SALTED AND STYLED: THE BEAN COLLECTION
9:24 AM La Americana 2 Comments Category : black beans , Chia Chong , Cuba , Cuban food , Libbie Summers , Salted and Styled , yuca
This week I am thrilled to guest blog for the insanely talented women of Salted and Styled, which was recently awarded 2013's Best Food Blog by the International Association for Culinary Professionals with the likes of Alice Waters, Marcus Samuelsson and their peers nearby.
THE BEAN COLLECTION
It
is impossible to wrap Hispanic Heritage Month, which ends October
15th,
without mention of a Latin American staple – beans.
They
are an integral part of everyday life and vary from country to
country.
In
Havana, Cuba, my husband's home, by far the most common dish is black
beans served with white rice. Properly done, the beans are flavored,
not overpowered, by a sofrito,
a sautéed
base
of
garlic, onions, oil and salt, which is added to a simmering pot of
four
parts water, one part whole beans, cumin,
a bay leaf, and red or green bell peppers (depending on what's
available in the unpredictable outdoor markets).
Black
beans entered my life in college, wrapped in a burrito with rice,
sour cream and tomatoes. It was instant love.
But
it wasn't until my first trip to Cuba in 2001, where I met Luis as as
tourist in search of Havana
Vieja,
that I tried the island's classic black bean soup, served in a small
side bowl, to be dished over a mound of rice. With the exception of
breakfast, every meal I ate those two weeks was served with the duo.
A
year later I found myself again in Havana's José
Martí airport,
following months of platonic email exchanges with Luis. Only on that
trip, there were fireworks. Later engaged, it was another two
Cuba-centric years, a gazillion phone bills, airline tickets,
nail-biting visits to the communist isle and loads of black beans
later that the visa we worked so hard for was finally approved. Luis
moved to Savannah in 2004.
Like
many newly married couples, we had a learning curve, but given the
vast differences of our backgrounds, it was more like a steep hill we
both had to climb.
I
have traveled and lived in a number of different countries, but I
come from a Germanic family that's been in Savannah more than 200
years. Luis is from a large city with international influence, but
his home is a tropical paradise cut off from most of the world. At
the time he spoke Spanish and Italian, but zero English.
When
we settled into my aunt and uncle's small, garage apartment there was
a lot of fine-tuning and figuring out. One upfront, he didn't cook,
but grew up with a mother with enormous natural talent. To the
contrary, I was a kitchen hobbyist, a recipe follower, though I
had shifted from the smothered foods and casseroles of my childhood
to more simplistic plates, filled with grilled meats and seafood,
stuffed potatoes, roasted vegetables and a killer homemade caesar
dressing over romaine.
He
ate my food, but over time it was sacrifice. Luis's palate is more
adventurous than mine, open to explore, but he missed home.
I
wanted to bring Havana in, but I didn't know how to wade in Latin
Caribbean meats, textures and organs so foreign to me. Ropa
Vieja, pollo
en salsa, liver,
tongue, chilindron
(goat in a tomato-based sauce), plantains and the root vegetables,
yuca, malanga and boniato.
So
about five years ago Luis took matters into his own hands. He
started throwing things around in pots and pans, inspired by his
mother's kitchen. It was a daily science experiment in our house and
what I thought was a phase he would outgrow, but I began to realize
that not only did he like toying with familiar smells, he also
thrived in the chaotic mess of it all, the unprescribed creative
freedom.
Sometimes
the meals worked and sometimes they didn't, but he kept at it.
One
of the first recipes he nailed was yuca
con mojo.
Yuca,
also known as cassava, is a root crop grown throughout tropical and
subtropical areas and in its dried form is tapioca. It is peeled and
boiled like a potato and topped with mojo,
which can vary in regions, but Luis makes it with olive oil, a
chopped Vidalia onion, a few garlic teeth and salt smashed with a
mortar and pestle, which keeps the garlic from flying from the pot,
and a spot of vinegar at the end.
Remove
the woody roots before you eat and it's creamy, just sweet enough and
so good that whenever my friends or family visit they all react the
same: “What IS that?”
Beans,
however, were a bit more of an effort.
No
one uses cookbooks in Cuba, but Luis eventually referenced a handful
of online recipes for guidance and then rid of them completely,
settling on his own blended versions.
As
he became more comfortable in the kitchen, and in the U.S., he edited
the classic recipes further to ones that reflect our bicultural life.
One
afternoon he arrived home with a huge box of simple, clear containers
and propped them in our kitchen pantry, after filling them with
whole, dried organic beans of all shapes, sizes and colors. Nothing
high-end about it, but you can see the purity and mazes and patterns
of the beans, which I find beautiful, just as I do in oversized
grocery store bins.
Next
to the black beans were his new muses: black-eyed peas, green
lentils, slivered red split lentils, which are a distinct bright
coral hue in bulk, navy, fava and kidney beans, red azukis and
uneven, round garbanzos.
Our
bean collection.
He
began testing the protein-packed varieties in the pressure cooker,
which baffles me, but it's a terrific piece of equipment and one
every Cuban owns, tapering each recipe to a bare minimum so the
natural flavors dominated. I found each one uniquely delicious and
an added bonus, all were healthy.
Cubans
are known flavoring with pork, but I haven't eaten it or beef in
years. I had never asked for special treatment or substitutions,
simply eating around what I didn't want.
Yet, Luis uses almost none now, only a piece of chorizo here, a chunk of turkey bacon there, after questioning the necessity of additional fat, and has been able to do so without forgoing taste.
Curious,
I asked how. He shared one of his secrets.
“This
is the key,” he said, smiling, as he swirled whole cumin seeds in
constant motion in a small pan, held about an inch over the stovetop
flame. “Huele,”
he said and lifted the toasted seeds under my nose. Strong and
fragrant, but delicate.
He
slid them into the mortar, gave them a quick pestle grind to release
the flavor and added them to the black beans, already simmering with
the sofrito,
followed by a cup of red wine, a splash of vinegar and un
tin de
sugar.
I
can't stand the smell of the vinegar burning off at the end and
always leave the kitchen, but he immediately turns the heat off and
lets the final flavors meld. When served, each
bowl of beans is drizzled with olive oil.
Put
the yuca
con mojo in
the black beans and it's all over. I mean the best of the best. A
few slices of avocado sprinkled with salt on the side, or in the
beans, too, and this is as good as it gets to me.
Forget
Cuban or American food, there is something powerful about feeding
your children quality, wholesome meals, a driving factor in Luis's evolution in the kitchen. It's also, he notes, a direct way for him
to share Cuba with his kids.
We
all gobble it up nightly and I personally can't wait to see what
he'll come up with next.
Photos by Salted and Styled.
A special thank you to the superfab ColorBoxx Salon for working my hair and make-up for the photo shoot!