[music - Luscious Jackson: Citysong]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. It is Hispanic Heritage Month, and if you want to learn a little bit of history and eat some delicious food, you might want to check out the new cookbook from food writer and historian, Sandra A. Gutierrez. It's titled Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America. Written in an encyclopedic fashion, the almost 600-page cookbook is divided into sections by ingredients, such as coconut, beans, yuca, corn, and quinoa.

It features recipes from many countries, like arepas de pollo from Venezuela, sopa de aguacate from Costa Rica, sopa seca from Peru, viche de pescado from Ecuador, and [unintelligible 00:00:52] from Belize, all while breaking down the rich, complex lineage of Latin American cuisine. In the introduction, Sandra writes, "Eating through Latin America is akin to tasting World History. Every cuisine is the result of the melding of cultures and owed to globalization on every plate."

Sandra A. Gutierrez is the author of four books, The New Southern-Latino Table, Latin American Street Food, Empanadas: The Hand-Held Pies of Latin America, and Beans and Field Peas: A Savor of the South Cookbook. Sandra, welcome to All Of It.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Thank you for having me, Alison.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want you to join this conversation. What are some of your favorite family recipes, our Latin American listeners, our Hispanic listeners, or something yourself you crave often? Are you learning to make a particular dish from Latin America? What is it? Are there dishes or desserts that you'd like to recommend? Give us a call or send us a text at 212-433-9692. That is 212-433-WNYC. You can reach out to us on social media, the handle is @AllOfItWNYC. We would love to hear about your family recipes or something that you crave.

Maybe you want to learn a certain dish, what dish is it? 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. When we're talking about Latin America, for the purposes of this cookbook, how do you define it Sandra?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: I define it as the 21 countries that compose Mesoamerica or Mexico and Central America, South America, and the Latin Caribbean. That is how I describe it. That is how I do it for the purpose of the book, and for the purpose of Latin Americans who self-describe as Latin Americans. There are other countries in the Caribbean that do not have people who describe themselves as Latin Americans, but rather as Caribbeans or Afrocaribbean, and so I am very respectful of that.

Alison Stewart: I want to go back to that idea of the melding of cultures. How did Latin American cuisine become a microcosm and a blend of the world's cuisines?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: That's a fascinating question. It starts really with the colonization of America by the Iberian countries, or Spain and Portugal, way back in the 1400s. It goes on to going through different immigration growth, again, at the end of the 19th century. At the same time that America was going through their large integration change through Ellis Island, Latin America was getting world cultures arriving to the Americas to what we call the new American continent to build what--

They called it to build the Americas because a lot of these countries had been devastated by disease, and by injustice, and so the Indigenous people of the Americas, a lot of them, millions and millions and millions had disease, and therefore, the newly independent countries, independent from the reigns of Spain and Portugal, were looking at building their [unintelligible 00:03:55] again and also encouraging people to come and what they call build the Americas. They needed people to defend it, each country from even their neighboring countries. Newly independent countries were very fragile back then.

We get a lot of influence from all over the world in Latin America at different points in history. It is actually fascinating to see how different groups of people arrived or settled in bigger numbers in some places rather than other places, and how that influenced the cuisine of a particular region or country or city.

Alison Stewart: We're going to talk about some of the differences. I was curious what was unique about the culinary traditions of Latin America, and if there are any sort of connective, there are any connections between different countries.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Yes. I think that the main vein that we have connecting us are the Indigenous peoples, and even though they were different groups of people, they all shared the same native ingredients. The ingredients are basic to what unites us all as Latin Americans, which is why we divided the book in ingredients. I think that's the best way to look at how the cuisines were formed. At the base, Indigenous people and the Indigenous native ingredients. Then we have the Europeans. Again, I go back to the Iberians, because there were the Spanish and the Portuguese who came first to the Americas and settled first and started colonizing.

Then we have the vein of what I call the African vein, which were the enslaved workers who were brought forcefully to the Americas by the Iberians and the Europeans, who actually had a tremendous influence in the way Latin American eats today.

