a veranda, feeling the tropical breeze, eating these wonderful beans!
There are a many versions of this recipe, none as good as my mother's. Mamina made this for every family gathering, now it's my turn to continue this delicious tradition.
FRIJOLES NEGROS-Black Bean Soup
1 lb bag (2 cups) dry black beans (you can use canned beans and add the sofrito, but it won’t be as good) 3-4 bay leaves 2 teaspoons salt
Sofrito:
3-4 Tablespoons of olive oil 1 large green bell pepper 1 large onion 4-5 garlic cloves
Sort through the beans to take out any debris. Rinse and then cover them with water and soak overnight. Cook in soaking water, do not change it, so they don't loose any of their beautiful inky blackness. Add more water if needed, to about 2 inches above the beans, add the bay leaves.
If using a pressure cooker, cook 20- 25 minutes after pressure is reached. Otherwise use a heavy pan, bring the beans to a boil, then lower the temperature to low and cover them. Cook them for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until the beans are soft; if they dry out you can add more water. I like to set them at the back of the stove and forget about them. Don't worry, the aroma will remind you that they are cooking.
You can also cook them on high in a slow cooker for 7-8 hours. This actually works quite well. Then proceed with sofrito, etc.
Add the tablespoon of salt after they are soft, if you add it before cooking, the beans will be tough.
SOFRITO
While the beans are cooking, chop up pepper and onion. My mother stressed that the secret to her marvelous black beans was lots of green pepper. Sauté in olive oil, be generous with the oil for this one. Cook until the onions are translucent. Mash or mince the garlic and add to the sofrito, continue cooking for another minute or so.
When the beans are soft add the Sofrito to them, also the oregano, cumin and sugar. Stir and cook on low, covered, for about 20 more minutes. It will thicken a bit and all the flavors will blend. Taste it and add more salt if needed. Some people like to take out a cup of the beans, mash them and add them back to the soup to thicken it.
The last 2 ingredients, vinegar and olive oil, are for drizzling over the beans before serving. My mother would invariably tell me “most people add vinegar and oil to their black beans”, but she rarely did, as the kids would complain. I also skip the vinegar and oil as they are delicious either way. I say try it without and then if you want to, try adding the vinegar and oil, see what you think.
Serve over white rice or add the rice to your soup bowl. If they are not too thick, you can also eat them as a soup, with crusty Cuban bread.
I would not be surprised to learn that there are other names out there for these chips. Speaking of names, you might notice that I refer to my mother and father as “Mamina” and “Papillo”. Among Cubans nicknames are common. It’s done in love and fun, it indicates a closeness to each other. Those not accustomed to this are surprised when they hear people referred to with descriptive nicknames like these of my parents, aunts and uncles: Guajiro, Gordo, China, Niña, or Prietusca (one of my mother’s nicknames from her family, because of her very black hair). No offense is meant and none is taken, though in English they do seem offensive, which is why I'm skipping the translations! As a baby, I somehow understood about nicknames, and I personalized the usual Mamá and Papá into Mamina and Papillo. I’m their first child, so the naming rights were mine.
This short video shows how to make Chicharritas.
If you live in Miami or some other place with Cuban markets, you can buy Chicharritas in bags, just like you would potato chips, but we don’t have that luxury where I live. I don’t like to fry so I don’t make them very often, but I sure enjoyed them when my mother made them for us as a special treat!
They keep very well, if you can hide them from the kids. After some of my children left home, my mother would make Chicharritas and mail them to the kids, or have them ready for their visits home.
Several large green plantains
Oil for frying (in Cuba we used lard)
Salt
Peel plantains by cutting off ends, cutting in half and slicing the hard outside peel length wise, then pulling it off the fruit. If you peel them under cold running water, it will minimize the dark staining to your hands from the platanos “sap”. Slice into thin rounds, the thinner the better, the easiest way is with a slicer. Fry in hot oil, not smoking, (about 370°F) until golden. Drain on paper towels. Add salt and enjoy!
This is one recipe I am particularly fond of because it reminds me of both my parents. My father loved to garden, grow food. When we lived in Miami (and in Cuba of course) he grew platanos (bananas of many kinds), mangos, papaya, vegetables, etc. When my parents moved in with us in Utah, he continued to grow vegetables. Sometimes one garden was not enough, but fortunately we had kind neighbors willing to let him plant gardens in their yards!
Swiss chard was one of the vegetables my father really liked and always planted. Even in Utah it has a long growing season, withstanding heat and cold. Sometimes it would even come back in the Spring, after having been covered with snow for months. It is very dark green, so it has lots of nutrients and a strong taste. My mother prepared it this way and it's delicious. Sometimes I leave out the tomato sauce.
Prepare a Sofrito:
Olive oil to coat frying pan 1 onion 3-5 garlic cloves 1 8 oz can of tomato sauce, you can use fresh tomatoes, but Mamina rarely did A big huge double hand full of chard, it cooks up into almost nothing 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 Tablespoon cooking wine (optional)
Wash chard, cut off thickest part of stalks, chop and set aside. Chop the onions and garlic, sauté in olive oil for 2-3 minutes, then add the Swiss chard, tomato sauce, salt and cooking wine. Stir then cover it with a lid and simmer on low for 5-6 minutes. I like to serve it on rice.
