Advent Calendar: arroz con dulce

Advent Calendar:

Dec 17
ARROZ CON DULCE

At first blush it might be called rice pudding but that would be like equating Provo Utah with New Orleans, Louisiana. Yes, our rice pudding looks like your rice pudding. It has rice. But I think a fairer comparison would be to that sticky desert that you find in Thai restaurants. I have never cared for the rice pudding that we get here. I think the difference, like the Thai delicacy, is that - like most things Puerto Rican - ours is sticky sweet and has the extra ingredient of coconut and cloves. Yours comes off as some sort of gruel made to assuage a desperate hunger. No, at Christmastime our houses have been steaming all day with myriad smells and arroz con dulce is a main contributor: coconut (that, yes, your mom made grate, maybe even let you poke the coconut eyes out and drain his milk); burned coconut hair (after you’ve smashed the coconut you must still separate the meat from the shell. You burn the hair off the coconut on the stove and it becomes separated); cloves, raisins, cinnamon, and sugar. You’ve watched the cook, got shanghaied into helping, poured the concoction onto the plates, covered them with Saran wrap, put them in the fridge and waited for the evening meal, and, at last, dessert.

Advent Calendar: Anisette

Advent Calendar:

Dec 16
ANISETTE

For a family that is no stranger to drinking and drunks, the Tias were, almost universally, teetotalers. It's one of life's great ironies for me that my mom, who died of cirrhosis, probably had cumulatively consumed in her entire life no more alcohol than what is contained in a single case of cheap beer. But once a year she, Tia Vina, Tia Blanca, Tia Chela and others would join their vivacious sister Celina in having a shot of anisette. Anisette is a liqueur made from anise. It's the basis for other liquors like sambuca, ouzo and pastis. They'd make a big production about it, giggle at their naughtiness. And, we'd stop what we were doing and check it out. Mostly, because it was part of the familial ritual but also because after all there is prim and proper Tia Vina doing a shot. (A "shot" is an exaggeration. This ain't no Alabama 1.5 shot. These were little demitasse liqueur classes made to look like miniature wine glasses.) They'd have a merry time of it, acting like they were doing a line on the bar at some Bourbon Street dive.

Advent Calendar: morcilla

Advent Calendar:

Dec 14
MORCILLA

As kids we would get chicks for Easter and every year they would meet premature ends. Either Baby Eddie would squeeze them too hard or they would fail to survive his six-story flight indoctrinations. (We would take turns going downstairs to recover the lucky ones or report on their demise.) But one year, one of them was a survivor. His name was Gillo. (He was named for someone's ex boyfriend, Lydia's I think, maybe Mom's.) How Puerto Rican we were, we had a rooster in our apartment.
But, lo. Came the time that Gillo had to be relocated and he was moved to Tia Celina's house where we visited him on our weekly jaunts. He grew proud and tall and we loved him. We loved him so much we ate him. But we only found out about it when the Old Man told us about it at the dinner table. We all started crying and there was a big hullabaloo: everyone screaming at us, us crying, Mom pissed at the Old Man for being such a goober. I swore off chicken for many years.
My other childhood food crisis happened at Christmas. I was probably 10 years old and eating morcilla . Uncle Al asked me if I knew what it was, which, of course, I didn't. To me, they were these crunchy little sausages that went so well with rice and pasteles. "They're blood", he said. "Uh, Uh" I shot back, incredulous that he could propose such a stupid thing about one of my favorite Christmas delicacies. Tio was a notorious kidder and rascal and I just knew he was pulling my leg. I looked for some assurance from my Mom and she gave it to me. She assured me that "They are blood. Pig blood." I swore off morcilla that year. But it didn't last long. PR morcilla isn't like that wimpy Spanish morcilla or wussy-assed Boudain or, for that matter, like anything else that advertises itself as blood sausage. None of them compare to morcilla , This shit is real. It's part of the old country tradition of butchering the pig and saving the blood to make the sausage. And, like the pasteles, the morcilla has to be right and it's best if it comes from PR. Back when travel wasn't quite so restrictive, that would be one of the items someone returning from PR would bring you. Now, if I'm going to Tampa, I make it a point to have a cooler with me. (Janet jokes that I must have a trillion coolers at home since I end up buying one every time I visit.) It's like dope when I get back. If I'm lucky, I've scored some alcapurrias and pasteles , but If I'm really lucky I have me some morcilla and I don't have to share when I tell folks what it is, a sausage membrane clot of pig blood and rice.