Alison Stewart: You have this great description in the book, where you write, "Latin American food is like a large house. The front door is Mexican food, however, step further into the house, and there are 20 other kitchens inside." What do you mean?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Yes. I think that for most people who are learning to cook or who are familiar with Latin American cuisine, they're mostly familiar with Mexican cooking. For the majority, I think, of us, we feel like we have all been boxed into this one cuisine. Although Mexican cuisine is one of the most incredible cuisines of the world, very, very rich, I would say akin to Chinese food with regional differences and just amazing, amazing techniques. The rest of Latin America is also exciting, and each country has its own diverse cuisine from the other.

Because the histories that formed each country, the groups of people and the cultures that melded together with the different Indigenous groups in each place, created their own different amalgamations of flavors and of ingredients, and they are completely different, but it doesn't mean that they're not as delicious as Mexican food. I say, come in through the familiar door first, your tacos, your enchiladas, your moles, and then, take a smaller leap of faith. I'm not asking you to make a huge leap of faith, just start going a kitchen at a time, you're already inside the house.

Alison Stewart: Sandra, I'm going to ask you to say the name of the book to make sure I'm saying it correctly.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Yes, the book is Latinísimo. Latinísimo means very, very Latin American.

Alison Stewart: Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America. Let's talk to Victor calling in from Staten Island. Hi, Victor.

Victor: Hi. Yes. Like I said, over in El Salvador and Guatemala, these are the Pacific, we had the Mayas, they made pupusas. Pupusas are called as gorditas in Mexico, arepas in Colombia and Venezuela, but practically it's a corn, a patty stuffed with either cheese, or beans, or both. It used to be made with the flowers from the pumpkins cooked with onions, and that was used up for stuffing for the pupusas. We have another dish that I was explaining, that my mother-in-law prepares a turkey. She prepared it so good that I had to marry my wife, because she made it better than my mother.

The way that we make the turkey, it's like a mole. It's like a Mexican mole. We toast and grind all the spices, and then this gets mixed with tomato juice. When they put the turkey in the oven, the bottom of the turkey is simmering on the sauce, and the top is being baked and is getting the brown color. We rotate the turkey so it's all nice and even.

Alison Stewart: Victor, thank you so much for calling in. I think we got some lessons from Victor there.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Actually, Victor, I think you'd be delighted to know that both of the recipes you're talking about are in the book indeed. The first one for the pupusas from El Salvador that I stuff with loroco, but the book, although it has 357 official recipes, it has about 400 extra variations. I also explain how to make your bean, your cheese, or your chicharrón and pupusas, or what you call revueltas in El Salvador, which means mixed together. Then the turkey that you're talking about is the pavo en relajo.

Relajo means messy, and there's a wonderful recipe in the book, very easy to recreate at home. The technique that you talk about, cooking the turkey or roasting with the liquid in the bottom and roasting it on the top, is a strictly Latin American way of what I call steam roasting. That's a special technique that we use, and it creates a very moist turkey, or pork or whatever it is that you're doing, and you don't have any trouble with having your dry turkey meat.

Alison Stewart: [unintelligible 00:10:06] say that you were kind enough to let us put your recipe for pupusas de queso y loroco on our website. That is very exciting. We did not plant Victor as a call. That happened organically.

[laughter]

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Love it.

Alison Stewart: One of the really great examples you use about how there is connective tissue between the different countries, but each one has its own individuality, is you write about how sofrito as a base, but it does differ, how Puerto Rican sofrito is different from Panarmenian sofrito. What's an example of a difference?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: The basic sofrito was made with onions, garlic, and oil, and that comes from the word sofregit in the old Catalan language way into the 10th, 11th century. We're talking about that being that basic sofrito when the Spanish arrived to the Americas. Once they arrived, then they start combining, both the native cooks and the Spaniards and Portuguese, start combining the native ingredients of the Americas into their sofrito.

