Maricel E. Presilla is a culinary historian, chef and author specializing in the cuisines of Latin America and Spain. She has lectured for organizations ranging from the James Beard Foundation to the Smithsonian Institution. Her most recent book is The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao with Recipes (Ten Speed Press), and she has completed a major Latin American cookbook for W.W. Norton, forthcoming in 2008. A native of Santiago de Cuba, she is co-owner and chef of two Hoboken, N.J., restaurants, Zafra and Cucharamama, and was a 2007 James Beard Award nominee for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic.
Her website is www.maricelpresilla.com.
Write to her at mpresilla@miamiherald.com.
When I left academia in the 1990s for the culinary world, I felt I had lost a part of myself. Teaching medieval history to bright-eyed undergraduates at Rutgers University had given me tremendous joy.
When the Castro regime began rationing milk in the 1960s, it was a blow to our cultural identity as Cubans. For generations, a cup of steamy milk spiked with ink-black espresso had started and ended our days. For us, milk is a warm cradle. ''Do you want a café con leche?'' is our first question to a friend needing a little nurturing.
When I opened my first Latin restaurant in Hoboken, N.J., I stumbled on archaic regulations that prevented me from purchasing a liquor license. Instead, I created a large menu of nonalcoholic drinks -- juices, premium hot chocolates and coffees and quality loose-leaf teas.
Years ago, while at a winter wine fair in Santiago de Chile, I headed for the Central Market (Mercado Central) with my Chilean-Venezuelan friend, Miro Popic¸, and three bigwigs of the Italian food and wine industry.
A few weeks ago, a friend and I were having lunch at Mariposa, the posh Neiman Marcus café in Coral Gables, when we noticed the waitress bringing a luscious piece of raspberry and chocolate cake to two women at the next table who still were in the midst of their main course.
A year ago, I had the exquisite pleasure of plucking perfectly ripe figs from handsome, mature trees at the University of California Wolfskill Experimental Orchards, a gene bank for grape vines, nut and fruit trees near Winters, Calif.
I learned the basics of line and tackle fishing from my late uncle Oscar Portuondo, first in Cuba and then in Miami, where my husband and I often joined him at his favorite fishing spots on the bay side of Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park or the old Rickenbacker Causeway Bridge.
I first went to Murcia, the capital of the autonomous Spanish region of the same name, looking for the heart of King Alfonso X of Castile (Alfonso El Sabio).
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