THE ÑAME JOJOTO AND THE JOJOTA

The young chef in New York City, who had majored in Spanish in college and was also exploring Caribbean cuisines in her new restaurant in SoHo, was told not to leave the tropical vegetables outside, under direct light and rather cold weather because they would become “jojotos”, and to follow the jíbaros in the mountains’ approach to protect their plantains, ñames, yautías. She smiled, and said, “jowhat?”. Obviously, she was not going to follow her Puerto Rican assistant’s suggestions, who had arrived in New York City as a result of María’s devastation of the islands of Puerto Rico. He used the word and knew what it meant, but did not know the origin: an Arawak Taino word used by the jíbaros boricuas to describe when certain tropical fruits, vegetables and tubers lose water and become sort of “blueish” and whitish”, drying them. When I heard the story, I told the young apprentice, that “jojoto” was also used as an adjective to describe people who were stubborn and not very open to suggestions, just like the chef he was working for; to get a new job in another restaurant and let the “jojota” chef serve dried sweet plantains and dusty ñames and yautías.