For instance, the Cuban sofrito will have an addition of tomatoes, peppers, not hot peppers, but sweet peppers, typically your green and red bell pepper, and they'll have lots of garlic and they'll have a chioti or annatto, which is a yellow food coloring that everybody in the world has had it. They've ever had cheddar cheese or macaroni and cheese, because [unintelligible 00:11:32] cheddar cheese, it's orange color, because cheddar is naturally white.

As always, the world has been fascinated with gold, and golden foods have been popularized forever, which is the reason that annatto actually became a very important ingredient in the rices through Latin America, because the Spanish loved it, and they of course couldn't bring the saffron, which was so, so expensive, it's still one of the most expensive spices in the world, and replaced it with annatto. In Puerto Rico, when you go, you change it further, and if you remove the tomatoes and you add the long leaf culantro, which is called recao in Puerto Rico, and that is a green, very, very grassy herb, I call it uber cilantro, because it tastes even richer.

That is what is mixed into the equation, and it's a green sofrito. Just to give you two examples, one is red and vibrantly gold, an orangey color, and the other one is green. Those are just two examples of the many bases that you'll find.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Peter from Norwalk, Connecticut, who wants to share a recipe, not your recipe however though, right, Peter?

Peter: Hi. I had a Mexican coworker who found out that I was a coffee nerd, and she shared with me her recipe for-- and I don't remember the name of it. Basically, it's four cups of water, two cinnamon sticks, and you boil the cinnamon sticks in the water for about five minutes. Then you add a third of a cup of coarsely ground coffee, simmer that for about five minutes, strain, and serve, and it is so good.

Alison Stewart: Peter, thank you for calling in. Are you familiar with this, Sandra?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Yes. It sounds to me like it's café de olla, and it's just a very traditional way to have your coffee. It's the pot that makes it the olla part. It's quite delicious, and I can see why you would become easily addicted to that.

Alison Stewart: Listeners, we want to invite you in on this conversation. What are some of your favorite family recipes, our Latin American listeners? Something you find yourself craving often, or maybe you're learning to make a particular dish from Latin America, what is it? Are there dishes or desserts you'd like to recommend to everyone? You can call us or text us at 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. We'll have more with Sandra Gutierrez after a quick break. This is All Of It.

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Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest this hour is cookbook author and historian, Sandra Gutierrez. The name of her book is, let's see if I can do it, Sandra, Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America. We've gotten a text that just says, "Comida Peruana!"

[laughter]

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Peruvian food is actually one of the most exciting, I think, that people try in Latin America. It's got an amalgamation of different cultures, a lot of Asian influence, Chinese, Japanese, which is called Nikkei in the Peruvian combination. Also Hakka, and then you've got Middle Eastern influences, African influences, and of course, at the base of it all, Inca influences. It's a fantastic cuisine with an amalgamation that produces vibrant, refreshing, very exciting food.

Alison Stewart: Another text says, "Love Chino Latino."

Sandra A. Gutierrez: There we go. The birth of Chino Latino is actually Nikkei cuisine or Chino Peruvian cuisine. You will find it all over Latin America. Chino Latino is one of the movements that resulted from the Chinese people settling in different areas of Latin America. There's a very strong Chino Latino movement in Cuba. There's another one in Mexico. You will find it all over the place. I know that in Guatemala, in the Department of Jutiapa, which is at the Eastern side, close to El Salvador, there's a very famous dish called chow mein.

It is similar, but not the same as the Chinese chow mein. It's a little bit more intricate in flavors. It also includes a little bit of Latin American chilies, like serrano or jalapeño in it. It's usually less of a mixture of seafood and chicken, but it's done with very, very thin noodle. It's very reminiscent of a lo mein of China.

Alison Stewart: I want to talk about one recipe because it's rated easy, not just because it's rated easy, it sounds delicious. If people are feeling a little bit like, "I don't know if I could do this. I'm feeling intimidated." This recipe is rated easy. Pastelón de plátano maduro [unintelligible 00:16:18] which is plantain and beef casserole, which sounds delicious. Where did this version come from?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: This came from a friend of mine from the Dominican Republic. The pastelón, the way I say it, and the way I describe it, is a sweeter version of a gluten-free lasagna, because it's layers of mashed plantain that's not as sweet as to be used for dessert, but it's still a little bit green. Then you layer that with a delicious picadillo recipe in the middle, with just wonderful flavors of cumin, oregano, and spices, and some tomato sauce and then cheese. You keep on layering it just like a lasagna. If you love lasagna, that is a very easy dish to try. You don't have to boil the lasagna sheets or layer them while worrying about them breaking. It also allows you to have a dish that you're familiar with, with a little bit of a twist.

