From Mangoland to Portland
Annatto Seeds and Palmita
By Lindsay Sterling
It’s a particularly wonderful
experience to eat native Venezuelan food in the middle of a sleet storm in
Maine. While biting through a steaming hot, toasty, white arepa, dripping with cumin chicken, soft green and red peppers and
yellow onions, I couldn’t help wonder: what the heck were Mona Child and her
husband, Gustavo, doing here in
sleetville? When they could be living where they used to live in Miami, or
before that in Venezuela, where mangos ripen not on trucks, but trees and were
practically free? Answers: they were
U.S. citizens who were not learning any English
in Miami, and in Venezuela they got bit by the bug that makes you want to leave
where you grew up to see another part of the world. They tried Boston, but
didn’t appreciate what they got in return for rent. “Here, sit in the
bathroom,” Gustavo joked. A cousin encouraged them to visit Portland. They’ve
been living here for 9 years now, running a day care in their home for 12 kids
who all come rushing with glee at “A comer!”
I’m not going to tell you how to
make arepas con pollo mechado because
you can’t do it. Mona imports two key ingredients herself via her suitcase: raw
milk palmito cheese and annatto seeds.
She tells me you could use mozzarella, but mozzarella isn’t as tangy, or
coated in natural vinegar. “Do you have these?” She says, holding out a silver
tin of brick red seeds shaped like half-karat diamonds. “Ah note oh,” she says,
offering to get me some on her next trip. Without the annatto, the stewed
chicken would not look enticingly yellow-orange but pale white, a color I
happen to be at odds with until mid-June. Without those two ingredients, this
meal just wouldn’t be the same.
We can, however, transport
ourselves from the sleet of the culinary grind by making ourselves one piece of
the meal, the arepas. La Bodega
Latina on Congress Street carries the Venezuelan P.A.N. pre-cooked white
cornmeal we need. Arepas would make a
lovely substitute for biscuits, English muffins, crumpets, and other
small-pancake-shaped fodder. They’d be great sliced in half and embedded with
butter and honey for breakfast, or made into a series of small ham and cheese
sandwiches for lunch. Plus, making them is fun, and (if you’re looking for this
type of thing) a gooey, hands-on but simple project for kids.
Mona doesn’t even look at the
recipe on the bag. She turns her oven to 350 degrees, fills a medium sized bowl
halfway with water, adds enough salt to make the water slightly salty to taste,
and then dumps in a bunch of cornmeal. She plunges both hands into the bowl,
mixes everything around, adding a little more cornmeal and squeezing the dough
through her fingers until she has the right consistency: soggy play dough. She
lets it firm up for a minute while getting a large pan up to medium heat on the
stove. She forms balls of dough slightly larger than limes and then flattens
them into 1/2 inch thick patties by throwing them from hand to hand. She pats
corn oil directly onto the patties before placing each in the hot pan. She
browns both sides on medium heat before sticking the arepas directly on the
oven rack. Forty minutes later they’re toasty warm, crunchy on the outside,
bread-like in the middle, and as comforting and mild. Of course, you can’t
import a whole culture to a new land, only pieces of it. After brunch with Mona
and Gustavo, I wish it weren’t so.
Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2010
