A Hampshire College grad, Emma Brewster, has put together a compendium of recipes in a bilingual baedecker to Puerto Rican and American cuisine. There is something to be said for eating Spanish food in summer and that something centers on the controversial herb, cilantro. The world is divided into two types of people, those who love cilantro and those who claim it tastes like soap. A condiment called sofrito is about to sneak up on the former.
A mashup of two types of sweet peppers (bell pepper and aji dulce), racao, onion, garlic and oil, sofrito is the basis of lots of dishes in Cuba, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico and Spain. Puerto Ricans in San Juan and in Holyoke use sofrito in vegetable, rice and meat dishes and as a sauce. One chef uses it as a sauce for entrees such as chicken thighs. Just grill up onions in oil, brown the thighs, remove and add some sofrito and finish cooking the chicken in onions and sofrito. Easy.
The recipe outlined in Healthy In Holyoke is submitted by the chiquitas at Mi Plaza and folks at the UMass Extension School. It calls for half an onion, chopped, one large bell pepper or two medium, a cup of aji dulce (sweet chili) peppers, chopped, a medium head of peeled garlic, four full large stems with leaves of racao, washed, and four large cilantro leaves, washed. The peppers and onion are "processed" (put through a food processor or blender) and then garlic, cilantro, and racao leaves are added.
Although cilantro is in every kitchen garden in the Valley, racao, also known as calandro, is not so much. A milder version of cilantro with long, thin leaves, racao can be purchased at C-Town on Cabot Street in Holyoke or from certain farmers' markets, but it's not tough to grow. (As a substitute for calandro, more cilantro can be used.) Aji dulce might be available depending on where you shop. Any sweet pepper is fine here. Roast the bell pepper if the recipe is for a meat dish. Store with a tight lid in the fridge for three or four days or freeze in an ice cube tray, then transfer to a zip lock bag for storage. Sofrito is very nice on a white fish as well. It is close to the pesto family, yet without the heaviness of cheese and nuts.
Of the 50 recipes collected from a consortium of the communities in the city of Holyoke and at UMass Extension School, some of the highlights include breakfast items such as cale, Sunny Side Up, Berry Berry Pancake Rollups (see recipe below), taco pasta salad and tuna pita pockets, snacks of tomato salsa and black bean and corn salsa, fish soup, sancocho (a soup with plantain, yucca and chicken), and dinner dishes like rice with bacalao (codfish) and burrito casserole. Finally, in the dessert department, there is a nice cheese flan.
The book can be purchased at Nuestras Raices headquarters at 245 High Street in downtown Holyoke, or by calling Diego Angarita at 413-535-4410. The Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council, Brewster's partner in the project, is developing a coalition to pursue a vision of equitable access to a healthy and sustainable food system.
In Season: Blueberries (Wild, Sprayed and Organic)
There is quite a range of blueberry options in the Valley as well as quite a range of blueberry procurement options. There are store-bought berries from California which don't warrant further mention (lack of flavor, long-haul trucking), and next the local berries, which range from low-bush wild, tiny blueberries to medium-sized fat blueberries with a more expensive organic version (no spray). The standard issue plump blue orbs are more than plentiful this year. With a price range per pint of $3.50 to $4, they can be had at stores, farmers' markets, CSAs, and on rickety tables by the side of the road. And finally the wild low-bush, delicious (a bit more tart than the fat ones) berries are typical of all things wild—hard to get.
Wild blueberries in these parts are commercially produced in Heath (see below), in a very northern part of the Valley, up a dirtish road, where they can picked or ordered and picked up; not a bad day trip this time of year. Owners are generous and dedicated at Benson Place. If you plan to visit their acreage that looms over the Valley, call ahead to let them know you're coming.
Where to Pick Blueberries
Nourse Farms
41 River Rd., Whately
(413) 665-2658
Benson Place
182 Flagg Hill Road, Heath
(413) 337-5340
Recipe
Berry Berry Pancake Rollups
From Healthy in Holyoke. Contributed by Cindy Hubbard, Projects Manager, UMass Extension Nutrition Education Program
Ingredients:
1 cup fresh strawberries
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 cup fresh blackberries
1/2 cup strawberry preserves (100 percent fruit)
2 cups buttermilk pancake mix
1-1/2 cups water
Vegetable oil cooking spray
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt, nonfat or low-fat (optional)
Instructions:
1. Gently wash berries and make berry pancake topping by mixing berries and preserves in a saucepan over medium heat for around 5 minutes or until slightly thickened.
2. Prepare pancake mix and water in a large bowl according to package directions.
3. Cook on a preheated griddle or in a frying pan sprayed with vegetable oil cooking spray.
4. The batter should make between 6 and 8 pancakes about 5-6 inches in diameter.
5. Top each pancake with 1/2 cup hot berry mixture and roll.
6. If desired, top each rolled pancake with one tablespoon vanilla yogurt.
Events
Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 7 p.m.
NOFA keynote speaker and urban food legend Will Allen of Growing Power
Northeast Organic Farming Association Summer Conference
Information (978) 355-2853 or nofa@nofamass.org.
Urban food legend Will Allen grew the Milwaukee-based Growing Power with an idea and a vacant lot in 1995. The former pro basketball player with a MacArthur Foundation fellowship currently farms three acres with 35 full-time people and over 1,000 volunteers to provide affordable food to the people of Milwaukee. A champion of compost and other sustainable growing practices, Allen oversees the production of farmed fish, fruits and vegetables, edible flowers, bees and a vision. In an essay (see GrowingPower.Wordpress.com) Allen writes, "It will be an irony, certainly, but a sweet one, if millions of African-Americans whose grandparents left the farms of the South for the factories of the North, only to see those factories close, should now find fulfillment in learning once again to live close to the soil and to the food it gives to us all.""