Alison Stewart: At what point in the plantain life cycle-- what plantain should I be using? Should I be using green ones? Should I be using very ripe ones?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: For the pastelón, you want to use them when they're already yellow with some brown spots. The plantains are fascinating because the greener they are, the more they behave like a starchy vegetable, and the riper they are, all the way to a black color, it becomes a fruit and it becomes sweet. It's got its different uses and I go through the explanation of that in the book, because it really opens up the possibilities of what people can make with them.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Edson Kaleyan from Manhattan. Edson, thank you for calling in.

Edson Kaleyan: Alison, thank you, I really love this segment. I was [unintelligible 00:17:53] I'm from Brazil, born and raised in Brazil. I don't know if your guest know about feijoada. It's the Brazilian-made dish and it's a stew made with black beans. It's a black bean stew and you add pork, a lot of pork with seasoning and pork. It's very, very popular in Brazil. Actually, it's the national dish. The dish was created by former slaves in Brazil. Actually, they were slaves and they used part of the meat that slave masters didn't want.

They created this dish with pork and beans in Brazil. You also have the side dish that comes with the feijoada, it's called feijoada, F-E-I-J-O-A-D-A, and a side dish with this dish is yuca flour and collard greens, a lot of collard greens, and also orange. If you go to a Brazillian restaurant, certainly you're going to have that feijoada. Last, in Brazil, Lasagna, the Italian, we do not eat with ground beef. In Brazil we put a layer of the lasagna and then ham and mozzarella cheese, and then the tomato sauce. You add layers that-- and then put it in the oven and then melt the cheese and it's delicious. It's a lasagna, Brazillian version of lasagna.

Alison Stewart: Edson, you're making me hungry. Sandra, you were nodding vigorously during Edson's conversation. [crosstalk]

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Yes. Edson, feijoada is one of my favorite dishes in the world. I included a home-made recipe by my neighbor, actually, who is from Brazil. It is a feijoada that you can actually prepare very easily during the week. It's what they have quickly during the week. The pork that they use for that is a bacon. I know that the traditional feijoada has tail and pig's ears and the whole thing. It's just they use the whole gamut of meats from the pork in the feijoada. That's included in the book. You'll also be happy to know that I mentioned farofa, which is what you're talking about also when we talk about yuca.

I did not include all of the recipes I would have wanted to include from each country, but I think that the recipes that you will find from Brazil will make you very proud of the cuisine of Brazil, including the brigadeiro cake that's very popular for birthdays. Again, this is a book of home cooking recipes, so recipes that can be made easily at home than your contemporaries in Latin America are cooking today. You will find new variations of their traditional dishes that you can make easily for dinner every night.

Alison Stewart: Got a question for you. The text says, "Pernil, which Latin country makes the best version of it and why? What's the secret ingredient or method to get that flavor?"

Sandra A. Gutierrez: I don't answer that question because I'm getting in trouble with grandmothers. The Dominican grandmother would get angry at the Cuban grandmother. I have a Cuban son-in-law, you'll get the Puerto Rican. I will say it depends who your grandmother is who makes the best one. There are very different ways of making it. I do have a recipe for an easy pernil that you're able to do again during the week. You'll also find different recipes for mojos that are great to combine with pork. What else was part of that question?

Alison Stewart: What is a secret ingredient or method to get the flavor?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: The flavor to me is very important that you have a lot of garlic, a lot, a lot of garlic. That is, I would say, a commonality between all of them. Then depending on what country you're in, the Cubans will use a mojo sauce which I have a recipe for in the book, that uses naranja agria or seville orange which you can actually make up by combining equal parts of orange juice and lemon juice, lots of garlic, olive oil, and oregano and cumin. It depends what country you're in.

