El Sabor que Cruzó el Mar
Heritage
Nuestra Herencia
El viaje
Veinte cocinas, una sola despensa
Rice, olive oil, wheat and pork sailed west out of one port. They landed on twenty coasts and stopped being Spanish almost immediately.
A pantry is a record of where a family has been. Turn the page.
La dedicatoria
For the ones who packed a spice tin.
For the ones who learned to cook by phone.
And for the ones who still make the sofrito on Sunday.
La tesis
One port, twenty kitchens
The rice met achiote and turned yellow. The pork met sour orange and became lechón. The same sofrito learned twenty accents, and every one of them still calls itself the original.
That is why a Cuban and a Dominican can argue about a dish they both make.
El mapa
Every kitchen has an address
One origin, twenty landfalls. Tap a name to open its chapter.
El intercambio
And the ocean answered
The ships did not sail back empty. Half of what Spain now calls its own was waiting on the other side.
Sailed west
- Rice, and the pan it came in
- Olive oil
- Wheat, for bread
- Pork, and the whole roast around it
- Sour orange, garlic, onion
- Sugar cane
Sailed east
- The tomato, without which there is no sofrito
- The potato
- Corn, and every masa made from it
- Beans, in every colour
- Chile, cacao, vanilla
- The plantain's whole New World life
Spanish cooking without the tomato is a kitchen that never happened.
La despensa
One shelf, twenty hands
The same four staples, stocked twenty different ways.
Los veinte
Twenty kitchens, one table
Each one answers the same question in its own accent. Start wherever your family started.
Where it begins
The Islands
Cuba
Why do Cuba and Spain stock the same shelf?
Read the chapter →
Puerto Rico
Who bottled the sofrito first?
Read the chapter →
Dominican Republic
What lands on the plate at noon?
Read the chapter →
Haiti
How do two kitchens share one island?
Read the chapter →
Jamaica
Why does Jamaica cook its peas in coconut?
Read the chapter →México & Central America
Mexico
What did Mexico hand back to the world?
Read the chapter →
Guatemala
How many ways can one bean be served?
Read the chapter →
El Salvador
What gets married on a Salvadoran plate?
Read the chapter →
Honduras
Where does the coconut stop and the bean begin?
Read the chapter →
Nicaragua
Who really invented gallo pinto?
Read the chapter →
Costa Rica
And who does Costa Rica say invented it?
Read the chapter →
Panama
How did Puerto Rico's pea reach a coconut pot?
Read the chapter →South America
Colombia
How many names does one plantain have?
Read the chapter →
Venezuela
Can a plate carry a flag?
Read the chapter →
Ecuador
What if the bean is a lentil?
Read the chapter →
Peru
How does a leftover become a legend?
Read the chapter →
Chile
Which bean waits for summer?
Read the chapter →
Argentina
What did the immigrants keep?
Read the chapter →
Brazil
What crossed from a different coast?
Read the chapter →El cierre
Cut from the same root
Twenty kitchens, one pantry. Whatever your family calls the dish, the shelf it comes off is the same one.
¿De dónde es tu familia?
¿Y qué hay en tu despensa?
Stock your table