As I continue recipe testing for my cookbook, I landed on Bacalao Guisado con Viandas this week. A dish that unexpectedly reminded me why this work has become so much bigger than simply documenting my mom’s traditional Puerto Rican recipes.

Yes, that’s still the goal, but what I’ve realized is how deeply my own perspective, project, and understanding of our food has expanded. The deeper I go, the more I recognize the wisdom built into the food I grew up eating. The intricate steps that a seemingly modest dish requires.

Particularly with this one, I took note of the soaking. The desalting. The gentle, precise simmer that kept the fish from falling apart.

None of it accidental. All of it intentional. And while I inherently knew this, it has become much more evident to me now.

You see, I’m not simply following written instructions as I test these recipes. Instead, I’m learning to meticulously gather what remains.

It has become a meditative process of testing, adjusting, and trying again. Sitting with my family, asking the questions, and listening for even the smallest details. Comparing what one person remembers with what another person does, then holding all of it against the way my own palate remembers it.

Which then leads me to the broader landscape, where I find myself asking: Where did these ingredients come from? Is there documentation of when this dish came to be? Do we know how it has evolved, or whether it has evolved at all?

What started as a way to recover my mom’s recipes after her passing has become a way to understand the overarching narrative around them. The rich history inside these dishes. The quiet intelligence of our food.

So today, I’m sharing this version as I continue the work.

A plate of Bacalao Guisado con Viandas, as a reminder that Puerto Rican cooking does not have to look elaborate to be worth paying attention to. ...

To know me is to know I reflect deeply on things that capture my interest. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the language used around Puerto Rican cooking. The terms we often hear from food media, culinary institutions, and broader food culture.

And it doesn’t get lost on me: the contrast that becomes evident when certain cuisines are granted the vocabulary of discipline and refined craft. Yet, as I examine my own culture and the broader ethnic foods category, that same language is rarely granted. Not never, just not often.

Instead, Puerto Rican food is softened into cooking with instinct, comfort, tradition, even love. And while those are beautiful and certainly part of our story, if they become the primary words used to describe our cooking, what does that do to the precise techniques behind it?

It is without question that our food requires command of the very things used to describe others. It is pure mastery. So, for me, it’s about becoming more exacting in the way I speak about it. More willing to name the intelligence inside the food, not just the feeling it gives me.

Sources / further reading:
Othering and Low Status Framing of Immigrant Cuisines in US Restaurant Reviews and Large Language Models, Yiwei Luo, Kristina Gligorić, and Dan Jurafsky

The Ethnic Restaurateur: The Taste of Migration, Krishnendu Ray ...