You do want to have a lot of garlic in the base. Then you really want to make sure that you cook the-- I think it was Victor who talked about the steam roasting method we were discussing. You want to be able to uncover the pernil at the end, and really cook it on the top very well under direct, even a broiler, so that the skin will become crackling and delicious, because that's the prize of any good, serious pernil.

Alison Stewart: Someone has texted to us, "Arza Puerto Rican, everyone who knows me expects homemade pastelillos and coquito every wintertime. I'm glad I enjoy making it so much." It doesn't feel like it right now in New York City, like it's wintertime, but we're going into wintertime and you have some great soup recipes. One of them I thought was so interesting, because it's under the section you dedicate to chiles, and it is because people think about chiles and [unintelligible 00:22:55] and jams and açaí, but you have a chile soup, crema de chile poblano. How are the chiles cooked here? What's the heat factor?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: The heat factor is low. Chiles poblanos are not that spicy, but they're first roasted, and then they are blended with broth and some crema. If you want it thicker, a little bit of cornstarch, and you cook it. It's so easy to make. It is so gourmet tasting too. This has been one of the recipes that has been getting the most attention from the book, and it is a recipe that my dear friend, Jorjina from Mexico City, gave me many years ago.

That's the point of the book, is that I actually interviewed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of home cooks from all over Latin America to make sure that I was including recipes that are still very much contemporary and that people are eating today. I know it has a lot of history in it, but I didn't want it to be a stuffy history book. I wanted to showcase to people why some recipes-

Alison Stewart: Endured.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: -are succeeding, endured during all the years of history in Latin America, some of which are reminiscent of the very, very beginning of our stories with, of course, nixtamalization of corn to make tortillas, et cetera. A lot of them have become modernized and are still eaten today, which is not to say they're not "authentic" which is another word I shy from because two neighboring people could be making the exact same feijoada, and each one could be different than the other, and who is to say that one is not as authentic as the other?

Alison Stewart: We've got a text from Carolina from Queens. I'm going to read what the dish is, and then I think you will probably know the name of it. She says, "I crave this all the time. It's an Ecuadorian dish, but without the meat, like in the old days, just the cheese-filled potato pancake on a bed of lettuce with a fried egg on top, drizzled with salsa de mani peanut sauce and some curtido, red onions, tomatoes, and lime juice on the side.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Yes. Those are llapingachos, and they're delicious. They're like, think of Ecuadorian latkes with a kick, with an attitude, if you will. I love llapingachos. I did not include a recipe in this book, but I do have one in my Latin American Street Food book. Again, this book, I wish I could have added all 9,000 recipes I originally had on my list-

Alison Stewart: Oh, sure.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: -but it would have taken a barge to carry each book, and it's pretty big as it is. Yes, absolutely, and look for the recipe in my other book, Latin American Street Food. I think you're going to love it. It's super easy to make. The secret for making llapingachos that don't disintegrate when you're cooking them is to put them in the refrigerator for a while after they've been stuffed with the cheese and then fry them.

Alison Stewart: We have a listener who wanted to ask you to talk about carne mechada.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Yes, carne mechada, the recipe is in the book by a dear friend of mine. I use the Venezuelan recipe for carne mechada. Carne mechada is actually quite familiar throughout Latin America. It's one of those recipes we inherited from Spanish tradition, and it's really shredded beef, carne mechada. The Cubans know it as Ropa Vieja, and the ingredients vary slightly from country to country. It'll be a country that adds wine to it, the Venezuelans add tomatoes and sweet peppers, the Cubans add olives and capers. It's something that's very comforting and very easy to make again, and it is in the book.