Advent Calendar: pasteles

Advent Calendar:

Dec 13
PASTELES

Kathryn Miller: I couldn't get to the recipe...stop babbling, pendejo, and re-post the recipe!! I need to make some for this weekend!!

Domingo Soto: click on link, maricona!

Kathryn Miller: I don't need your damned link. I called Consuelo. She said to put raisins in it.

Domingo Soto: LOL

Camille Dauchez: Titi Connie told me to put in capers.
And prunes.

This Facebook exchange on yesterday's Coquito post encapsulates a lot of things about our family, not the least of which is that when you're in this family, it's hard to bail out. The style that we are is contagious, or maybe, as her language would indicate, we just attract kindred spirits. Both Donna and Kathryn are highly loved and continue to be counted as family members. Kathryn has been confronting some major issues on her own but has been a family stalwart, sharing with us all of our crap, good and bad. Our little sister Camille came into the family via Paris, where Carlos spent a summer as part of Kathryn's homespun exchange program. Connie, another ex-pat PPR (Pensacola Puerto Rican), I met through ISA many moons ago and we've been fighting (and loving each other) like brother and sister ever since. The references to raisins, capers, and prunes is about Pasteles. A pastel, as the name indicates, probably comes from the Spanish word for cake (and, probably, due to the coloring of the icing, but I'm just tripping here, don't really know, back to topic). We PRs don't call cakes Pastels. We call Pastels Pastels and cake bizcocho. (And tortas are something else completely, please!) Pastel-colored they are not. They are brown fecal-looking (oh, yum! maybe that's why a lot of kids hate them) tamales. They are made out of a plaintain, yuca, and green banana paste. They have a meat center and are wrapped in paper, banana leaves if you have them available. They are a laborious thing to make and they are usually prepared for the Christmas meal. Now, they have Cuisinarts but when we were little we conscripted into peeling, cutting, and scraping the plaintains, our knuckles bleeding from the rallador into the masa. The ordeal would last for hours. We'd whine and belly ache but it was always one of those meals we all shared with a sense of accomplishment. There's not a PR that doesn't see the pastel as an integral part of the Christmas meal. Pastel recipes are like Gumbo recipes and every family's pasteles are "the best". One year, we PPRs made pasteles and they came out great, except that Connie, Paulie and I would argue about the correct ingredients. Every year since the topic comes up and we revisit it. Connie's heathen family puts raisins (or prunes, can't remember which travesty they commit) in theirs. Some put garbanzos, My mom did them correctly, leaving all of those ingredients out.

Advent Calendar: coquito

Advent Calendar:

Dec 12
COQUITO

This is devolving into a daily snippet about some PR treat. Makes sense. Most Advent Calendars have little chocolates or other sweets in them and most of my memories are of my Mom and Tias baking their asses off to make sure we had really super holidays. Every year I make coquito for my folks at the bar where I hang out. (PS, this Thursday). Every year someone turns their nose up at it when they hear that it's "Puerto Rican Egg Nog" (I'm thinking because they don't like regular egg nog and take no personal or nationalistic affront at it). Someone will convince them that it "is good" (nod your head if you understand) and, invariably they love it.As my cousin Perry said: "That Puerto Rican Egg Nog goes good with my Mothers coconut candy. lol Once you ingested any of our family recipes its absorbed into your blood for ever. The craving never goes away. I dont know what they put in it. All I know it has to be 151 proof." Well, Perry (and Donna) here's how to bring a bit of PR warmth into your local clime:
1 can coco lopez
1 can condensed milk (optional)
2 cans evaporated milk
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2-3/4 litre white rum (don't use the good stuff)
6 egg yolks
1/2 -1 cup sugar
(clove also optional)

Advent Calendar: families

Advent Calendar:

Dec 11
My cousin Lizette's response to my post about orange peels was that "Mom says your full of it." The Mendez clan went to New York together and never separated. Lizette's mom, the youngest daughter of the oldest of the Mendez sisters and my mother, the youngest sibling of the 13 Mendez children were compatriots. She probably knows as much about my mother as anyone else and if she disagrees with something will, like they all will, call "bullshit!". (Mierda) . Male or female, there are few "B Personality" types in our family. I'm not sure if it's class or culture but we all have the same bawdy and raucous way of talking and, surprisingly, we get it from the women. The women are all so much alike. They are all strong, brook no nonsense, talk plainly and brusquely, are acerbic, and honest. So, I read the comment and chuckled, because it probably doesn't do justice to what and how she said it. What Puca probably said was something like "Que sabe ese pendejo?" (What's that jerk off know?)