Puerto Rican Emancipation Day

Lechonera Los Pinos in Cayey

I was fortunate enough to visit Puerto Rico last year to attend a conference had a great experience. Since it was such a short trip, what probably stands out the most was the food. I wish I could have had more (I didn't even get to try their famous mofongo), but it was all so heavy. After eating lunch, I only had room for half a piece of bread at most for dinner. I had an amazing meal at this Lechonera. The pork was absolutely amazing, and with a dish of rice and beans on the side with a little bit of hot sauce it was complete. Sadly, there is no way I could ever come close to replicating the kind of food they have at Lechonera Los Pinos, and not just because I can't buy pork products here. No, we would have to settle for an equally majestic, though much simpler dish: arroz con pollo (chicken with rice).

The base of all Puerto Rican food is sofrito. This guy on YouTube explains pretty well how to make it. Sadly, I can't get ají dulce here that I'm aware of, so it has to do without. It's still very good. Basically from there I marinate the chicken with it and then cook it all in a pan with a bullion cube and a little bit of water. I've done it before where I cook the rice directly with it and also where I cook it separately and it turns out fine either way. This time, I had added way to much sofrito, so I put the rice in with it so it would soak up some of the juices. I added a diced pepper and tomato in with the rice as well. Ultimately, the whole thing turned out really quite well. Very tasty despite all my goof-ups.

Today is the day Puerto Rico commemorates when the slaves were freed there in 1873. According to the always reliable Wikipedia, there had been a revolt against the Spanish a few years earlier in 1868, known as el Grito de Lares. Though it was a short revolution that the Spanish easily put down, they started putting forth an effort to improve everyone's lives so that they wouldn't revolt again. Puerto Rico's struggle for autonomy finally looked like it was going to see fruits in 1898 when Spain finally granted them their independence. This was short lived though, as the United States invaded Puerto Rico within a month, as part of their campaign in the Spanish-American War. And so began America and Puerto Rico's weird on-and-off again, do-you-want-to-be-a-state-or-independent relationship.