Alison Stewart: There is a recipe, I want to talk about Arab Latino. There's a recipe, arroz con fideos, which is a rice and a pilaf. How did the Arab Latino culinary movement give birth to this dish?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: The Arab culinary movement, it melds with Latino cookery at the moment that the Spaniards descend on Latin America because the Spaniards were just freeing themselves from the Ottoman Empire that they've been under for eight centuries. They had learned already a lot of the techniques and recipes from the Arabs and the Ottomans and brought it to the Americas. In this particular recipe, it is a pilaf, which is a Persian way of making rice, where you first sauté the grains in some oil with some aromatics, and then you add the liquid. That helps the rice to become very fluffy, but also stay separate.

In this case, it is cooked with fideos, which are pieces of vermicelli noodles that are browned or turned golden before you mix them with the rice, in very much the same manner that they still make it in Egypt and in Syria and in Lebanon. In different countries of the Middle East, you will still find the same dish. It is one that is very popular in Argentina, and the recipe is included in the book.

Alison Stewart: Someone has texted us, "One of the few recipes I make that is seasoned only by its main ingredients is chile verde, pork shoulder, onions, tomatillos, and a variety of charred and skinned green chilies, for example, poblano, anaheim, jalapeño, stewed together, that and some salt, family favorite, though every spice or herb I've tried adding only distracts." That's an interesting comment.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: That's a very interesting comment. Again, that goes to the fact that this listener learned to cook from someone, and that is the recipe they recognize as their comfort food and their particular authentic dish. I do include a recipe of chile verde. I could not write a book and not include it. That is one of the most popular and well-known home dishes from Mexico. I think you can vary the spices and the herbs that you use to make it different.

One of the beauties of home cooking is that food is very simple to make. They don't require copious lists of ingredients and all of the ingredients are very easy to find. Most of us can find them in our neighborhood store or supermarket. There's no need for people to go look for ingredients in obscure places.

Alison Stewart: Someone has asked us how many variations of Spanish rice are in the book.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Oh my goodness, I stopped counting. There are many, many variations of Spanish rice. You've got your arroz con pollos, you've got your arroz with patos, you've got your arroz with coconut, you've got all sorts of variations. The thing is that rice became probably the most popular grain that was brought into the Americas with Mexicans eating the most rice per capita in the world. There are a lot, a lot of dishes with Spanish influence in rice, but also a lot of them with African influence, because even though beans are native to the Americas, all of the beans, peas were not.

Black-eyed peas were eaten in Africa already in combination with rice. Once they crossed over to the Americas, you start seeing all of these bean and rice dishes like the congris of Cuba, the gallo pinto in Nicaragua or Costa Rica, depending on who you ask, and other such dishes like arroz con gandules de Puerto Rico, and you start getting all of these combinations that are very much African influenced. There's a lot of rice. There's a whole chapter on rice.

Alison Stewart: I do want to talk desserts before we wrap up. Bolo Brigadeiro?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Bolo Brigadeiro. That is a chocolate cake for the ages, really. It's a messy chocolate cake with a gooey topping. Truly delicious. Brigadeiros are the national candy of Brazil and they usually-- they look like miniature truffles and they're coated in little chocolate jimmies or coconut depending on what you're doing. I included in this book a recipe for the brigadeiros brancos, which are the white brigadeiros from Brazil. They are super delicious, they're coated in coconut. This cake is the black filling of the brigadeiros used as the frosting for the entire cake. It's messy and gooey. I bet you you won't be able to sit and not steal slice by slice until it's all done.

Alison Stewart: Is there any recipe that you want to shout out before we wrap that we didn't get a chance to talk about?

Sandra A. Gutierrez: No, not really because they're all my favorites. It's like asking me what my favorite child is. I will tell you that there is a particular cake from Argentina. Again, I offer the variations in different countries called pionono de dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is of course milk caramel made with house milk in Argentina. It also goes by many, many names in Latin America and you'll find a lot of desserts made with that. I know that people love their dulce de leche.

Alison Stewart: The name of the book, it's beautiful. There are so many recipes. Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America. It is out now. I've been speaking with Sandra Gutierrez. Sandra, thank you for sharing your recipes and taking listeners' calls and comments.

Sandra A. Gutierrez: Alison, thank you so much for having me, and thank you for everybody who called in.

 

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