Nothing will ever top the Puerto Rican experience on Thanksgiving. Spending time with family and friends, the music and the food. Oh my God, the food!
Thanksgiving without rice and beans, turkey, plantain, pasta or potato salad, “quesito” and even “tembleque,” is not Thanksgiving in Puerto Rico. You simply can’t have the full experience without your Puerto Rican grandmother’s food, in other words, you could say I haven’t had the full experience in the last 10 years or so. The Puerto Rican diet has a staggering abundance of meat. If you can put meat on it, we will, and even if you’re not supposed to, we will.
I used to be like that too, but I noticed nobody else had a horrible experience after eating meat. It got worse with time, to the point where I couldn’t eat any meat or I ended up in the hospital. One of those times we found out I have a type of enzyme deficiency that causes me to have meat intolerance. The obvious choice was, and still is, to stop eating meat; so I did. As you can assume by what I said earlier, my family didn’t take this well. They were more heartbroken than me.
At first it was hard, I kept forgetting meat is everywhere and the pain always came back because my mom made beans with ham. Now I had to ask, what’s on the beans? I’m so annoyed. My first Christmas without meat came around, I couldn’t eat anything but the green salad. Not even the potato salad, since my grandma put bacon on it. My family made fun of me and tempted me with meat, obviously it never worked. I don’t think they understood the part where my body hurt, trust me that’s enough to keep me away.
As the years passed, I realized that it doesn’t matter how much I reminded my family, they would not remember. Some family members didn’t even forget, but simply didn’t respect my decision. One time my uncle gave me ‘mofongo’ which is typically made of plantain, but as I said before, we put meat on everything so this one had bacon in it. I didn’t know that and he didn’t tell me, I was eating it but suddenly I noticed a weird taste, after not eating meat for a while, you kind of notice when the food tastes different. I asked my dad to try it and he pushed the plate away and told me to go and try to ‘get the food out of my system’; I don’t want to be too explicit. I did, and I asked my uncle if he didn’t remember that I couldn’t eat meat, he said he did but thought I was being a little dramatic. In case you were wondering, yes, I had to go to the hospital.
I try not to hold it against them, it’s not like the recipe is going to change for just one person. That’s not to say some of them didn’t try. My grandmother surprised me once with ‘pasteles’. Pasteles are seasoned taro root and plantain “masa,” filled with savory pork, but she made them with different vegetables and some were not even stuffed, and it still tasted good. Taking chances like that in the last few years I am able to enjoy this typical food, but with a veggie twist. Now that I’ve grown older and learnt to cook, I just make my own typical food and bring it to the parties. My rice, my beans, my fake meatballs, and my salad. It’s not ideal, but it works. I get to spend time with my family, dance, shout, and eat with them. Only, this time, I’m not in excruciating pain.
Happy Thanksgiving!