Haiti’s In Trouble
But The Food’s Awesome
By Lindsay Sterling
We’re cooking green plantains,
habanero-lemon pork ribs, and rice and beans. Teaching us is Mirielle Jean-Francois,
who was raised in Cap Haïtien, Haiti. She dips yellow plantain medallions into
salt water before frying them, totally nonplussed about what happens when the
wet plantains hit hot oil. Who cares if oil splatters and pops like liquid
fireworks? Just put a mesh splatter guard over it. Not that she’d use one in
Haiti. There she’d be cooking outside for 60 friends and family on live coals,
splattering away. This method sucks the salt right into the soul of the plantains.
IIf you sprinkle the salt on once they’re done, the salt just bounces right off
sadly onto the paper towel. I tell you, topping these tostones with lemon-spritzed avocado, tomato, and crabmeat is the
best thing that’s happened to me in the food world. It’s little finger food. It’s
colorful, crunchy, hot, and fresh at the same time.
Another great trick: she puts a
chicken boullion cube into the bean cooking water. This makes the beans great as
opposed to eh, just some beans. Next, mashing up thyme, salt, shallot, fresh habanero
pepper, garlic and parsley in a mortar and pestle, you just know this pork is
going to taste amazing. Marinate the ribs in this chunky mash, then toss generously
with olive oil and broil. Her pork came out delightfully crispy and browned on
the outside because once the ribs were cooked she drained off the cooking juices,
doused the ribs in 5 times more olive oil than I ever would have recommended,
and then popped them back under the broiler for a couple minutes. She called
this technique, “the next best thing to deep frying.” Kinda fried. I love this.
Don’t kill yourself, but enjoy life. Olive oil’s good for you anyway.
How did I connect with this faux
frying master? It’s a sad and happy story. When Mirielle was seventeen in 1988,
her parents’ house in Haiti was ransacked. Mobs were burning houses and vehicles,
“with dogs in them,” she added, horrified. The chaos was unfathomable. Her parents
sent her here for college. After that she went to work in Kansas City providing
car dealerships with service contracts. One day she was calling a client, Maine
Mall Motors. Someone there said to this guy, Mark Walton, in the finance
department: “You gotta hear this woman’s voice on the phone.” It’s true. Mirielle’s
voice makes you feel sparkly like a habanero. Long story short, these two, Mark
and Mirielle, fell in love long distance, got together and got married.
After moving to be with him in
Maine, she discovered Konbit Sante, an organization based in Portland that was working
to improve healthcare in her hometown in Haiti. Small world. She describes
their work. “It’s not just lending a hand or helping someone, it’s taking them
from death’s door, giving them a chance for life.” Despite Haiti’s extreme
troubles, made even worse by the earthquake, Mirielle says, “Haitian people
couldn’t be nicer people. One piece of bread in the house; they give it to you,
knowing that they can’t just go get more.” It makes you want to give back. So
do her pork ribs. What would be cool is if a whole bunch of us cooked
Mirielle’s recipes with some friends, feasted, and then all donated some bucks
to Konbit Sante.We’ll be doing this at my next cooking class, February 8. Join
us.
For the recipes and cooking class info click the links at right. To
donate for neonatal care in Haiti, go to www.konbitsante.org.
