Lunch in Humacao

Taste first, then hot sauce. Photo courtesy Flickr

In July, 1962, I ate a meal that changed my life. I was volunteering in the mission hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico. The women in my family are no slouch at the stove, nor the men either, but Humacao’s steam table cured all the ills I knew at the time. I recall being served greens, rice, an indigenous pea-like bean, pork hocks, and perhaps fried plantains, with some fresh fruit on the side.

Long, slow cooking violated standard post-war practice that encouraged cooks to finish dishes quickly to protect vitamins. The soul food on that cafeteria line was deeply relaxing, satisfying, and easy to digest. It was my first experience of typical Puerto Rican food, and I loved every bite. The weather had been ninety-five degrees with ninety-five percent humidity for weeks, and that hot lunch somehow left me equal to the weather.

I have cooked in this vein off and on ever since, particularly on Seattle’s two or three hot days of summer. The more I work with this unpretentious cuisine, the more I respect it. The ingredients are inexpensive and easy to grow at home, the dishes are simple to prepare, and stewing in an electronic pressure cooker reproduces sitting on the back of a stove all morning.

New Orleans’ Leah Chase writes about this approach to food in her cookbook and in a government printing office pamphlet about healthy food for people with high blood pressure. She says “a good cook stays with the pots”. I can’t think of a better way to put a meal on the table than to compose simple dishes and finish them with care.

The meal at Humacao was the gentlest one I ever consumed. Over the years, as I have explored soul food in its various manifestations, I have discovered that my own family recipe file contains many of the same favorites. One set of Swedish grandparents raised their family in Rock Island, Illinois. My in-house anthropologist tells me that Rock Island is the northern border of the Mississippi delta, and that the people of the world who come from coastal communities and cook rice share the same cultural roots.

At any rate, it’s a happy thing to share good food.

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