For most Hispanics in the United States, food has an emotional and cultural significance that reaches far beyond eating. Home cooked meals and celebrations centered on food and family are an extremely important part of Hispanic life and a source of pride for immigrant mothers and grandmothers.

Latin American cooking is as diverse as its people and has been perfected over hundreds of years by fusing the foods and culinary styles of the Spaniards, Indigenous Indians and African slaves and has been passed down in the oral tradition.

The majority of Latin American women learned to cook through observation and repetition, developing advanced culinary skills and recipes that exist only in their memories. Without documenting these authentic recipes, American-born Hispanics will lose our most important cultural legacy: our cuisine.

Mothers of Latin America: Recipes from the Generations features recipes passed down from generation to generation by the matriarchs of different Hispanic families in the United States. Each story, or anecdote, will be told through the woman’s recipes and through her family’s collective food memories, revealing old-world beliefs that often contrast with the modern perspective of the American-born generation.

Danielle’s Story & Abuela Eva’s Picadillo Recipe

My grandmother (abuela) immigrated to the United States from Cuba in 1957. She slept on the floor of a friend’s apartment on 134th Street in New York City while she set out to find an apartment and jobs for herself and my grandfather (abuelo), who was still in Cuba. Mom arrived in 1958, at the age of fourteen with two new gold capped front teeth and pneumonia she caught on the boat from Cuba. Abuelo arrived with her and was informed that he had a new career as a butcher.

Within six years of arriving in the United States, my mother learned fluent English, got rid of the gold caps, and married “un Americano”. A few years later, she and my father started a family and moved to Norwood, a suburb in Northern New Jersey. My grandparents followed my mother to New Jersey and moved to West New York, a small city with a thriving Hispanic community.

When my older brother and I were sent to live with abuela and abuelo for a year we arrived as skinny, all-American suburban kids who ate peanut butter and drank Hawaiian punch. After a year of hearty Hispanic fare, we returned to Norwood as well-fed, hip swaying, Spanish-speaking Latino kids.

This exposure to a purely Hispanic environment was a one-time experience for me. However, my mother is Cuban and her culture courses through my life and is part of who I am. I am intensely proud of what my grandparents and mother achieved. If I could bottle their vitality, their courage, their passion, and their ability to laugh in the face of adversity, I would save it and pass it onto my sons as their legacy.

Picadillo (serves four)

1 – 1¼ lb chopped meat
1 diced tomato
4 garlic cloves
1 med size onion
1 half green
1 half red pepper
1 scallion diced
2- 4 caps of vinegar
½ teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon ground pepper
3 tablespoons of olive oil
½ cup of tomato puree
5-6 green olives with pimentos
1 tablespoon olive juice, from the jar

Preparation:

• Put in mince in a medium sized pot or saute pan.
• Mix all the ingredients together except or puree.
• Cook over low heat for 20 minutes.
• Mix in tomato puree with a bit of water to make a thick sauce and add to the mince mixture.
• Cook a further half-hour or until mince is cooked through and most of the liquid is absorbed.
• Serve with white rice.